Technical reports

PFL+: A Kernal Scheme for Functions I/O

Andrew Gordon

February 1989, 26 pages

Abstract

In place of the common separation of functional I/O into continuation and stream based schemes, an alternative division between Data Driven and Strictness Driven mechanisms for I/O is proposed. The data driven mechanism determines I/O actions by the Weak Head Normal Form of programs, while strictness driven I/O is based on suspensions – I/O actions are triggered when demand arises for the value of a suspension during normal order reduction. The data driven and strictness driven I/O mechanisms are exemplified by the output list and input list, respectively, in Landin’s stream based I/O scheme.

PFL+ is a functional I/O scheme, able to express arbitary I/O actions and both data driven and strictness driven constructs in terms of a small kernel of primitives. PFL+ could be added to any functional language. It is based on Holmström’s PFL [5], a parallel functional language with embedded communication and concurrency operators from CCS. PFL+ adds non-strict communication, behaviours with results and primitives to make suspensions.

Examples are given of how PFL+ can dervive from these primitives both stream based I/O and the representation of the file system as a function.

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BibTeX record

@TechReport{UCAM-CL-TR-160,
  author =	 {Gordon, Andrew},
  title = 	 {{PFL+: A Kernal Scheme for Functions I/O}},
  year = 	 1989,
  month = 	 feb,
  url = 	 {https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/techreports/UCAM-CL-TR-160.pdf},
  institution =  {University of Cambridge, Computer Laboratory},
  doi = 	 {10.48456/tr-160},
  number = 	 {UCAM-CL-TR-160}
}