Functions, Closures and Recursion

Introduction

Functions in xtlang (or as we will start to call them in this chapter: closures) also have types. In this chapter we will show you how to define a function (or ‘Closure’) type and some of the more advanced properties that functions in XTLang have, and how to use them. At the end of this chapter you should be a function ninja.

Function Types

In xtlang, closure types are indicated by square brackets ([]), with the first element inside the brackets being the return type, and any other elements representing the type signature of the function. Closure types are always pointers:

  • [i64]*: a pointer to a closure which takes no arguments and returns a single i64
  • [void]*: A pointer to a closure which takes no arguments and returns nothing
  • [i64,double,double]*: a pointer to a closure that takes two double arguments and returns a single i64
  • [void,double*,i64*]*: a pointer to a closure that takes two pointer arguments and returns nothing.

Closures can return any valid type including another closure:

(bind-func return-fun:[[i64,i64]*,i64]*
  (lambda (inc)
    (lambda (num) (+ num inc))))

Most of the time you will not need to define the function type as Extempore’s type inference engine is pretty good at working it out for you:

;; Extempore works out that `inc` is an i64 because `1` is an i64
(bind-func simple-inc
  (lambda (inc)
    (+ inc 1)))

;; Here we define the type of the parameter 'num'
(bind-func simple-sum:
  (lambda (num1:i64 num2)
    (+ num1 num2)))

Often defining the types for one or more parameters will be sufficient and you will not need to give the function a type.

Overloading Functions

There will be many situations where you want to use the same function on different types. This is very easy in xtlang as you just write a new function with the desired type:

(bind-func sum:[i64,i64,i64]*
  (lambda (x y)
    (+ x y)))

(bind-func sum:[double,double,double]*
  (lambda (x y)
    (+ x y)))

As long as the function type is different each time, you can do this as many times as makes sense. You can even overload functions based upon the return type, which can be occasionally useful:

(bind-func sum:[float,i64,i64]*
  (lambda (x y)
    (convert (+ x y) )))

(bind-func test-sum
  (lambda ()
    (let ((a:i64 (sum 3 4))
          (b:double (sum 3.4 5.4))
          (c:float (sum 3 4)))
      (println a)
      (println b)
      (println c))))

Accessing a Closure’s Environment

In a previous chapter we noted that you can define an environment for a closure as part of its definition:

(bind-func my-closure
  (let ((a:i32 6))
    (lambda ()
      (printf "a:%d\n" a)
      a)))

($ (my-closure)) ;; this should print 6.

It is also possible in xtlang to access that environment directly using a dot operator closure_name.slot_name:type. E.g. (f.a:i32) to access the value and (f.a:i32 565) to set it. So let’s see how this works with my-closure:

($ (my-closure.a:i32 8))
($ (my-closure)) ;; this should print 8.

($ (my-closure.a:i32)) ;; this should return 8

This will also work for anonymous closures:

(bind-func my-closure
  (lambda (x:i64)
    (lambda (y) (+ x y))))

(bind-val f [i64,i64]* (my-closure 4))

($ (println (f 5))) ;; prints 9

($ (f.x:i64 11))

($ (println (f 5))) ;; prints 16

And of course the closure’s environment can also contain functions (or closures) of its own which you can also access:

(bind-func my-closure-with-func
  (let ((f (lambda (x)
             (+ x 1))))
    (lambda (y)
      (f y))))

($ (println (my-closure-with-func 4))) ;; prints 5

($ (my-closure-with-func.f:[i64,i64]* (lambda (x:i64) (* x 2))))

($ (println (my-closure-with-func 4))) ;; prints 8


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