Views: a way for pattern matching to cohabit with data abstraction

  • Authors:
  • P. Wadler

  • Affiliations:
  • Programming Research Group, Oxford University, UK and Programming Methodology Group, Chalmers University, Sweden

  • Venue:
  • POPL '87 Proceedings of the 14th ACM SIGACT-SIGPLAN symposium on Principles of programming languages
  • Year:
  • 1987

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Abstract

Pattern matching and data abstraction are important concepts in designing programs, but they do not fit well together. Pattern matching depends on making public a free data type representation, while data abstraction depends on hiding the representation. This paper proposes the views mechanism as a means of reconciling this conflict. A view allows any type to be viewed as a free data type, thus combining the clarity of pattern matching with the efficiency of data abstraction.