[Haskell-beginners] Re: definition of combinator

[Heinrich Apfelmus]

Michael Mossey wrote:
> 
> Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH wrote:
>>
>> Example:  in Parsec, "many" is a combinator which takes a parser as an
>> argument and produces a parser that matches multiple successive copies
>> of whatever the argument matches.  It doesn't need to know anything
>> about its argument except that it's a parser.  This kind of function
>> lets you build up complex but general parsers from smaller pieces.
> 
> What makes it a "combinator" and not a general function? The fact that
> it takes only a function (parser) as input (no data) and produces only a
> function? Is any function that takes only functions and produces a
> function called a combinator?

The term "combinator" is just another name for "function", but with a
special connotation. It mainly applies to functions building and
combining values of an abstract data type.

In particular, parsers are abstract. They are defined by the following
combinators

     return :: a -> P a
     (>>=)  :: P a -> (a -> P b) -> P b
     symbol :: P Char
     mzero  :: P a
     mplus  :: P a -> P a -> P a

and an observation function like

     run    :: P a -> String -> Maybe a

The above functions are called combinators because they make new parsers
from old ones. In contrast,  run  turns a parser into something else, so
it's not called "combinator".


Regards,
apfelmus

--
http://apfelmus.nfshost.com