Combinator library explained

A combinator library is a software library which implements combinators for a functional programming language; "the key idea is this: a combinator library offers functions (the combinators) that combine functions together to make bigger functions".^[1] These kinds of libraries are particularly useful for allowing domain-specific programming languages to be easily embedded into a general purpose language by defining a few primitive functions for the given domain and turning over the task of expanding higher-level constructs to the general language. An example would be the monadic Parsec parser for Haskell. The library approach allows the parsers to be first-class citizens of the language.

See also

• Run-time system
• QuickCheck
• Point-free style programming

References

1. pg 35 of "History of Haskell"

External links

• Book: Daan Leijen . Erik Meijer . amp . Parsec: Direct Style Monadic Parser Combinators for the Real World. Department of Computer Science, Universiteit Utrecht. UU-CS-2001-27. 2001. 1874/2535 .
• Book: Daan Leijen . Erik Meijer. amp . Domain Specific Embedded Compilers. 2nd USENIX Conference on Domain Specific Languages (DSL'99). Austin, Texas. October 1999. 109–122.
• Book: Hughes, John. The Design of a Pretty-printing Library. Advanced Functional Programming. 925. Springer Verlag. Jeuring, J.. Meijer, E.. 1995. 2006-12-15. https://web.archive.org/web/20080406151131/http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/hughes95design.html. 2008-04-06. dead.