research-article

Not all patterns, but enough: an automatic verifier for partial but sufficient pattern matching

Authors:

Colin RuncimanAuthors Info & Claims

Haskell '08: Proceedings of the first ACM SIGPLAN symposium on Haskell

Pages 49 - 60

https://doi.org/10.1145/1411286.1411293

Published: 25 September 2008 Publication History

Abstract

We describe an automated analysis of Haskell 98 programs to check statically that, despite the possible use of partial (or non-exhaustive) pattern matching, no pattern-match failure can occur. Our method is an iterative backward analysis using a novel form of pattern-constraint to represent sets of data values. The analysis is defined for a core first-order language to which Haskell 98 programs are reduced. Our analysis tool has been successfully applied to a range of programs, and our techniques seem to scale well. Throughout the paper, methods are represented much as we have implemented them in practice, again in Haskell.

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Cited By

Vasconcelos PMarques RVazou NMorris J(2024)Haskelite: A Tracing Interpreter Based on a Pattern-Matching CalculusProceedings of the 17th ACM SIGPLAN International Haskell Symposium10.1145/3677999.3678274(1-13)Online publication date: 29-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3677999.3678274
Hanus M(2024)Hybrid Verification of Declarative Programs with Arithmetic Non-fail ConditionsProgramming Languages and Systems10.1007/978-981-97-8943-6_6(109-129)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-981-97-8943-6_6
Hanus M(2024)Inferring Non-failure Conditions for Declarative ProgramsFunctional and Logic Programming10.1007/978-981-97-2300-3_10(167-187)Online publication date: 15-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-981-97-2300-3_10
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Not all patterns, but enough: an automatic verifier for partial but sufficient pattern matching
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. General programming languages

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

Haskell '08: Proceedings of the first ACM SIGPLAN symposium on Haskell

September 2008

134 pages

ISBN:9781605580647

DOI:10.1145/1411286

Program Chair:
Andy Gill
University of Kansas, US

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 44, Issue 2
HASKELL '08
February 2009
126 pages
ISSN:0362-1340
EISSN:1558-1160
DOI:10.1145/1543134
Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2008 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Publication History

Published: 25 September 2008

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ICFP08

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ICFP08: ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Functional Programming

September 25, 2008

BC, Victoria, Canada

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Haskell '08 Paper Acceptance Rate 13 of 28 submissions, 46%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 57 of 143 submissions, 40%

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October 12 - 18, 2025

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Cited By

Vasconcelos PMarques RVazou NMorris J(2024)Haskelite: A Tracing Interpreter Based on a Pattern-Matching CalculusProceedings of the 17th ACM SIGPLAN International Haskell Symposium10.1145/3677999.3678274(1-13)Online publication date: 29-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3677999.3678274
Hanus M(2024)Hybrid Verification of Declarative Programs with Arithmetic Non-fail ConditionsProgramming Languages and Systems10.1007/978-981-97-8943-6_6(109-129)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-981-97-8943-6_6
Hanus M(2024)Inferring Non-failure Conditions for Declarative ProgramsFunctional and Logic Programming10.1007/978-981-97-2300-3_10(167-187)Online publication date: 15-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-981-97-2300-3_10
Jones ERamsay S(2021)Intensional datatype refinement: with application to scalable verification of pattern-match safetyProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/34343365:POPL(1-29)Online publication date: 4-Jan-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3434336
Hallahan WXue ABland MJhala RPiskac RMcKinley KFisher K(2019)Lazy counterfactual symbolic executionProceedings of the 40th ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation10.1145/3314221.3314618(411-424)Online publication date: 8-Jun-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3314221.3314618
Hanus MSabel DThiemann P(2018)Verifying Fail-Free Declarative ProgramsProceedings of the 20th International Symposium on Principles and Practice of Declarative Programming10.1145/3236950.3236957(1-13)Online publication date: 3-Sep-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3236950.3236957
Karachalias GSchrijvers TVytiniotis DJones S(2015)GADTs meet their match: pattern-matching warnings that account for GADTs, guards, and lazinessACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/2858949.278474850:9(424-436)Online publication date: 29-Aug-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2858949.2784748
Karachalias GSchrijvers TVytiniotis DJones SFisher KReppy J(2015)GADTs meet their match: pattern-matching warnings that account for GADTs, guards, and lazinessProceedings of the 20th ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Functional Programming10.1145/2784731.2784748(424-436)Online publication date: 29-Aug-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2784731.2784748
Koot RHage JAsai KSagonas K(2015)Type-based Exception Analysis for Non-strict Higher-order Functional Languages with Imprecise Exception SemanticsProceedings of the 2015 Workshop on Partial Evaluation and Program Manipulation10.1145/2678015.2682542(127-138)Online publication date: 13-Jan-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2678015.2682542
Vazou NSeidel EJhala R(2014)LiquidHaskellACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/2775050.263336649:12(39-51)Online publication date: 3-Sep-2014
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2775050.2633366
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