---
title: "P-expressions"
---

Tony Garnock-Jones <tonyg@leastfixedpoint.com>  
October 2023. Version 0.1.0.

This document defines a grammar called *Preserves Expressions*
(*P-expressions*, *pexprs*) that includes [ordinary Preserves text
syntax](preserves-text.html) but offers extensions sufficient to support
a Lisp- or Haskell-like programming notation.

**Motivation.** The [text syntax](preserves-text.html) for Preserves
works well for writing `Value`s, i.e. data. However, in some contexts,
Preserves applications need a broader grammar that allows interleaving
of *expressions* with data. Two examples are the [Preserves Schema
language](preserves-schema.html) and the [Synit configuration scripting
language](https://synit.org/book/operation/scripting.html), both of
which (ab)use Preserves text syntax as a kind of programming notation.

## Preliminaries

The P-expression grammar takes the text syntax grammar as its base and
modifies it.

<a id="whitespace">
**Whitespace.** Whitespace is redefined as any number of spaces, tabs,
carriage returns, or line feeds. Commas are *not* considered whitespace
in P-expressions.

                ws = *(%x20 / %x09 / CR / LF)

<a id="delimiters"></a>
**Delimiters.** Because commas are no longer included in class `ws`,
class `delimiter` is widened to include them explicitly.

         delimiter = ws / ","
                   / "<" / ">" / "[" / "]" / "{" / "}"
                   / "#" / ":" / DQUOTE / "|" / "@" / ";"

## Grammar

P-expressions add comma, semicolon, and sequences of one or more colons
to the syntax class `Value`.

            Value =/ Comma / Semicolon / Colons
             Comma = ","
         Semicolon = ";"
            Colons = 1*":"

Now that colon is in `Value`, the syntax for `Dictionary` is replaced
with `Block` everywhere it is mentioned.

             Block =  "{" *Value ws "}"

New syntax for explicit uninterpreted grouping of sequences of values is
introduced, and added to class `Value`.

            Value =/ ws Group
             Group = "(" *Value ws ")"

Finally, class `Document` is replaced in order to allow standalone
documents to directly comprise a sequence of multiple values.

          Document = *Value ws

No changes to [the Preserves semantic model](preserves.html) are made.
Every Preserves text-syntax term is a valid P-expression, but in general
P-expressions must be rewritten or otherwise interpreted before a
meaningful Preserves value can be arrived at.

## Encoding P-expressions as Preserves

Aside from the special classes `Group`, `Block`, `Comma`, `Semicolon` or
`Colons`, P-expressions are directly encodable as Preserves data. All
members of the special classes are encoded as Preserves text
`Dictionary`[^encoding-rationale] values:

[^encoding-rationale]: In principle, it would be nice to use *records*
    for this purpose, but if we did so we would have to also encode
    usages of records!

{:.pseudocode}
> ⌜`(`*p* ...`)`⌝ ⟶ `{g:[`⌜*p*⌝ ...`]}`
> ⌜`{`*p* ...`}`⌝ ⟶ `{b:[`⌜*p*⌝ ...`]}`
> ⌜`,`⌝ ⟶ `{s:|,|}`
> ⌜`;`⌝ ⟶ `{s:|;|}`
> ⌜`:` ...⌝ ⟶ `{s:|:` ...`|}`

## Appendix: Examples

Examples are given as pairs of P-expressions and their Preserves
text-syntax encodings.

```preserves
 ⌜<date 1821 (lookup-month "February") 3>⌝
= <date 1821 {g:[lookup-month "February"]} 3>
```

```preserves
 ⌜(begin (println! (+ 1 2)) (+ 3 4))⌝
= {g:[begin {g:[println! {g:[+ 1 2]}]} {g:[+ 3 4]}]}
```

```preserves
 ⌜()⌝
= {g:[]}

 ⌜[() () ()]⌝
= [{g:[]}, {g:[]}, {g:[]}]
```

```preserves
 ⌜{
      setUp();
      # Now enter the loop
      loop: {
          greet("World");
      }
      tearDown();
  }⌝
= {b:[
      setUp {g:[]} {s:|;|}
      # Now enter the loop
      loop {s:|:|} {b:[
          greet {g:["World"]} {s:|;|}
      ]}
      tearDown {g:[]} {s:|;|}
  ]}
```

```preserves
 ⌜[1 + 2.0, print "Hello", predicate: #t, foo, #!remote, bar]⌝
= [1 + 2.0 {s:|,|} print "Hello" {s:|,|} predicate {s:|:|} #t {s:|,|}
   foo {s:|,|} #!remote {s:|,|} bar]
```

```preserves
 ⌜{
      optional name: string,
      address: Address,
  }⌝
= {b:[
      optional name {s:|:|} string {s:|,|}
      address {s:|:|} Address {s:|,|}
  ]}
```

## Appendix: Using a P-expression reader to read Preserves

A reader for P-expressions can be adapted to yield a reader for
Preserves terms by processing (subterms of) each P-expression that the
reader produces. The only subterms that need processing are the special
classes mentioned above.

 1. Every `Group` or `Semicolon` that appears is an error.
 2. Every `Colons` with two or more colons in it is an error.
 3. Every `Comma` that appears is removed from its container.
 4. Every `Block` must contain triplets of `Value`, `Colons` (with a
    single colon), `Value`. Any `Block` not following this pattern is an
    error. Each `Block` following the pattern is translated to a
    `Dictionary` containing a key/value pair for each triplet.

## Appendix: Reading vs. Parsing

Lisp systems first *read* streams of bytes into S-expressions and then
*parse* those S-expressions into more abstract structures denoting
various kinds of program syntax. [Separation of reading from parsing is
what gives Lisp its syntactic
flexibility.](http://calculist.org/blog/2012/04/17/homoiconicity-isnt-the-point/)

Similarly, the Apple programming language
[Dylan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dylan_(programming_language))
included a reader-parser split, with the Dylan reader producing
*D-expressions* that are somewhat similar to P-expressions.

Finally, the Racket dialects
[Honu](https://docs.racket-lang.org/honu/index.html) and
[Something](https://github.com/tonyg/racket-something) use a
reader-parser-macro setup, where the reader produces Racket data, the
parser produces "syntax" and is user-extensible, and Racket's own
modular macro system rewrites this "syntax" down to core forms to be
compiled to machine code.

Similarly, when using P-expressions as the foundation for a language, a
generic P-expression reader can then feed into special-purpose
*parsers*. The reader captures the coarse syntactic structure of a
program, and the parser refines this.

Often, a parser will wish to extract structure from sequences of
P-expression `Value`s.

 - A simple technique is repeated splitting of sequences; first by
   `Semicolon`, then by `Comma`, then by increasingly high binding-power
   operators.

 - More refined is to use a Pratt parser or similar
   ([1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operator-precedence_parser),
   [2](https://matklad.github.io/2020/04/13/simple-but-powerful-pratt-parsing.html),
   [3](https://github.com/tonyg/racket-something/blob/f6116bf3861b76970f5ce291a628476adef820b4/src/something/pratt.rkt))
   to build a parse tree using an extensible specification of the pre-,
   in-, and postfix operators involved.

 - Finally, if you treat sequences of `Value`s as pre-lexed token
   streams, almost any parsing formalism (such as [PEG
   parsing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsing_expression_grammar),
   [Ometa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OMeta), etc.) can be used to
   extract further syntactic structure.

## Notes