Combinator library

In software engineering, a combinator library is a software library which implements combinators for a functional programming language.

Description

"The key idea is this: a combinator library offers functions (the combinators) that combine functions together to make bigger functions".

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

• Combinatory logic
• Functional programming
• Library (computing)
• QuickCheck
• Run-time system
• Tacit programming

External links

• Combinator library @ Wikipedia