Clean (programming language)

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In computer science, Clean is a general-purpose purely functional computer programming language.

Features

• Referential transparency - a function, given the same inputs, always gives the same output.
• Uniqueness typing system - functionally deal with unduplicatable resources such as input and output (an alternative to monads)
• List comprehension - list generation syntax
• Guards for concise conditionals
• Included IDE.
• Portability support another platforms, due to the high level of abstraction.
• Automatic garbage collection
• Higher order functions and Currying
• Delayed evaluation support allows infinite data structures

Examples

Hello world (Store as hello.icl):

module hello

Start = "Hello, world!"

Factorial:

 module factorial

 fac 0 = 1

 fac n = n * fac (n-1)

 // find the factorial of 10

 Start = fac 10

Fibonacci sequence:

 module fibonacci

 fib 0 = 0

 fib 1 = 1

 fib n = fib (n - 2) + fib (n - 1) 

 Start = fib 7

Infix operator:

 (^) infixr 8 :: Int Int -> Int

 (^) x 0 = 1

 (^) x n = x * x ^ (n-1)

The type declaration states that the function is a right associative infix operator with priority 8: this states that x*x^(n-1) is equivalent to x*(x^(n-1)) as opposed to (x*x)^(n-1); this operator is pre-defined in the Clean standard environment.

How Clean works

Computation is based on graph rewriting and reduction. Constants such as numbers are graphs and functions are graph rewriting formulas. This, combined with compilation to native code, makes Clean programs relatively fast, even with high abstraction.

Compiling

1. Source files (.icl) and project files (.dcl) are converted into Clean's platform-independent bytecode (.abc), implemented in C and Clean.
2. Bytecode is converted to object code (.obj) using C.
3. object code is linked with other files in the module and the runtime system and converted into a normal executable in Clean.

Earlier Clean system versions were written completely in C, thus avoiding bootstrapping issues.

Platforms

Clean is available for Microsoft Windows. It is also available with limited input/output capabilities and without the "Dynamics" feature prior to version 2.2, for Apple Macintosh, Solaris and Linux.

License

Clean is dual licensed: it is available under the terms of the GNU LGPL, and also under a proprietary license.

References

See also

• Haskell programming language
• List of functional programming topics

External links

• Clean homepage
• Clean Language Reports
• An introductory textbook to Clean
• Clean in FOLDOC
• Clean in The Computer Language Benchmarks Game
• Clean vs. Haskell discussion (haskell-cafe)
• Clean FAQ

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Last updated on Friday June 27, 2008 at 07:00:46 PDT (GMT -0700)
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