mk_starts was not yielding enough values. It's originally a translation of a double list comprehension in Haskell, which cannot simply be translated to a map2. The latter combine elements two by two, but the former works through all possible permutations.
This commit introduces a new feature into
the parser, typechecker, and formatter.
The work for code gen will be in the next commit.
I was able to leverage some existing infrastructure
by making using of `AssignmentPattern`. A new field
`is` was introduced into `IfBranch`. This field holds
a generic `Option<Is>` meaning a new generic has to be
introduced into `IfBranch`. When used in `UntypedExpr`,
`IfBranch` must use `AssignmentPattern`. When used in
`TypedExpr`, `IfBranch` must use `TypedPattern`.
The parser was updated such that we can support this
kind of psuedo grammar:
`if <expr:condition> [is [<pattern>: ]<annotation>]`
This can be read as, when parsing an `if` expression,
always expect an expression after the keyword `if`. And then
optionally there may be this `is` stuff, and within that you
may optionally expect a pattern followed by a colon. We will
always expect an annotation.
This first expression is still saved as the field
`condition` in `IfBranch`. If `pattern` is not there
AND `expr:condition` is `UntypedExpr::Var` we can set
the pattern to be `Pattern::Var` with the same name. From
there shadowing should allow this syntax sugar to feel
kinda magical within the `IfBranch` block that follow.
The typechecker doesn't need to be aware of the sugar
described above. The typechecker looks at `branch.is`
and if it's `Some(is)` then it'll use `infer_assignment`
for some help. Because of the way that `is` can inject
variables into the scope of the branch's block and since
it's basically just like how `expect` works minus the error
we get to re-use that helper method.
It's important to note that in the typechecker, if `is`
is `Some(_)` then we do not enforce that `condition` is
of type `Bool`. This is because the bool itself will be
whether or not the `is` itself holds true given a PlutusData
payload.
When `is` is None, we do exactly what was being done
previously so that plain `if` expressions remain unaffected
with no semantic changes.
The formatter had to be made aware of the new changes with
some simple changes that need no further explanation.
This is mainly a syntactic trick/sugar, but it's been pretty annoying
to me for a while that we can't simply pattern-match/destructure
single-variant constructors directly from the args list. A classic
example is when writing property tests:
```ak
test foo(params via both(bytearray(), int())) {
let (bytes, ix) = params
...
}
```
Now can be replaced simply with:
```
test foo((bytes, ix) via both(bytearray(), int())) {
...
}
```
If feels natural, especially coming from the JavaScript, Haskell or
Rust worlds and is mostly convenient. Behind the scene, the compiler
does nothing more than re-writing the AST as the first form, with
pre-generated arg names. Then, we fully rely on the existing
type-checking capabilities and thus, works in a seamless way as if we
were just pattern matching inline.
There's no reasons for this to be a property of only ArgName::Named to begin with. And now, with the extra indirection introduced for arg_name, it may leads to subtle issues when patterns args are used in validators.
