# Data-Directed Programming

## What is Data-Directed-Programming?

You must load and run the following file to complete this section. Don't worry about what's defined in there.

cp ~cs61as/lib/data_directed_programming.rkt .


Data-directed programming is a means to increase the flexibility of your code by modularizing data typing even further. Instead of controlling information regarding data types and operators(procedures) inside functions using cond clauses, we record this information in a data structure that we can add to and retrieve from. You are given tools to do so: put to set up the data structure and get to examine it. Intuitively, we're simply adding entries into a table-like data structure.

    > (get 'foo 'baz)
#f
> (put 'foo 'baz 'hello)
> (get 'foo 'baz)
hello


In the code above, we try to retrieve the entry with keys 'foo and 'baz. Because that entry does not exist (we haven't put it yet!), we get #f. The next line places an entry into the table with keys 'foo and 'baz. In the last line, we retrieve the information we just placed.

Once you put something in the table, it stays there. (This is our ﬁrst departure from functional programming, we are allowing you to make an assignment. But our intent is to set up the table at the beginning of the computation and then to treat it as constant information, not as something that is mutable.) For now we take put and get as primitives; we'll see how to build them in Unit 3.

To understand how all of this relates to data-directed programming, begin with the observation that we have a few operations that we want to be able to apply to a variety of types. Depending on the type(s) of the input data, we call a different procedure to carry out the same basic operation. For example, adding two rational numbers uses a different procedure than adding two complex numbers. We are basically dealing with a two-dimensional table that contains the possible operations on one axis and the possible types on the other axis. Note that the possible types might actually be a list of types, if the procedure requires more than one argument.

Using this paradigm, adding a new type to the system does not require changing any existing procedures; we need only add new entries to the table.

## A New Example System

As the last section mentioned, the "keys" for our table must be a list of types if we want to continue to use our arithmetic example. Instead of dealing with this unnecessary complexity right now, we're going to switch to a friendlier example that should be a little easier to follow. However, all of the big ideas are exactly the same.

Our data types will be squares and circles; our operations will be area and perimeter. For some comparison (and review) the tagged-data version of these operations would be written:

(define pi 3.141592654)

;;this is the tagged-data version where types are processed by the generic procedure being called
(define (make-square side)
(attach-tag 'square side))

;;this is the tagged-data version where types are processed by the generic procedure being called

;;this is the tagged-data version where types are processed by the generic procedure being called
(define (area shape)
(cond ((eq? (type-tag shape) 'square)
(* (contents shape) (contents shape)))
((eq? (type-tag shape) 'circle)
(* pi (contents shape) (contents shape)))
(else (error "Unknown shape -- AREA"))))

;;this is the tagged-data version where types are processed by the generic procedure being called
(define (perimeter shape)
(cond ((eq? (type-tag shape) 'square)
(* 4 (contents shape)))
((eq? (type-tag shape) 'circle)
(* 2 pi (contents shape)))
(else (error "Unknown shape -- PERIMETER"))))


You should be able to completely understand the above code! We'll be using this example with squares and circles throughout the rest of the lesson.

## "put"-ing it All Together

Using the data structure introduced at the top of the page, it is now possible for a system to handle any number of types without having to change existing code! Here's what the new code would look like (the constructors remain the same):

;;this is the data-directed version where types and operations
;;are handled by a data structure that stores the information
(put 'square 'area (lambda (s) (* s s)))
(put 'circle 'area (lambda (r) (* pi r r)))
(put 'square 'perimeter (lambda (s) (* 4 s)))
(put 'circle 'perimeter (lambda (r) (* 2 pi r)))


Notice that the entry in each cell of the table is a function, not a symbol. We can now redeﬁne the generic operators ("generic" because they work for any of the types):

;;this is the data-directed version where types and operations
;;are handled by a data structure that stores the information
(define (area shape-obj)
(operate 'area shape-obj))

(define (perimeter shape-obj)
(operate 'perimeter shape-obj))

(define (operate op obj)
(let ((proc (get (type-tag obj) op)))
(if proc
(proc (contents obj))
(error "Unknown operator for type"))))


The magic occurs in the operate procedure. Given an operation and some data, it looks up the correct procedure to apply to that data. If there is an entry (which means we know how to handle that operation), then we simply apply the procedure. Otherwise, we throw an error.

## A Clarification on Data-Directed-Programming

Don't get the idea that Data-Directed-Programming just means a two-dimensional table of operator and type names! DDP is a very general, great idea. It means putting the details of a system into data, rather than into programs, so you can write general programs instead of very speciﬁc ones.

In the old days, every time a company got a computer they had to hire a bunch of programmers to write things like payroll programs for them. They couldn't just use someone else's program because the details would be different, e.g., how many digits in the employee number. These days you have general business packages and each company can "tune" the program to their speciﬁc purpose with a data ﬁle.

Another example showing the generality of Data-Directed-Programming is the compiler. It used to be that if you wanted to invent a new programming language you had to start from scratch in writing a compiler for it. But now we have formal notations for expressing the syntax of the language. (See section 7.1, page 38, of the Scheme Report at the back of the course reader.) A single program can read these formal descriptions and compile any language.

6 - racket1.rkt and Generic Operators