Initial Algebra Semantics for Cyclic Sharing Structures

Abstract

Terms are a concise representation of tree structures. Since they can be naturally defined by an inductive type, they offer data structures in functional programming and mechanised reasoning with useful principles such as structural induction and structural recursion. In the case of graphs or tree-like structures --- trees involving cycles and sharing --- however, it is not clear what kind of inductive structures exists and how we can faithfully assign a term representation of them. In this paper we propose a simple term syntax for cyclic sharing structures that admits structural induction and recursion principles. We show that the obtained syntax is directly usable in the functional language Haskell, as well as ordinary data structures such as lists and trees. To achieve this goal, we use categorical approach to initial algebra semantics in a presheaf category. That approach follows the line of Fiore, Plotkin and Turi's models of abstract syntax with variable binding.