Interaction Nets With Nested Pattern Matching

Abstract

Reduction rules in Interaction Nets are constrained to pattern match exactly one argument at a time. Consequently, a programmer has to introduce auxiliary rules to perform more sophisticated matches. We propose an extension of Interaction Nets which facilitates nested pattern matching on interaction rules. We then define a practical compilation scheme from extended rules to pure interaction rules. We achieve a system that provides convenient ways to express Interaction Net programs without defining auxiliary rules.