handouts/scala-ho.tex
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+\documentclass{article}
+\usepackage{hyperref}
+\usepackage{amssymb}
+\usepackage{alltt}
+\usepackage{menukeys}
+\usepackage{amsmath}
+\usepackage{../langs}
+\usepackage{mathpazo}
+\usepackage[scaled=.95]{helvet}
+
+\newcommand{\dn}{\stackrel{\mbox{\scriptsize def}}{=}}%
+
+
+\begin{document}
+
+\section*{A Crash-Course on Scala}
+
+Scala is programming language that combines functional and
+object-oriented programming-styles. This language received in
+the last five years quite a bit of attention. One reason is
+that, like the Java programming language, it compiles to the
+Java Virtual Machine (JVM) and therefore can run under MacOSX,
+Linux and Windows.\footnote{There are also experimental
+backends for Android and JavaScript.} The main compiler can be
+downloaded from
+
+\begin{quote}
+\url{http://www.scala-lang.org}
+\end{quote}
+
+\noindent Why do I use Scala in this course? Actually, you can
+do any part of the programming coursework in \emph{any}
+programming language you like. I use Scale because its
+functional programming-style allows for some very small and
+elegant code. Since the compiler is free, you can download it
+and run every example I give. But if you prefer, you can also
+translate the examples into any other functional language, for
+example Haskell, ML, F\# and so on.
+
+Writing programs in Scala can be done with Eclipse IDE and
+also with IntelliJ, but I am using just the Emacs-editor and
+run programs on the command line. One advantage of Scala is
+that it has an interpreter (a REPL --- read-eval-print-loop)
+with which you can run and test small code-snippets without
+the need of the compiler. This helps a lot for interactively
+developing programs. Once you installed Scala correctly, you
+can start the interpreter by typing
+
+\begin{alltt}
+$ scala\small
+Welcome to Scala version 2.11.2 (Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM).
+Type in expressions to have them evaluated.
+Type :help for more information.\normalsize
+
+scala>
+\end{alltt}
+
+\noindent At the scala prompt you can type things like {\tt 2 + 3}
+\keys{Ret}. The output will be
+
+\begin{alltt}
+scala> 2 + 3
+res0: Int = 5
+\end{alltt}
+
+\noindent
+indicating that the result is of type {\tt Int} and the result 
+of the addition is {\tt 5}. Another example you can type in 
+immediately is
+
+\begin{alltt}
+scala> print ("hello world")
+hello world
+\end{alltt}
+
+\noindent which prints out a string. Note that in this case
+there is no result: the reason is that {\tt print} does not
+produce any result indicated by {\tt res\_}, rather it is a
+function that causes a \emph{side-effect} of printing out a
+string. Once you are more familiar with the functional
+programming-style, you will immediately see what the
+difference is between a function that returns a result and a
+function that causes a side-effect (the latter always has as
+return type {\tt Unit}).
+
+\subsection*{Inductive Datatypes}
+
+The elegance and conciseness of Scala programs stems often
+from the fact that inductive datatypes can be easily defined.
+For example in ``Mathematics'' we would define regular 
+expressions by the grammar
+
+\begin{center}
+\begin{tabular}{r@{\hspace{2mm}}r@{\hspace{2mm}}l@{\hspace{13mm}}l}
+  $r$ & $::=$ &   $\varnothing$         & null\\
+        & $\mid$ & $\epsilon$           & empty string\\
+        & $\mid$ & $c$                  & single character\\
+        & $\mid$ & $r_1 \cdot r_2$      & sequence\\
+        & $\mid$ & $r_1 + r_2$          & alternative / choice\\
+        & $\mid$ & $r^*$                & star (zero or more)\\
+  \end{tabular}
+\end{center}
+
+\noindent This grammar specifies what regular expressions are
+(essentially a kind of tree-structure with three kinds of
+inner nodes and three leave nodes). If you are familiar with
+Java, it might be an instructive exercise to define this
+kind of inductive datatypes in Java.
+
+Implementing the regular expressions from above in Scala
+requires an \emph{abstract class}, say, {\tt Rexp}. The
+different kinds of regular expressions will be instances of
+this abstract class. The cases for $\varnothing$ and
+$\epsilon$ do not require any arguments, while in the other
+cases we do have arguments. For example the character regular
+expressions need to take as argument the character they are
+supposed to recognise.
+
+. is a relative recen programming language
+This course is about the processing of strings. Lets start
+with what we mean by \emph{strings}. Strings (they are also
+sometimes referred to as \emph{words}) are lists of characters
+drawn from an \emph{alphabet}. If nothing else is specified,
+we usually assume the alphabet consists of just the lower-case
+letters $a$, $b$, \ldots, $z$. Sometimes, however, we
+explicitly restrict strings to contain, for example, only the
+letters $a$ and $b$. In this case we say the alphabet is the
+set $\{a, b\}$.
+
+There are many ways how we can write down strings. In programming languages, they are usually 
+written as {\it "hello"} where the double quotes indicate that we dealing with a string. 
+Essentially, strings are lists of characters which can be written for example as follows
+
+\[
+[\text{\it h, e, l, l, o}]
+\]
+
+\noindent
+The important point is that we can always decompose strings. For example, we will often consider the
+first character of a string, say $h$, and the ``rest''  of a string say {\it "ello"} when making definitions 
+about strings. There are some subtleties with the empty string, sometimes written as {\it ""} but also as 
+the empty list of characters $[\,]$. Two strings, for example $s_1$ and $s_2$, can be \emph{concatenated}, 
+which we write as $s_1 @ s_2$. Suppose we are given two strings {\it "foo"} and {\it "bar"}, then their concatenation
+gives {\it "foobar"}.
+
+We often need to talk about sets of strings. For example the set of all strings over the alphabet $\{a, \ldots\, z\}$
+is
+
+\[
+\{\text{\it "", "a", "b", "c",\ldots,"z", "aa", "ab", "ac", \ldots, "aaa", \ldots}\}
+\]
+
+\noindent
+Any set of strings, not just the set-of-all-strings, is often called a \emph{language}. The idea behind
+this choice of terminology is that if we enumerate, say, all words/strings from a dictionary, like 
+
+\[
+\{\text{\it "the", "of", "milk", "name", "antidisestablishmentarianism", \ldots}\}
+\]
+
+\noindent
+then we have essentially described the English language, or more precisely all
+strings that can be used in a sentence of the English language. French would be a
+different set of strings, and so on. In the context of this course, a language might 
+not necessarily make sense from a natural language point of view. For example
+the set of all strings shown above is a language, as is the empty set (of strings). The
+empty set of strings is often written as $\varnothing$ or $\{\,\}$. Note that there is a 
+difference between the empty set, or empty language, and the set that 
+contains only the empty string $\{\text{""}\}$: the former has no elements, whereas 
+the latter has one element.
+
+As seen, there are languages which contain infinitely many strings, like the set of all strings.
+The ``natural'' languages like English, French and so on contain many but only finitely many 
+strings (namely the ones listed in a good dictionary). It might be therefore be surprising that the
+language consisting of all email addresses is infinite provided we assume it is defined by the
+regular expression\footnote{See \url{http://goo.gl/5LoVX7}}
+
+\[
+([\text{\it{}a-z0-9\_.-}]^+)@([\text{\it a-z0-9.-}]^+).([\text{\it a-z.}]^{\{2,6\}})
+\]
+
+\noindent
+One reason is that before the $@$-sign there can be any string you want assuming it 
+is made up from letters, digits, underscores, dots and hyphens---clearly there are infinitely many
+of those. Similarly the string after the $@$-sign can be any string. However, this does not mean 
+that every string is an email address. For example
+
+\[
+"\text{\it foo}@\text{\it bar}.\text{\it c}"
+\]
+
+\noindent
+is not, because the top-level-domains must be of length of at least two. (Note that there is
+the convention that uppercase letters are treated in email-addresses as if they were
+lower-case.)
+\bigskip
+
+Before we expand on the topic of regular expressions, let us review some operations on
+sets. We will use capital letters $A$, $B$, $\ldots$ to stand for sets of strings. 
+The union of two sets is written as usual as $A \cup B$. We also need to define the
+operation of \emph{concatenating} two sets of strings. This can be defined as
+
+\[
+A @ B \dn \{s_1@ s_2 | s_1 \in A \wedge s_2 \in B \}
+\]
+
+\noindent
+which essentially means take the first string from the set $A$ and concatenate it with every
+string in the set $B$, then take the second string from $A$ do the same and so on. You might
+like to think about what this definition means in case $A$ or $B$ is the empty set.
+
+We also need to define
+the power of a set of strings, written as $A^n$ with $n$ being a natural number. This is defined inductively as follows
+
+\begin{center}
+\begin{tabular}{rcl}
+$A^0$ & $\dn$ & $\{[\,]\}$ \\
+$A^{n+1}$ & $\dn$ & $A @ A^n$\\
+\end{tabular}
+\end{center}
+
+\noindent
+Finally we need the \emph{star} of a set of strings, written $A^*$. This is defined as the union
+of every power of $A^n$ with $n\ge 0$. The mathematical notation for this operation is
+
+\[
+A^* \dn \bigcup_{0\le n} A^n
+\]
+
+\noindent
+This definition implies that the star of a set $A$ contains always the empty string (that is $A^0$), one 
+copy of every string in $A$ (that is $A^1$), two copies in $A$ (that is $A^2$) and so on. In case $A=\{"a"\}$ we therefore 
+have 
+
+\[
+A^* = \{"", "a", "aa", "aaa", \ldots\}
+\]
+
+\noindent
+Be aware that these operations sometimes have quite non-intuitive properties, for example
+
+\begin{center}
+\begin{tabular}{@{}ccc@{}}
+\begin{tabular}{@{}r@{\hspace{1mm}}c@{\hspace{1mm}}l}
+$A \cup \varnothing$ & $=$ & $A$\\
+$A \cup A$ & $=$ & $A$\\
+$A \cup B$ & $=$ & $B \cup A$\\
+\end{tabular} &
+\begin{tabular}{r@{\hspace{1mm}}c@{\hspace{1mm}}l}
+$A @ B$ & $\not =$ & $B @ A$\\
+$A  @ \varnothing$ & $=$ & $\varnothing @ A = \varnothing$\\
+$A  @ \{""\}$ & $=$ & $\{""\} @ A = A$\\
+\end{tabular} &
+\begin{tabular}{r@{\hspace{1mm}}c@{\hspace{1mm}}l@{}}
+$\varnothing^*$ & $=$ & $\{""\}$\\
+$\{""\}^*$ & $=$ & $\{""\}$\\
+$A^\star$ & $=$ & $\{""\} \cup A\cdot A^*$\\
+\end{tabular} 
+\end{tabular}
+\end{center}
+\bigskip
+
+\noindent
+\emph{Regular expressions} are meant to conveniently describe languages...at least languages
+we are interested in in Computer Science.  For example there is no convenient regular expression
+for describing the English language short of enumerating all English words. 
+But they seem useful for describing all permitted email addresses, as seen above. 
+
+Regular expressions are given by the following grammar:
+
+\begin{center}
+\begin{tabular}{r@{\hspace{1mm}}r@{\hspace{1mm}}l@{\hspace{13mm}}l}
+  $r$ & $::=$ &   $\varnothing$         & null\\
+        & $\mid$ & $\epsilon$              & empty string / "" / []\\
+        & $\mid$ & $c$                         & single character\\
+        & $\mid$ & $r_1 \cdot r_2$      & sequence\\
+        & $\mid$ & $r_1 + r_2$            & alternative / choice\\
+        & $\mid$ & $r^*$                      & star (zero or more)\\
+  \end{tabular}
+\end{center}
+
+\noindent
+Because we overload our notation, there are some subtleties you should be aware of. First, the letter 
+$c$ stands for any character from the
+alphabet at hand. Second, we will use parentheses to disambiguate
+regular expressions. For example we will write $(r_1 + r_2)^*$, which is different from, say $r_1 + (r_2)^*$.
+The former means roughly zero or more times $r_1$ or $r_2$, while the latter means $r_1$ or zero or more times
+$r_2$. We should also write $(r_1 + r_2) + r_3$, which is different from the regular expression $r_1 + (r_2 + r_3)$,
+but in case of $+$ and $\cdot$ we actually do not care about the order and just write $r_1 + r_2 + r_3$, or $r_1 \cdot r_2 \cdot r_3$,
+respectively. The reasons for this will become clear shortly. In the literature you will often find that the choice
+$r_1 + r_2$  is written as $r_1\mid{}r_2$ or $r_1\mid\mid{}r_2$. Also following the convention in the literature, we will in case of $\cdot$ even 
+often omit it all together. For example the regular expression for email addresses shown above is meant to be of the form
+
+\[
+([\ldots])^+ \cdot @ \cdot ([\ldots])^+ \cdot . \cdot \ldots
+\]
+
+\noindent
+meaning first comes a name (specified by the regular expression $([\ldots])^+$), then an $@$-sign, then
+a domain name (specified by the regular expression $([\ldots])^+$), then a dot and then a top-level domain. Similarly if
+we want to specify the regular expression for the string {\it "hello"} we should write
+
+\[
+{\it h} \cdot {\it e} \cdot {\it l} \cdot {\it l} \cdot {\it o}
+\]
+
+\noindent
+but often just write {\it hello}.
+
+Another source of confusion might arise from the fact that we use the term \emph{regular expression} for the regular expressions used in ``theory''
+and also the ones used in ``practice''. In this course we refer by default to the regular expressions defined by the grammar above. 
+In ``practice'' we often use $r^+$ to stand for one or more times, $\backslash{}d$ to stand for a digit, $r^?$ to stand for an optional regular
+expression, or ranges such as $[\text{\it a - z}]$ to stand for any lower case letter from $a$ to $z$. They are however mere convenience 
+as they can be seen as shorthand for
+
+\begin{center}
+\begin{tabular}{rcl}
+$r^+$ & $\mapsto$ & $r\cdot r^*$\\
+$r^?$ & $\mapsto$ & $\epsilon + r$\\
+$\backslash d$ & $\mapsto$ & $0 + 1 + 2 + \ldots + 9$\\
+$[\text{\it a - z}]$ & $\mapsto$ & $a + b + \ldots + z$\\
+\end{tabular}
+\end{center}
+
+
+We will see later that the \emph{not}-regular-expression can also be seen as convenience. This regular
+expression is supposed to stand for every string \emph{not} matched by a regular expression. We will write
+such not-regular-expressions as $\sim{}r$. While being ``convenience'' it is often not so clear what the shorthand for
+these kind of not-regular-expressions is. Try to write down the regular expression which can match any
+string except the two strings {\it "hello"} and {\it "world"}. It is possible in principle, but often it is easier to just include
+$\sim{}r$ in the definition of regular expressions. Whenever we do so, we will state it explicitly.
+
+So far we have only considered informally what the \emph{meaning} of a regular expression is.  
+To do so more formally we will associate with every regular expression a set of strings 
+that is supposed to be matched by this
+regular expression. This can be defined recursively  as follows
+
+\begin{center}
+\begin{tabular}{rcl}
+$L(\varnothing)$  & $\dn$ & $\{\,\}$\\
+$L(\epsilon)$       & $\dn$ & $\{""\}$\\
+$L(c)$                  & $\dn$ & $\{"c"\}$\\
+$L(r_1+ r_2)$      & $\dn$ & $L(r_1) \cup L(r_2)$\\
+$L(r_1 \cdot r_2)$  & $\dn$ & $\{s_1@ s_2 | s_1 \in L(r_1) \wedge s_2 \in L(r_2) \}$\\
+$L(r^*)$                   & $\dn$ & $\bigcup_{n \ge 0} L(r)^n$\\
+\end{tabular}
+\end{center}
+
+\noindent
+As a result we can now precisely state what the meaning, for example, of the regular expression 
+${\it h} \cdot {\it e} \cdot {\it l} \cdot {\it l} \cdot {\it o}$ is, namely 
+$L({\it h} \cdot {\it e} \cdot {\it l} \cdot {\it l} \cdot {\it o}) = \{\text{\it"hello"}\}$...as expected. Similarly if we have the 
+choice-regular-expression $a + b$, its meaning is $L(a + b) = \{\text{\it"a"}, \text{\it"b"}\}$, namely the only two strings which can possibly
+be matched by this choice. You can now also see why we do not make a difference
+between the different regular expressions $(r_1 + r_2) + r_3$ and $r_1 + (r_2 + r_3)$....they 
+are not the same regular expression, but have the same meaning. 
+
+The point of the definition of $L$ is that we can use it to precisely specify when a string $s$ is matched by a
+regular expression $r$, namely only when $s \in L(r)$. In fact we will write a program {\it match} that takes any string $s$ and
+any regular expression $r$ as argument and returns \emph{yes}, if $s \in L(r)$ and \emph{no},
+if $s \not\in L(r)$. We leave this for the next lecture.
+
+\begin{figure}[p]
+{\lstset{language=Scala}\texttt{\lstinputlisting{../progs/crawler1.scala}}}
+\caption{Scala code for a web-crawler that can detect broken links in a web-page. It uses
+the regular expression {\tt http\_pattern} in Line~15 for recognising URL-addresses. It finds
+all links using the library function {\tt findAllIn} in Line~21.}
+\end{figure}
+
+\begin{figure}[p]
+{\lstset{language=Scala}\texttt{\lstinputlisting{../progs/crawler2.scala}}}
+\caption{A version of the web-crawler which only follows links in ``my'' domain---since these are the
+ones I am interested in to fix. It uses the regular expression {\tt my\_urls} in Line~16.
+The main change is in Line~26 where there is a test whether URL is in ``my'' domain or not.}
+
+\end{figure}
+
+\begin{figure}[p]
+{\lstset{language=Scala}\texttt{\lstinputlisting{../progs/crawler3.scala}}}
+\caption{A small email harvester---whenever we download a web-page, we also check whether
+it contains any email addresses. For this we use the regular expression {\tt email\_pattern} in
+Line~17.  The main change is in Lines 33 and 34 where all email addresses that can be found in a page are printed.}
+\end{figure}
+
+\end{document}
+
+%%% Local Variables: 
+%%% mode: latex
+%%% TeX-master: t
+%%% End: