7 Pattern Matching

Pattern matching is a key feature of most modern functional programming languages since it allows clean and secure code to be written. Internally, “pattern-matching forms” should be translated (compiled) into cascades of “elementary tests” where code is made as efficient as possible, avoiding redundant tests; Bigloo’s “pattern matching compiler” provides this. The technique used is described in details in [QueinnecGeffroy92], and the code generated can be considered optimal (3) due to the way this “pattern compiler” was obtained.

The “pattern language” allows the expression of a wide variety of patterns, including:

• Non-linear patterns: pattern variables can appear more than once, allowing comparison of subparts of the datum (through eq?)
• Recursive patterns on lists: for example, checking that the datum is a list of zero or more as followed by zero or more bs.
• Pattern matching on lists as well as on vectors and structures, and record types.

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