Array patterns (and varargs patterns)

[Brian Goetz]

We dropped this out of the record patterns JEP, but I think it is time 
to revisit this.

The concept of array patterns was pretty straightforward; they mimic the 
nesting and exhaustiveness rules of record patterns, they are just a 
different sort of container for nested patterns.  And they have an 
obvious duality with array creation expressions.

The main open question here was how we distinguish between "match an 
array of length exactly N" (where there are N nested patterns) and 
"match an array of length at least N".  We toyed with the idea of a 
"..." indicator to mean "more elements", but this felt a little forced 
and opened new questions.

It later occurred to me that there is another place to nest a pattern in 
an array pattern -- to match (and bind) the length. In the following, 
assume for sake of exposition that "_" is the "any" pattern (matches 
everything, binds nothing) and that we have some way to denote a 
constant pattern, which I'll denote here with a constant literal.

There is an obvious place to put this (optional) pattern: in between the 
brackets.  So:

     case String[1] { P }:
                 ^ a constant pattern

would match string arrays of length 1 whose sole element matches P.  And

     case String[] { P, Q }

would match string arrays of length exactly 2, whose first two elements 
match P and Q respectively.  (If the length pattern is not specified, we 
infer a constant pattern whose constant is equal to the length of the 
nested pattern list.)

Matching a target to `String[L] { P0, .., Pn }` means

     x instanceof String[] arr
         && arr.length matches L
         && arr.length >= n
         && arr[0] matches P0
         && arr[1] matches P1
         ...
         && arr[n] matches Pn

More examples:

     case String[int len] { P }

would match string arrays of length >= 1 whose first element matches P, 
and further binds the array length to `len`.

     case String[_] { P, Q }

would match string arrays of any length whose first two elements match P 
and Q.

     case String[3] { }
                 ^constant pattern

matches all string arrays of length 3.


This is a more principled way to do it, because the length is a part of 
the array and deserves a chance to match via nested patterns, just as 
with the elements, and it avoid trying to give "..." a new meaning.

The downside is that it might be confusing at first (though people will 
learn quickly enough) how to distinguish between an exact match and a 
prefix match.




On 1/5/2021 1:48 PM, Brian Goetz wrote:
> As we get into the next round of pattern matching, I'd like to 
> opportunistically attach another sub-feature: array patterns.  (This 
> also bears on the question of "how would varargs patterns work", which 
> I'll address below, though they might come later.)
>
> ## Array Patterns
>
> If we want to create a new array, we do so with an array construction 
> expression:
>
>     new String[] { "a", "b" }
>
> Since each form of aggregation should have its dual in destructuring, 
> the natural way to represent an array pattern (h/t to AlanM for 
> suggesting this) is:
>
>     if (arr instanceof String[] { var a, var b }) { ... }
>
> Here, the applicability test is: "are you an instanceof of String[], 
> with length = 2", and if so, we cast to String[], extract the two 
> elements, and match them to the nested patterns `var a` and `var b`.   
> This is the natural analogue of deconstruction patterns for arrays, 
> complete with nesting.
>
> Since an array can have more elements, we likely need a way to say 
> "length >= 2" rather than simply "length == 2".  There are multiple 
> syntactic ways to get there, for now I'm going to write
>
>     if (arr instanceof String[] { var a, var b, ... })
>
> to indicate "more".  The "..." matches zero or more elements and binds 
> nothing.
>
> <digression>
> People are immediately going to ask "can I bind something to the 
> remainder"; I think this is mostly an "attractive distraction", and 
> would prefer to not have this dominate the discussion.
> </digression>
>
> Here's an example from the JDK that could use this effectively:
>
> String[] limits = limitString.split(":");
> try {
>     switch (limits.length) {
>         case 2: {
>             if (!limits[1].equals("*"))
>                 setMultilineLimit(MultilineLimit.DEPTH, 
> Integer.parseInt(limits[1]));
>         }
>         case 1: {
>             if (!limits[0].equals("*"))
>                 setMultilineLimit(MultilineLimit.LENGTH, 
> Integer.parseInt(limits[0]));
>         }
>     }
> }
> catch(NumberFormatException ex) {
>     setMultilineLimit(MultilineLimit.DEPTH, -1);
>     setMultilineLimit(MultilineLimit.LENGTH, -1);
> }
>
> becomes (eventually)
>
> switch (limitString.split(":")) {
>         case String[] { var _, Integer.parseInt(var i) } -> 
> setMultilineLimit(DEPTH, i);
>     case String[] { Integer.parseInt(var i) } -> 
> setMultilineLimit(LENGTH, i);
>         default -> { setMultilineLimit(DEPTH, -1); 
> setMultilineLimit(LENGTH, -1); }
>     }
>
> Note how not only does this become more compact, but the unchecked 
> "NumberFormatException" is folded into the match, rather than being a 
> separate concern.
>
>
> ## Varargs patterns
>
> Having array patterns offers us a natural way to interpret 
> deconstruction patterns for varargs records.  Assume we have:
>
>     void m(X... xs) { }
>
> Then a varargs invocation
>
>     m(a, b, c)
>
> is really sugar for
>
>     m(new X[] { a, b, c })
>
> So the dual of a varargs invocation, a varargs match, is really a 
> match to an array pattern.  So for a record
>
>     record R(X... xs) { }
>
> a varargs match:
>
>     case R(var a, var b, var c):
>
> is really sugar for an array match:
>
>     case R(X[] { var a, var b, var c }):
>
> And similarly, we can use our "more arity" indicator:
>
>     case R(var a, var b, var c, ...):
>
> to indicate that there are at least three elements.
>
>
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