Massive amounts of useful data are stored and processed in ad hoc formats for which common tools like parsers, printers, query engines and format converters are not readily available. Pads/Haskell is a domain-specific language that facilitates the generation of data processing tools for ad hoc formats. Pads/Haskell includes features such as dependent, polymorphic and recursive datatypes, which allow programmers to describe the syntax and semantics of ad hoc data in a concise, easy-to-read notation.

The pads haskell repository contains the code for the Haskell binding for PADS. For more information about the project, see the pads website (www.padsproj.org).

pads-haskell currently requires GHC 8.6.5 and stack resolver lts-13.25.

To generate an appropriate Stack configuration file and install an appropriate GHC tool chain:

$ stack solver    # Updates stack.yaml if necessary
$ stack setup     # Installs ghc in a sandbox for you

To build pads-haskell:

$ stack build

To run the automated testing infrastructure:

$ stack test :examples --ghc-options="-ddump-splices"
# Followed by this if you want to see the dumped splice files:
$ find . -name *.dump-splices

To run individual tests do:

$ stack repl
λ> :l Examples.First
...
λ> test
Cases: 89  Tried: 89  Errors: 0  Failures: 0
Counts {cases = 89, tried = 89, errors = 0, failures = 0}
(0.11 secs, 0 bytes)

In order to build and view the haddock documentation do the following:

stack haddock
firefox `find .stack-work -name index.html | grep "html/pads-haskell"`

Pull requests are strongly encouraged, though we're more likely to merge them in a timely fashion if they either add small features to existing modules or are new PADS descriptions to add to the examples directory.