Hoon is statically typed, which means (among other things) that auras are subject to strict nesting rules, molds are crash-only, and the whole thing is rather cantankerous about matching types. However, since gate-building arms are possible, Hoon developers frequently employ them as templates to build type-appropriate cores, including gates. This module will start by introducing the concept of gate-building gates; then it will expand our notion of cores to include doors; finally it will introduce a common door, the ++map, to illustrate how doors work.
Gate-Building Gates
Calling Gates
There are two ways of making a function call in Hoon. First, you can call a gate in the subject by name. For instance, we can produce a gate inc which adds 1 to an input:
> =inc |=(a=@ (add 1 a))> (inc 10)11> =inc
The second way of making a function call involves an expression that produces a gate on demand:
> (|=(a=@ (add 1 a)) 123)124> (|=(a=@ (mul 2 a)) 123)246
The difference is subtle: the first case has an already-created gate in the subject when we called it, while the latter involves producing a gate that doesn't exist anywhere in the subject, and then calling it.
Are calls to ++add and ++mul of the Hoon standard library of the first kind, or the second?
> (add 12 23)35> (mul 12 23)276
They're of the second kind. Neither ++add nor ++mul resolves to a gate directly; they're each arms that produce gates.
Often the difference doesn't matter much. Either way you can do a function call using the (gate arg) syntax.
It's important to learn the difference, however, because for certain use cases you'll want the extra flexibility that comes with having an already produced core in the subject.
Building Gates
Let's make a core with arms that build gates of various kinds. As we did in a previous lesson, we'll use the |% barcen rune. Copy and paste the following into the Dojo:
=c |%++ inc |=(a=@ (add 1 a))++ add-two |=(a=@ (inc (inc a)))++ double |=(a=@ (mul 2 a))++ triple |=(a=@ (mul 3 a))--
Let's try out these arms, using them for function calls:
> (inc:c 10)11> (add-two:c 10)12> (double:c 10)20> (triple:c 10)30
Notice that each arm in core c is able to call the other arms of c—++add-two uses the ++inc arm to increment a number twice. As a reminder, each arm is evaluated with its parent core as the subject. In the case of ++add-two the parent core is c, which has ++inc in it.
Mutating a Gate
Let's say you want to modify the default sample of the gate for double. We can infer the default sample by calling double with no argument:
> (double:c)0
Given that a x 2 = 0, a must be 0. (Remember that a is the face for the double sample, as defined in the core we bound to c above.)
Let's say we want to mutate the ++double gate so that the default sample is 25. There is only one problem: ++double isn't a gate!
> double.c(a 25)-tack.a-find.adojo: hoon expression failed
It's an arm that produces a gate, and a cannot be found in ++double until the gate is created. Furthermore, every time the gate is created, it has the default sample, 0. If you want to mutate the gate produced by ++double, you'll first have to put a copy of that gate into the subject:
> =double-copy double:c> (double-copy 123)246
Now let's mutate the sample to 25, and check that it worked with +6. (The sample lives at +6 in a given core tree.)
> +6:double-copy(a 25)a=25
Good. Let's call it with no argument and see if it returns double the value of the modified sample.
> (double-copy(a 25))50
It does indeed. Unbind c and double-copy:
> =c> =double-copy
Contrast this with the behavior of ++add. We can look at the sample of the gate for add with +6:add:
> +6:add[a=0 b=0]
If you try to mutate the default sample of ++add, it won't work:
> add(a 3)-tack.a-find.adojo: hoon expression failed
As before with ++double, Hoon can't find an a to modify in a gate that doesn't exist yet.
Slamming a Gate
If you check the docs on our now-familiar %- cenhep, you'll find that it is actually sugar syntax for another rune:
This rune is for evaluating the
$arm of a gate, i.e., calling a gate as a function.ais the gate, andbis the desired sample value (i.e., input value) for the gate.%~($ a b)
So all gate calls actually pass back through %~ censig. What's the difference?
The %~ censig rune accepts three children, a wing which resolves to an arm in a door; the aforesaid door; and a sample for the door.
Basically, whenever you use %- cenhep, it actually looks up a wing in a door using %~ censig, which is a more general type of core than a gate. Whatever that wing resolves to is then provided a sample. The resulting Hoon expression is evaluated and the value is returned.
Doors
Doors are another kind of core whose arms evaluate to make gates, as we just discovered. The difference is that a door also has its own sample. A door is the most general case of a function in Hoon. (You could say a "gate-building core" or a "function-building function" to clarify what the intent of most of these are.)
A core is a cell of code and data, called [battery payload]. The battery contains a series of arms, and the payload contains all the data necessary to run those arms correctly.
A door is a core with a sample. That is, a door is a core whose payload is a cell of sample and context: [sample context]. A door's overall sample can affect how its gate-building arms work.
door/ \battery ./ \sample context
It follows from this definition that a gate is a special case of a door. A gate is a door with exactly one arm, named $ buc.
Doors are created with the |_ barcab rune. Doors get used for a few different purposes in the standard library:
- instrumenting and storing persistent data structures like
maps (this module and the next) - implementing state machines (the subject-oriented programming module)
One BIG pitfall for thinking about doors is thinking of them as “containing” gates, as if they were more like “objects”. Instead, think of them the same way as you think of gates, just that they can be altered at a higher level.
Example: The Quadratic Equation
First, a mathematical example. If we wanted to calculate a quadratic polynomial, y = a x² + b x + c, then we need to know two kinds of things: the unknown or variable x, AND the parameters a, b, and c. These aren't really the same kind of thing. When we calculate a particular curve y(x), we assume that the parameters a, b, and c stay constant across evaluations of x, and it's inconvenient for us to specify them every single time.
If we were to build this as a gate, we would need to pass in four parameters:
> =poly-gate |= [x=@ud a=@ud b=@ud c=@ud](add (add (mul a (mul x x)) (mul b x)) c)
Any time we call the gate, we have to provide all four values: one unknown, three parameters. But there's a sense in which we want to separate the three parameters and only call the gate with one x value. One way to accomplish this is to wrap the gate inside of another:
> =wrapped-gate |= [x=@ud]=/ a 5=/ b 4=/ c 3(poly-gate x a b c)
If we built this as a door instead, we could push the parameters out to a different layer of the structure. In this case, the parameters are the sample of the door, while the arm ++quad builds a gate that corresponds to those parameters and only accepts one unknown variable x. To make a door we use the |_ barcab rune, which we'll discuss later:
> =poly |_ [a=@ud b=@ud c=@ud]++ quad|= x=@ud(add (add (mul a (mul x x)) (mul b x)) c)--
This will be used in two steps: a gate-building step then a gate usage step.
We produce a gate from a door's arm using the %~ censig rune, almost always used in its irregular form, ~(). Here we prime the door with [5 4 3], which yields a gate:
~(quad poly [5 4 3])
By itself, not so much to say. We could pin it into the Dojo, for instance, to use later. Our ultimate goal is to use the built gate on particular data, however:
> (~(quad poly [5 4 3]) 2)31
By hand: 5×2² + 4×2 + 3 = 31, so that's correct.
Doors will enable us to build some very powerful data storage tools by letting us defer parts of a gate calculation to other stages of building and calculating the gate.
Example: A Calculator
Let's unpack what's going on more with this next door. Each of the arms in this example door will define a simple gate. Let's bind the door to c. To make a door we use the |_ barcab rune:
=c |_ b=@++ plus |=(a=@ (add a b))++ times |=(a=@ (mul a b))++ greater |=(a=@ (gth a b))--
If you type this into the dojo manually, make sure you attend carefully to the spacing. Feel free to cut and paste the code, if desired.
Before getting into what these arms do, let's digress into how the |_ barcab rune works in general.
|_ barcab works exactly like the |% barcen rune for making a core, except that it takes one additional daughter expression, the door's sample. Following that are a series of ++ luslus runes, each of which defines an arm of the door. Finally, the expression is terminated with a -- hephep rune.
A door really is, at the bedrock level, the same thing as a core with a sample. Let's ask Dojo to pretty print a simple door.
> =a => ~ |_ b=@ ++ foo b --> a<1.zgd [b=@ %~]>
Dojo tells us that a is a core with one arm and a payload of [b=@ %~]. Since a door's payload is [sample context], this means that b is the sample and the context is null. (The => ~ set the context. We did this to avoid including the standard library that is included in the context by default in Dojo, which would have made the pretty-printed core much more verbose. Try it without => ~ as well.)
For the door defined above, c, the sample is defined as an @ atom and given the face b. The ++plus arm defines a gate that takes a single atom as its argument a and returns the sum of a and b. The ++times arm defines a gate that takes a single atom a and returns the product of a and b. The ++greater arm defines a gate that takes a single atom a, and returns %.y if a is greater than b; otherwise it returns %.n.
Let's try out the arms of c with ordinary function calls:
> (plus:c 10)10> (times:c 10)0> (greater:c 10)%.y
This works, but the results are not exciting. Passing 10 to the plus gate returns 10, so it must be that the value of b is 0 (the bunt value of @). The products of the other function calls reinforce that assessment. Let's look directly at +6 of c to see the sample:
> +6:cb=0
Having confirmed that b is 0, let's mutate the c sample and then call its arms:
> (plus:c(b 7) 10)17> (times:c(b 7) 10)70> (greater:c(b 7) 10)%.y> (greater:c(b 17) 10)%.n
Doing the same mutation repeatedly can be tedious, so let's bind c to the modified version of the door, where b is 7:
> =c c(b 7)> (plus:c 10)17> (times:c 10)70> (greater:c 10)%.y
There's a more direct way of passing arguments for both the door sample and the gate sample simultaneously. We may use the ~(arm door arg) syntax. This generates the arm product after modifying the door's sample to be arg.
> (~(plus c 7) 10)17> (~(times c 7) 10)70> (~(greater c 7) 10)%.y> (~(greater c 17) 10)%.n
Readers with some mathematical background may notice that ~( ) expressions allow us to curry↗. For each of the arms above, the ~( ) expression is used to create different versions of the same gate:
> ~(plus c 7)< 1.xpd[ a=@< 3.bnz[ b=@[our=@p now=@da eny=@uvJ]<17.ayh 34.ozb 14.usy 54.uao 77.gmv 232.hhi 51.qbt 123.ppa 46.hgz 1.pnw %140>]>]>> b:~(plus c 7)7> b:~(plus c 17)17
Thus, you may think of the c door as a function for making functions. Use the ~(arm c arg) syntax—arm defines which kind of gate is produced (i.e., which arm of the door is used to create the gate), and arg defines the value of b in that gate, which in turn affects the product value of the gate produced.
The standard library provides currying functionality outside of the context of doors.
Creating Doors with a Modified Sample
In the above example we created a door c with sample b=@ and found that the initial value of b was 0, the bunt value of @. We then created new door from c by modifying the value of b. But what if we wish to define a door with a chosen sample value directly? We make use of the $_ buccab rune, whose irregular form is simply _. To create the door c with the sample b=@ set to have the value 7 in the dojo, we would write
=c |_ b=_7++ plus |=(a=@ (add a b))++ times |=(a=@ (mul a b))++ greater |=(a=@ (gth a b))--
Here the type of b is inferred to be @ based on the example value 7, similar to how we've seen casting done by example. You will learn more about how types are inferred in the next module.
Exercise: Adding Arms to a Door
Recall the quadratic equation door.
|_ [a=@ud b=@ud c=@ud]++ quad|= x=@ud(add (add (mul a (mul x x)) (mul b x)) c)--
Add an arm to the door which calculates the linear function a × x
- b.
Add another arm which calculates the derivative of the first quadratic function, 2 × a × x + b.
Key-Value Pairs: map as Door
In general terms, a map is a pattern from a key to a value. You can think of a dictionary, or an index, or a data table. Essentially it scans for a particular key, then returns the data associated with that key (which may be any noun).
| Key | Value |
|---|---|
| 'Mazda' | 'RX-8' |
| 'Dodge' | 'Viper' |
| 'Ford' | 'Mustang' |
| 'Chevrolet' | 'Chevelle' |
| 'Porsche' | 'Boxster' |
| 'Bugatti' | 'Type 22' |
While map is the mold or type of the value, the door which affords map-related functionality is named ++by. (This felicitously affords us a way to read map operations in an English-friendly phrasing.)
In Urbit, all values are static and never change. (This is why we “overwrite” or replace the values in a limb to change it with %= centis.) This means that when we build a map, we often rather awkwardly replace it with its modified value explicitly.
We'll build a color map, from a @tas of a color's name↗ to its HTML hexadecimal representation as a @ux hex value.
We can produce a map from a list of key-value cells using the ++malt function. Using @tas terms as keys (which is common) requires us to explicitly mark the list as (list (pair @tas @ux)):
=colors (malt `(list (pair @tas @ux))`~[[%red 0xed.0a3f] [%yellow 0xfb.e870] [%green 0x1.a638] [%blue 0x66ff]])
To insert one key-value pair at a time, we use put. In Dojo, we need to either pin it into the subject or modify a copy of the map for the rest of the expression using =/ tisfas.
=colors (~(put by colors) [%orange 0xff.8833])=colors (~(put by colors) [%violet 0x83.59a3])=colors (~(put by colors) [%black 0x0])
Note the pattern here: there is a ++put arm of ++by which builds a gate to modify colors by inserting a value.
What happens if we try to add something that doesn't match the type?
=colors (~(put by colors) [%cerulean '#02A4D3'])
We'll see a mull-grow, a mull-nice, and a nest-fail. Essentially these are all flavors of mold-matching errors.
(As an aside, ++put:by is also how you'd replace a key's value.)
The point of a map is to make it easy to retrieve data values given their appropriate key. Use ++get:by:
> (~(get by colors) %orange)[~ 0xff.8833]
What is that cell? Wasn't the value stored as 0xff.8833? Well, one fundamental problem that a map needs to solve is to allow us to distinguish an empty result (or failure to locate a value) from a zero result (or an answer that's actually zero). To this end, the unit was introduced, a type union of a ~ (for no result) and [~ item] (for when a result exists).
- What does
[~ ~]mean when returned from amap?
units are common enough that they have their own syntax and set of operational functions. We'll look at them more in the next module.
> (~(get by colors) %brown)~
(++got:by returns the value without the unit wrapper, but crashes on failure to locate. I recommend just using ++get and extracting the tail of the resulting cell after confirming it isn't null with ?~ wutsig. See also ++gut:by which allows a default in case of failure to locate.)
You can check whether a key is present using ++has:by:
> (~(has by colors) %teal)%.n> (~(has by colors) %green)%.y
You can get a list of all keys with ++key:by:
> ~(key by colors){%black %red %blue %violet %green %yellow %orange}
You can apply a gate to each value using ++run:by. For instance, these gates will break the color hexadecimal value into red, green, and blue components:
> =red |=(a=@ux ^-(@ux (cut 2 [4 2] a)))> =green |=(a=@ux ^-(@ux (cut 2 [2 2] a)))> =blue |=(a=@ux ^-(@ux (cut 2 [0 2] a)))> (~(run by colors) blue){ [p=%black q=0x0][p=%red q=0x3f][p=%blue q=0xff][p=%violet q=0xa3][p=%green q=0x38][p=%yellow q=0x70][p=%orange q=0x33]}
Exercise: Display Cards
Recall the
/lib/playing-cards.hoonlibrary. Use a map to pretty-print thedarcs as Unicode card symbols.The map type should be
(map darc @t). We'll use ++malt to build it and associate the fancy (if tiny) Unicode playing card symbols↗.Add the following arms to the library core:
Click to expand
++ pp-card|= c=darc(~(got by card-table) c)++ card-table%- malt^- (list [darc @t]):~ :- [sut=%clubs val=1] '🃑':- [sut=%clubs val=2] '🃒':- [sut=%clubs val=3] '🃓':- [sut=%clubs val=4] '🃔':- [sut=%clubs val=5] '🃕':- [sut=%clubs val=6] '🃖':- [sut=%clubs val=7] '🃗':- [sut=%clubs val=8] '🃘':- [sut=%clubs val=9] '🃙':- [sut=%clubs val=10] '🃚':- [sut=%clubs val=11] '🃛':- [sut=%clubs val=12] '🃝':- [sut=%clubs val=13] '🃞':- [sut=%diamonds val=1] '🃁':- [sut=%diamonds val=2] '🃂':- [sut=%diamonds val=3] '🃃':- [sut=%diamonds val=4] '🃄':- [sut=%diamonds val=5] '🃅':- [sut=%diamonds val=6] '🃆':- [sut=%diamonds val=7] '🃇':- [sut=%diamonds val=8] '🃈':- [sut=%diamonds val=9] '🃉':- [sut=%diamonds val=10] '🃊':- [sut=%diamonds val=11] '🃋':- [sut=%diamonds val=12] '🃍':- [sut=%diamonds val=13] '🃎':- [sut=%hearts val=1] '🂱':- [sut=%hearts val=2] '🂲':- [sut=%hearts val=3] '🂳':- [sut=%hearts val=4] '🂴':- [sut=%hearts val=5] '🂵':- [sut=%hearts val=6] '🂶':- [sut=%hearts val=7] '🂷':- [sut=%hearts val=8] '🂸':- [sut=%hearts val=9] '🂹':- [sut=%hearts val=10] '🂺':- [sut=%hearts val=11] '🂻':- [sut=%hearts val=12] '🂽':- [sut=%hearts val=13] '🂾':- [sut=%spades val=1] '🂡':- [sut=%spades val=2] '🂢':- [sut=%spades val=3] '🂣':- [sut=%spades val=4] '🂤':- [sut=%spades val=5] '🂥':- [sut=%spades val=6] '🂦':- [sut=%spades val=7] '🂧':- [sut=%spades val=8] '🂨':- [sut=%spades val=9] '🂩':- [sut=%spades val=10] '🂪':- [sut=%spades val=11] '🂫':- [sut=%spades val=12] '🂭':- [sut=%spades val=13] '🂮'==Import the library in Dojo (or use
/+faslus in a generator) and build a deck:> =playing-cards -build-file /===/lib/playing-cards/hoon> =deck (shuffle-deck:playing-cards make-deck:playing-cards eny)> deck~[[sut=%spades val=12][sut=%spades val=8][sut=%hearts val=5][sut=%clubs val=2][sut=%diamonds val=10]...[sut=%spades val=2][sut=%hearts val=6][sut=%hearts val=12]]Finally, render each card in the hand to a
@tcord:> =new-deck (draw:playing-cards 5 deck)> =/ index 0=/ hand *(list @t)|-?: =(index (lent hand:new-deck))hand$(index +(index), hand (snoc hand (pp-card:playing-cards (snag index hand:new-deck))))<|🂭 🂨 🂵 🃒 🃊|>
Tutorial: Caesar Cipher
The Caesar cipher is a shift cipher (that was indeed used anciently↗) wherein each letter in a message is encrypted by replacing it with one shifted some number of positions down the alphabet. For example, with a “right-shift” of 1, a would become b, j would become k, and z would wrap around back to a.
Consider the message below, and the cipher that results when we Caesar-shift the message to the right by 1.
Plaintext message: "do not give way to anger"Right-shifted cipher: "ep opu hjwf xbz up bohfs"
Below is a generator that performs a Caesar cipher on a tape. This example isn't the most compact implementation of such a cipher in Hoon, but it demonstrates important principles that more laconic code would not. Save it as /gen/caesar.hoon on your %base desk.
/gen/caesar.hoon
Click to expand
!:|= [msg=tape steps=@ud]=<=. msg (cass msg):- (shift msg steps)(unshift msg steps)::|%++ alpha "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz":: Shift a message to the right.::++ shift|= [message=tape steps=@ud]^- tape(operate message (encoder steps)):: Shift a message to the left.::++ unshift|= [message=tape steps=@ud]^- tape(operate message (decoder steps)):: Rotate forwards into encryption.::++ encoder|= [steps=@ud]^- (map @t @t)=/ value-tape=tape (rotation alpha steps)(space-adder alpha value-tape):: Rotate backwards out of encryption.::++ decoder|= [steps=@ud]^- (map @t @t)=/ value-tape=tape (rotation alpha steps)(space-adder value-tape alpha):: Apply the map of decrypted->encrypted letters to the message.::++ operate|= [message=tape shift-map=(map @t @t)]^- tape%+ turn message|= a=@t(~(got by shift-map) a):: Handle spaces in the message.::++ space-adder|= [key-position=tape value-result=tape]^- (map @t @t)(~(put by (map-maker key-position value-result)) ' ' ' '):: Produce a map from each letter to its encrypted value.::++ map-maker|= [key-position=tape value-result=tape]^- (map @t @t)=| chart=(map @t @t)?. =((lent key-position) (lent value-result))~| %uneven-lengths !!|-?: |(?=(~ key-position) ?=(~ value-result))chart$(chart (~(put by chart) i.key-position i.value-result), key-position t.key-position, value-result t.value-result):: Cycle an alphabet around, e.g. from:: 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ' to 'BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZA'::++ rotation|= [my-alphabet=tape my-steps=@ud]=/ length=@ud (lent my-alphabet)=+ (trim (mod my-steps length) my-alphabet)(weld q p)--
This generator takes two arguments: a tape, which is your plaintext message, and an unsigned integer, which is the shift-value of the cipher. It produces a cell of two tapes: one that has been shifted right by the value, and another that has been shifted left. It also converts any uppercase input into lowercase.
Try it out in the Dojo:
> +caesar ["abcdef" 1]["bcdefg" "zabcde"]> +caesar ["test" 2]["vguv" "rcqr"]> +caesar ["test" 26]["test" "test"]> +caesar ["test" 28]["vguv" "rcqr"]> +caesar ["test" 104]["test" "test"]> +caesar ["tESt" 2]["vguv" "rcqr"]> +caesar ["test!" 2]nest-fail
Examining the Code
Let's examine our caesar.hoon code piece by piece. We won't necessarily go in written order; instead, we'll cover code in the intuitive order of the program. For each chunk that we cover, try to read and understand the code itself before reading the explanation.
There are a few runes in this which we haven't seen yet; we will deal with them incidentally in the commentary.
!:|= [msg=tape steps=@ud]=<
The !: zapcol in the first line of the above code enables a full stack trace in the event of an error.
|= [msg=tape steps=@ud] creates a gate that takes a cell. The head of this cell is a tape, which is a string type that's a list of cords. Tapes are represented as text surrounded by double-quotes, such as this: "a tape". We give this input tape the face msg. The tail of our cell is a @ud -- an unsigned decimal atom -- that we give the face steps.
=< zapgal is the rune that evaluates its first child expression with respect to its second child expression as the subject. In this case, we evaluate the expressions in the code chunk below against the core declared later, which allows us reference the core's contained arms before they are defined. Without =<, we would need to put the code chunk below at the bottom of our program. In Hoon, as previously stated, we always want to keep the longer code towards the bottom of our programs - =< helps us do that.
=. msg (cass msg):- (shift msg steps)(unshift msg steps)
=. msg (cass msg) changes the input string msg to lowercases. =. tisdot changes the leg of the subject to something else. In our case, the leg to be changed is msg, and the thing to replace it is (cass msg). cass is a standard-library gate that converts uppercase letters to lowercase.
:- (shift msg steps) and (unshift msg steps) simply composes a cell of a right-shifted cipher and a left-shifted cipher of our original message. We will see how this is done using the core described below, but this is the final output of our generator. We have indented the lower line, which is not strictly good Hoon style but makes the intent clearer.
|%
|% barcen creates a core, the second child of =< tisgal. Everything after |% is part of that second child core, and will be used as the subject of the first child of =<, described above. The various parts, or arms, of the core are denoted by ++ luslus beneath it, for instance:
++ rotation|= [my-alphabet=tape my-steps=@ud]=/ length=@ud (lent my-alphabet)=+ (trim (mod my-steps length) my-alphabet)(weld q p)
The ++rotation arm takes takes a specified number of characters off of a tape and puts them on the end of the tape. We're going to use this to create our shifted alphabet, based on the number of steps given as an argument to our gate.
|= [my-alphabet=tape my-steps=@ud] creates a gate that takes two arguments: my-alphabet, a tape, and my-steps, a @ud.
=/ length=@ud (lent my-alphabet) stores the length of my-alphabet to make the following code a little clearer.
The ++trim gate from the standard library splits a tape into two parts at a specified position. So =+ (trim (mod my-steps length) my-alphabet) splits the tape my-alphabet into two parts, p and q, which are now directly available in the subject. We call the modulus operation mod to make sure that the point at which we split our tape is a valid point inside of my-alphabet even if my-steps is greater than length, the length of my-alphabet. Try trim in the dojo:
> (trim 2 "abcdefg")[p="ab" q="cdefg"]> (trim 4 "yourbeard")[p="your" q="beard"]
(weld q p) uses ++weld, which combines two strings into one. Remember that trim has given us a split version of my-alphabet with p being the front half that was split off of my-alphabet and q being the back half. Here we are welding the two parts back together, but in reverse order: the second part q is welded to the front, and the first part p is welded to the back.
++ map-maker|= [key-position=tape value-result=tape]^- (map @t @t)=| chart=(map @t @t)?. =((lent key-position) (lent value-result))~| %uneven-lengths !!|-?: |(?=(~ key-position) ?=(~ value-result))chart$(chart (~(put by chart) i.key-position i.value-result), key-position t.key-position, value-result t.value-result)
The ++map-maker arm, as the name implies, takes two tapes and creates a map out of them. A map is a type equivalent to a dictionary in other languages: it's a data structure that associates a key with a value. If, for example, we wanted to have an association between a and 1 and b and 2, we could use a map.
|= [a=tape b=tape] builds a gate that takes two tapes, a and b, as its sample.
^- (map @t @t) casts the gate to a map with a cord (or @t) key and a cord value.
You might wonder, if our gate in this arm takes tapes, why then are we producing a map of cord keys and values?
As we discussed earlier, a tape is a list of cords. In this case what we are going to do is map a single element of a tape (either our alphabet or shifted-alphabet) to an element of a different tape (either our shifted-alphabet or our alphabet). This pair will therefore be a pair of cords. When we go to use this map to convert our incoming msg, we will take each element (cord) of our msg tape, use it as a key when accessing our map and get the corresponding value from that position in the map. This is how we're going to encode or decode our msg tape.
=| chart=(map @t @t) adds a noun to the subject with the default value of the (map @t @t) type, and gives that noun the face chart.
?. =((lent key-position) (lent value-result)) checks if the two tapes are the same length. If not, the program crashes with an error message of %uneven-lengths, using |~ %uneven-lengths !!.
If the two tapes are of the same length, we continue on to create a trap. |- barhep creates a trap, a gate with no arguments that is called immediately.
?: |(?=(~ key-position) ?=(~ value-result)) checks if either tape is empty. If this is true, the map-maker arm is finished and can return chart, the map that we have been creating.
If the above test finds that the tapes are not empty, we trigger a recursion that constructs our map: $(chart (~(put by chart) i.a i.b), a t.a, b t.b). This code recursively adds an entry in our map where the head of the tape a maps to the value of the head of tape b with ~(put by chart), our calling of the put arm of the by map-engine core (note that ~(<wing> <door> <sample>) is a shorthand for %~ <wing> <door> <sample> (see the %~ censig documentation for more information). The recursion also "consumes" those heads with every iteration by changing a and b to their tails using a t.a, b t.b.
We have three related arms to look at next, ++decoder, ++encoder, and ++space-adder. ++space-adder is required for the other two, so we'll look at it first.
++ space-adder|= [key-position=tape value-result=tape]^- (map @t @t)(~(put by (map-maker key-position value-result)) ' ' ' ')
|= [key-position=tape value-result=tape] creates a gate that takes two tapes.
We use the put arm of the by core on the next line, giving it a map produced by the map-maker arm that we created before as its sample. This adds an entry to the map where the space character (called ace) simply maps to itself. This is done to simplify the handling of spaces in tapes we want to encode, since we don't want to shift them.
++ encoder|= [steps=@ud]^- (map @t @t)=/ value-tape=tape (rotation alpha steps)(space-adder alpha value-tape)++ decoder|= [steps=@ud]^- (map @t @t)=/ key-tape=tape (rotation alpha steps)(space-adder key-tape alpha)
++encoder and ++decoder utilize the rotation and space-adder arms. These gates are essentially identical, with the arguments passed to space-adder reversed. They simplify the two common transactions you want to do in this program: producing maps that we can use to encode and decode messages.
In both cases, we create a gate that accepts a @ud named steps.
In encoder: =/ value-tape=tape (rotation alpha steps) creates a value-tape noun by calling rotation on alpha. alpha is our arm which contains a tape of the entire alphabet. The value-tape will be the list of values in our map.
In decoder: =/ key-tape (rotation alpha steps) does the same work, but when passed to space-adder it will be the list of keys in our map.
(space-adder alpha value-tape), for encoder, and (space-adder key-tape alpha), for decoder, produce a map that has the first argument as the keys and the second as the values.
If our two inputs to space-adder were "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz" and "bcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyza", we would get a map where 'a' maps to 'b', 'b' to 'c' and so on. By doing this we can produce a map that gives us a translation between the alphabet and our shifted alphabet, or vice versa.
Still with us? Good. We are finally about to use all the stuff that we've walked through.
++ shift|= [message=tape shift-steps=@ud]^- tape(operate message (encoder shift-steps))++ unshift|= [message=tape shift-steps=@ud]^- tape(operate message (decoder shift-steps))
Both ++shift and ++unshift take two arguments: our message, the tape that we want to manipulate; and our shift-steps, the number of positions of the alphabet by which we want to shift our message.
++shift is for encoding, and ++unshift is for decoding. Thus, ++shift calls the operate arm with (operate message (encoder shift-steps)), and ++unshift makes that call with (operate message (decoder shift-steps)). These both produce the final output of the core, to be called in the form of (shift msg steps) and (unshift msg steps) in the cell being created at the beginning of our code.
++ operate|= [message=tape shift-map=(map @t @t)]^- tape%+ turn message|= a=@t(~(got by shift-map) a)
++operate produces a tape. The %+ cenlus rune allows us to pull an arm with a pair sample. The arm we are going to pull is turn. This arm takes two arguments, a list and a gate to apply to each element of the list.
In this case, the gate we are applying to our message uses the got arm of the by door with our shift-map as the sample (which is either the standard alphabet for keys, and the shifted alphabet for values, or the other way, depending on whether we are encoding or decoding) to look up each cord in our message, one by one and replace it with the value from our map (either the encoded or decoded version).
Let's give our arm Caesar's famous statement (translated into English!) and get our left-cipher and right-cipher.
> +caesar ["i came i saw i conquered" 4]["m geqi m wea m gsruyivih" "e ywia e ows e ykjmqanaz"]
Now, to decode, we can put either of our ciphers in with the appropriate key and look for the legible result.
> +caesar ["m geqi m wea m gsruyivih" 4]["q kium q aie q kwvycmzml" "i came i saw i conquered"]> +caesar ["e ywia e ows e ykjmqanaz" 4]["i came i saw i conquered" "a usew a kso a ugfimwjwv"]
Further Exercise
- Take the example generator and modify it to add a second layer of shifts.
- Extend the example generator to allow for use of characters other than a-z. Make it shift the new characters independently of the alpha characters, such that punctuation is only encoded as other punctuation marks.
- Build a gate that can take a Caesar shifted
tapeand produce all possible unshiftedtapes. - Modify the example generator into a
%saygenerator.
A Bit More on Cores
The |^ barket rune is an example of what we can call a convenience rune, similar to the idea of sugar syntax (irregular syntax to make writing certain things out in a more expressive manner). |^ barket produces a core with at least a $ buc arm and computes it immediately, called a cork. (So a cork is like a trap in the regard of computing immediately, but it has more arms than just $ buc.)
This code calculates the volume of a cylinder, A=πr²h.
=volume-of-cylinder |^(mul:rs (area-of-circle .2.0) height)++ area-of-circle|= r=@rs(mul:rs pi r)++ pi .3.1415926++ height .10.0--
Since all of the values either have to be pinned ahead of time or made available as arms, a |^ barket would probably be used inside of a gate. Of course, since it is a core with a $ buc arm, one could also use it recursively to calculate values like the factorial.
If you read the docs, you'll find that a |- barhep rune “produces a trap (a core with one arm $) and evaluates it.” So a trap actually evaluates to a |% barcen core with an arm $:
:: count to five=/ index 1|-?: =(index 5) index$(index +(index))
actually translates to
:: count to five=/ index 1=< $|%++ $?: =(index 5) index%= $index +(index)==--
You can also create a trap for later use with the |. bardot rune. It's quite similar, but without the =<($... part then it doesn't get evaluated immediately.
> =forty-two |.(42)> $:forty-two42> (forty-two)42
What is a gate? It is a door with only one arm $ buc, and whenever you invoke it then that default arm's expression is referred to and evaluated.
A gate and a trap are actually very similar: a gate simply has a sample (and can actively change when evaluated or via a %= centis), whereas a trap does not (and can only be passively changed via something like %= centis).
Example: Hoon Workbook
Other examples demonstrating ++map are available in the Hoon Workbook, such as Solution #2 in the Rhonda Numbers tutorial.