What tools are there for functional programming in C?

Question

I\'ve been thinking a lot lately about how to go about doing functional programming in C (not C++). Obviously, C is a procedural language and doesn\'t really support f

Answer 1

Prerequisite for functional programming style is a first class function. It could be simulated in portable C if you tolerate next:

• manual management of lexical scope bindings, aka closures.
• manual management of function variables lifetime.
• alternative syntax of function application/call.

/* 
 * with constraints desribed above we could have
 * good approximation of FP style in plain C
 */

int increment_int(int x) {
  return x + 1;
}

WRAP_PLAIN_FUNCTION_TO_FIRST_CLASS(increment, increment_int);

map(increment, list(number(0), number(1)); // --> list(1, 2)


/* composition of first class function is also possible */

function_t* computation = compose(
  increment,
  increment,
  increment
);

*(int*) call(computation, number(1)) == 4;

runtime for such code could be as small as one below

struct list_t {
  void* head;
  struct list_t* tail;
};

struct function_t {
   void* (*thunk)(list_t*);
   struct list_t* arguments;
}

void* apply(struct function_t* fn, struct list_t* arguments) {
  return fn->thunk(concat(fn->arguments, arguments));
}

/* expansion of WRAP_PLAIN_FUNCTION_TO_FIRST_CLASS */
void* increment_thunk(struct list_t* arguments) {
  int x_arg = *(int*) arguments->head;
  int value = increment_int(x_arg);
  int* number = malloc(sizeof *number);

  return number ? (*number = value, number) : NULL;
}

struct function_t* increment = &(struct function_t) {
  increment_thunk,
  NULL
};

/* call(increment, number(1)) expands to */
apply(increment, &(struct list_t) { number(1), NULL });

In essence we imitate first class function with closures represented as pair of function/arguments plus bunch of macroses. Complete code could be found here.