Solving balanced parentheses problem using Dart's type system
shilangyu.dev
shilangyu.dev
Another way to think about the problem is that we can define a finitely-presented monoid, called the bicyclic monoid, with identity element e, two generators a and b, and the relation ab=e:
<a, b where ab=e>
Then, ( corresponds to a and ) corresponds to b, and a string like aaababbb is balanced if it is equivalent to e via the identity element.A finitely-presented monoid corresponds directly to a protocol declaration in Swift:
protocol P {
associatedtype A: P
associatedtype B: P where A.B == Self
}
Now you can declare a function which is generic over a type conforming to `P`: sameType<T>(_: T.Type, _: T.Type) {}
func f<T: P>(_: T) {
sameType(T.A.A.A.B.A.B.B.B.self, T.self) // type checks
sameType(T.B.B.A.self, T.self) // error, not balanced
}
The call to sameType() will type check if and only if both type arguments are equivalent.In Rust you can similarly define a trait with two associated types and a where clause (I haven't tried it but it should work).