fstar

Use meta-programming in F* for a syntactic check on a function argument


I would like to write a function that enforces that its argument is, syntactically, a constant string. Here's what I tried:

module Test

module R = FStar.Reflection

let is_literal (t: R.term) =
  match R.inspect_ln t with
  | R.Tv_Const (R.C_String _) -> true
  | _ -> false

let check_literal (s: string { normalize (is_literal (`s)) }) =
  ()

let test () =
  check_literal ""; // should work
  let s = "" in
  check_literal s // should not work

However, I'm pretty sure static quotations (with `) are not what I want, but instead dynamic quotations with quote. But this would put my precondition into the Tac effect. Is there any way to do what I want in the current state of things?


Solution

  • I don't know if you finally found a solution, but what about implicit meta arguments?

    They somehow allow running Tac code at function invocation time, making quote usable.

    Changing your code a bit doing so seems to work:

    module Is_lit
    
    open FStar.Tactics
    
    let is_literal (t: term) =
      match inspect_ln t with
      | Tv_Const (C_String _) -> true
      | _ -> false
    
    let check_literal (s: string)
                      (#[(if (normalize_term (is_literal (quote s)))
                          then exact (`())
                          else fail "not a litteral")
                        ] witness: unit)
                      : unit =
      ()
    
    // success
    let _ = check_literal "hey" 
    
    // failure
    [@expect_failure]
    let _ = let s = "hey" in check_literal s