# Introduction

In my previous post about Church Encoding, I built up some booleans and their respective operators, numerals and several arithmetic operators. This post will focus on building two important constructs for any programming language: equality testing and lists. I will also continue my implementation with Python.

# Testing For Zero

Determining if a Church numeral is zero is done by finding a pair of arguments that will return whether the numeral is zero or not (a True/False expression). We can use the zz and ss terms from the subtraction operation, by applying our numeral to the pair ss and zz. The trick is, if ss is applied at all to zz we know that the numeral is not zero and return fls, otherwise we return tru. This makes perfect sense, since the numeral will be applied the number of times equal to its value.

In other words, if the Church numeral is 0, then ss will be applied 0 times to zz and will return tru. Once ss is applied to zz (if the numeral is not 0), it will return fls - not 0.

iszro = λm. m (λx. fls) tru

# iszro = λm. m (λx. fls) tru
iszro = lambda m: (m)(lambda x: fls)(tru)

iszro(c1)(True)(False)
False
>>> iszro(c0)(True)(False)
True
>>> iszro(sub(c3)(c3))(True)(False)
True
>>> iszro(sub(c3)(c2))(True)(False)
False
>>> iszro(times(c0)(c1))(True)(False)
True


# Numeric Equality

There are probably many ways to define numeric equality, however, the trick I will use is that m - n = 0 when m = n. So, testing for equality is as simple as applying sub then applying iszro to the result.

equal = λm. λn. iszro (sub m n)

# equal = λm. λn. iszro (sub m n)
equal = lambda m: lambda n: iszro(sub(m)(n))

>>> equal(c3)(c2)(True)(False)
False
>>> equal(c3)(c1)(True)(False)
False
>>> equal(c3)(c3)(True)(False)
True


There is are two big problems with this definition, however. First, each sub operation is O(n), second the resulting Church numeral must be defined otherwise iszro will evaluate to tru.

Pierce has a different definition of equal which has fewer evaluations than mine.

equal = λm. λn. and (iszro (m prd n))(iszro (n prd m))

# equal = λm. λn. and (iszro (m prd n))(iszro (n prd m))
equal = lambda m: lambda n: And(iszro((m)(prd)(n)))(iszro((n)(prd)(m)))

>>> equal(c2)(c3)(True)(False)
False
>>> equal(c0)(c0)(True)(False)
True


His definition is both more efficient and works in cases that mine does not. Since my definition does left-to-right subtraction, negative Church numerals (which I haven’t defined) evaluate to tru, since sub(2)(3) = -1.

## Numeric Greater or Less Than

Since we can define equal it shouldn’t be too hard to define greater and less than, and it turns out that it isn’t.

For strictly greater-than, we exploit the fact that prd will return 0 when m >= n. So, if m > 0 then it could be said that the following holds true: m >= n && !(n >= m) which makes m strictly greater-than n.

For strictly less-than, a simple trick of switching the order of arguments accomplishes the same thing: n >= m && !(m >= n) which means that m must be strictly less than n.

gt = λm. λn. and (iszro (m prd n))(not iszro(n prd m))
lt = λm. λn. and (iszro (n prd m))(not iszro(m prd n))

# gt = λm. λn. and (iszro (m prd n))(not iszro(n prd m))
gt = lambda m: lambda n: And(iszro((m)(prd)(n)))(Not(iszro((n)(prd)(m))))
# lt = λm. λn. and (iszro (n prd m))(not iszro(m prd n))
lt = lambda m: lambda n: And(iszro((n)(prd)(m)))(Not(iszro((m)(prd)(n))))

>>> gt(c0)(c3)(True)(False)
False
>>> gt(c0)(c0)(True)(False)
False
>>> gt(c3)(c2)(True)(False)
True
>>> lt(c0)(c3)(True)(False)
True
>>> lt(c0)(c0)(True)(False)
False
>>> lt(c3)(c2)(True)(False)
False


Greater-than-or-equal and less-than-or-equal can simply be calculated by concatenating gt|equal and lt|equal, which is trivial and I’ll leave that up to the reader.

# Lists

A list can be represented by a reduce or fold function in the λ-calculus. So the list [x y z] becomes a two-argument (c n) function that returns c x (c y (c z n)). There are several steps required to build lists detailed below.

## Representing nil

nil can be represented by the same expression as 0 and fls, using the arguments c n we can define:

nil = λc. λn. n

# nil = λc. λn. n
nil = lambda c: lambda n: n


## cons Function

cons is a function that will take an argument h and a list t and returns a folded representation of t with h prepended.

cons = λh. λt. λc. λn . c h (t c n)

# cons = λh. λt. λc. λn . c h (t c n)
cons = lambda h: lambda t: lambda c: lambda n: ((c)(h))((t)(c)(n))


## isnil Function

The isnil function will mimic the iszero function, since the definition of nil is the same as 0. However, we are running it on a list, so there is a little more to is.

isnil = λl. l (λh. λt. fls) tru

# isnil = λl. l (λh. λt. fls) tru
isnil = lambda l: (l)(lambda h: lambda t: fls)(tru)

>>> isnil(c1)(True)(False)
False
>>> isnil(nil)(True)(False)
True


## head Function

head is similar to isnil, except that we element at the beginning of the list instead of a Church boolean, otherwise fls.

head = λl. l (λh. λt.  h) fls

# head = λl. l (λh. λt.  h) fls
head = lambda l: (l)(lambda h: lambda t: h)(fls)


## tail Function

tail is much more difficult and employs a similar trick as the pred function did. I was unable to figure out tail without help from the book, so here is Pierce’s solution:

tail = λl.
fst (l (λx. λp. pair (snd p)(cons x (snd p)))
(pair nil nil))

# tail = λl.
#          fst (l (λx. λp. pair (snd p)(cons x (snd p)))
#                 (pair nil nil))
tail = lambda l: fst((l)(lambda x: lambda p: pair((snd(p))(cons(x)(snd(p))))(pair(nil)(nil))))