Combining parsers in Haskell - parsing

Question

I'm given the following parsers
newtype Parser a = Parser { parse :: String -> Maybe (a,String) }
instance Functor Parser where
fmap f p = Parser $ \s -> (\(a,c) -> (f a, c)) <$> parse p s
instance Applicative Parser where
pure a = Parser $ \s -> Just (a,s)
f <*> a = Parser $ \s ->
case parse f s of
Just (g,s') -> parse (fmap g a) s'
Nothing -> Nothing
instance Alternative Parser where
empty = Parser $ \s -> Nothing
l <|> r = Parser $ \s -> parse l s <|> parse r s
ensure :: (a -> Bool) -> Parser a -> Parser a
ensure p parser = Parser $ \s ->
case parse parser s of
Nothing -> Nothing
Just (a,s') -> if p a then Just (a,s') else Nothing
lookahead :: Parser (Maybe Char)
lookahead = Parser f
where f [] = Just (Nothing,[])
f (c:s) = Just (Just c,c:s)
satisfy :: (Char -> Bool) -> Parser Char
satisfy p = Parser f
where f [] = Nothing
f (x:xs) = if p x then Just (x,xs) else Nothing
eof :: Parser ()
eof = Parser $ \s -> if null s then Just ((),[]) else Nothing
eof' :: Parser ()
eof' = ???
I need to write a new parser eof' that does exactly what eof does but is built only using the given parsers and the
Functor/Applicative/Alternative instances above. I'm stuck on this as I don't have experience in combining parsers. Can anyone help me out ?

Answer 1

To understand it easier, we can write it in an equational pseudocode, while we substitute and simplify the definitions, using Monad Comprehensions for clarity and succinctness.
Monad Comprehensions are just like List Comprehensions, only working for any MonadPlus type, not just []; while corresponding closely to do notation, e.g. [ (f a, s') | (a, s') <- parse p s ] === do { (a, s') <- parse p s ; return (f a, s') }.
This gets us:
newtype Parser a = Parser { parse :: String -> Maybe (a,String) }
instance Functor Parser where
parse (fmap f p) s = [ (f a, s') | (a, s') <- parse p s ]
instance Applicative Parser where
parse (pure a) s = pure (a, s)
parse (pf <*> pa) s = [ (g a, s'') | (g, s') <- parse pf s
, (a, s'') <- parse pa s' ]
instance Alternative Parser where
parse empty s = empty
parse (l <|> r) s = parse l s <|> parse r s
ensure :: (a -> Bool) -> Parser a -> Parser a
parse (ensure pred p) s = [ (a, s') | (a, s') <- parse p s, pred a ]
lookahead :: Parser (Maybe Char)
parse lookahead [] = pure (Nothing, [])
parse lookahead s#(c:_) = pure (Just c, s )
satisfy :: (Char -> Bool) -> Parser Char
parse (satisfy p) [] = mzero
parse (satisfy p) (x:xs) = [ (x, xs) | p x ]
eof :: Parser ()
parse eof s = [ ((), []) | null s ]
eof' :: Parser ()
eof' = ???
By the way thanks to the use of Monad Comprehensions and the more abstract pure, empty and mzero instead of their concrete representations in terms of the Maybe type, this same (pseudo-)code will work with a different type, like [] in place of Maybe, viz. newtype Parser a = Parser { parse :: String -> [(a,String)] }.
So we have
ensure :: (a -> Bool) -> Parser a -> Parser a
lookahead :: Parser (Maybe Char)
(satisfy is no good for us here .... why?)
Using that, we can have
ensure ....... ...... :: Parser (Maybe Char)
(... what does ensure id (pure False) do? ...)
but we'll have a useless Nothing result in case the input string was in fact empty, whereas the eof parser given to use produces the () as its result in such case (and otherwise it produces nothing).
No fear, we also have
fmap :: ( a -> b ) -> Parser a -> Parser b
which can transform the Nothing into () for us. We'll need a function that will always do this for us,
alwaysUnit nothing = ()
which we can use now to arrive at the solution:
eof' = fmap ..... (..... ..... ......)