Skip to content

zipper_algebra: Add XOR#42

Open
marcin-rzeznicki wants to merge 9 commits into
rz_path_api_and_fast_multi_branch_graftfrom
zipper_xor
Open

zipper_algebra: Add XOR#42
marcin-rzeznicki wants to merge 9 commits into
rz_path_api_and_fast_multi_branch_graftfrom
zipper_xor

Conversation

@marcin-rzeznicki

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Collaborator

This change introduces an n-way XOR operation implemented on top of the
existing ordered zipper traversal framework.

The implementation treats tries as sparse path→value mappings, with missing
paths interpreted as the lattice bottom element. XOR is therefore computed
pointwise on values rather than on path presence:

result(p) = xor(v₁(p), ..., vₙ(p))

A deliberate design choice is that traversal follows join semantics: a child
edge is explored whenever it is present in at least one input. Although XOR is
often described in terms of parity, cancelling values at a path does not imply
that all descendants cancel as well. Stopping traversal based solely on path
parity would therefore miss surviving values in deeper subtries.

As a result, XOR shares the same traversal skeleton as join and differs only in
the algebra used to combine coincident values.

…n the original slice-of-slices version

Everything is now expressed in terms of two bounded bitspaces
Introduce zipper_merge_dnf(), a generalized trie merge capable of
evaluating monotone Boolean expressions in Disjunctive Normal Form.

The implementation represents a DNF as:

    (Clause0) ∨ (Clause1) ∨ ...

where each Clause is a conjunction of input zippers encoded as a
compact bitmask. This replaces the earlier slice-of-slices approach
with a fixed universe of zippers plus clause membership masks.

Highlights:

* Add Clause<N> newtype for conjunction representation.
* Enforce clause validity at construction time.
* Add clause![] helper macro for ergonomic DNF construction.
* Share zipper traversal across clauses that reference the same input.
* Perform iterative tail descent when all active clauses follow the
  same path.
* Dispatch single-clause cases to specialized meet implementations.
* Support arbitrary monotone DNF expressions, including majority and
  threshold functions.

Example:

    (x ∧ y) ∨ (x ∧ z) ∨ (y ∧ z)

can now be expressed as:

    [
        clause![0, 1],
        clause![0, 2],
        clause![1, 2],
    ]

and evaluated directly via zipper_merge_dnf().
@Adam-Vandervorst

Adam-Vandervorst commented Jun 23, 2026

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Owner

Let's go from xor to sym_diff. And I guess xor_n becomes odd_occ?

Base automatically changed from dnf to rz_path_api_and_fast_multi_branch_graft June 24, 2026 15:09
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

None yet

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

2 participants