lambda is an implementation of the untyped Lambda Calculus.
"The Lambda calculus is a formal system in mathematical logic for expressing computation based on function abstraction and application using variable binding and substitution."
The grammar for the untyped Lambda calculus is fairly simple. Here it is in EBNF:
variable = "v" | variable, "'";
application = term, " ", term;
abstraction = "λ", letter, ".", term;
term = variable | "(", application, ")" | "(", abstraction, ")";
Examples for valid terms ("lambda-terms"):
v
(v v')
(λv.v)
(λv.(v v')
((λv.((λv''.(v'' v')) v)) v''')
We make some small changes to the lambda calculus' grammar for our convenience:
First, we replace the variable rule by the following one:
variable = "a" | "b" | ... | "z";
While the original rule technically allowed for an infinite number of variables, we very likely won't run into issues limiting ourselves to just 26 variable names.
Secondly, we add a rule to allow omitting the outermost parentheses:
lambdaterm = variable | application | abstraction | term;
Now, we make a small change to the abstraction rule:
abstraction = "\", letter, "." , ( abstraction | term );
This is allows us to write nested abstractions more easily, without having to use many parentheses, for example λx.λy.(x y).
Finally, also substitute the λ symbol for \ to make it easier to type.
As a result, these are also valid terms in lambda:
x y
\x.x
\x.(x y)
(x y) (x y)
\x.\y.(x y)
The final grammar now looks like this:
variable = "a" | "b" | ... | "z";
application = term, " ", term;
abstraction = "\", letter, "." , ( abstraction | term );
term = variable | "(", application, ")" | "(", abstraction, ")";
lambdaterm = variable | application | abstraction | term;