First I would like to apologize if I am not asking the correct question. I realize that there are some fundamental concepts that I don't quite understand about Monads and the bind operator which is making it difficult to formulate my question. I am having a hard time wrapping my head around how the following code is creating a list of tuples.
ordPairs :: Ord a => [a] -> [(a, a)]
ordPairs xs =
xs >>= \x1 ->
xs >>= \x2 ->
if x1 < x2 then [(x1, x2)] else []
main = print $ ordPairs [1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 3, 4, 5, 6, 2, 9, 7, 8, 45, 4]
I understand the type declaration states that it returns a list of tuples [(a, a)]. What I can't figure out is how is this code "looping" through each item in the list? Looking at this as a beginner it looks as if it only passes the first and second item forward x1 and x2 and then ends with the if then else expression. Is this code being desugared into multiple iterations and building the list under the hood? I guess what I am asking is how is this code iterating through each item in the list and building a list of tuples at the end?
It might help to understand "where the parentheses are". The right-hand side of the ordPairs definitions is parsed like this:
xs >>= (\x1 -> xs >>= (\x2 -> if x1 < x2 then [(x1, x2)] else []))
As you can see here, the if-then-else expression does not stand alone, it's actually the body of an anonymous function:
\x2 -> if x1 < x2 then [(x1, x2)] else []
which can, obviously, be invoked multiple times for different values of x2. What invokes it? Well, the second >>= operator, of course. The "outer" loop works similarly, with the first >>= operator invoking another anonymous function multiple times:
\x1 -> xs >>= (\x2 -> ...)
For this example, you could replace the >>= operator with your own custom bind function. Note that it's just a plain function. There's no special desugaring or secret iterating going on. The function itself does the iterating using recursion:
bind :: [a] -> (a -> [b]) -> [b]
bind (x:xs) f = f x ++ bind xs f
bind [] _ = []
You could also write bind like this, if you prefer:
bind xs f = concatMap f xs
-- or even `bind = flip concatMap`, as per #WillemVanOnsem's comment
Or as a list comprehension.
bind xs f = [y | x <- xs, y <- f x]
This last one is the actual definition of the >>= operator for the list monad. See GHC/Base.hs.
With any of these definitions, the following will work just like your original:
bind :: [a] -> (a -> [b]) -> [b]
bind (x:xs) f = f x ++ bind xs f
bind [] _ = []
ordPairs :: Ord a => [a] -> [(a, a)]
ordPairs xs =
xs `bind` \x1 ->
xs `bind` \x2 ->
if x1 < x2 then [(x1, x2)] else []
main = print $ ordPairs [1,2,4,6,7,8,4,5,6,2,9,7,8,45,4]
Related
I need some kind of fold which can terminate if I already have the data I want.
For example I need to find first 3 numbers which are greater than 5. I decided to use Either for termination and my code looks like this:
terminatingFold :: ([b] -> a -> Either [b] [b]) -> [a] -> [b]
terminatingFold f l = reverse $ either id id $ fold [] l
where fold acc [] = Right acc
fold acc (x:xs) = f acc x >>= flip fold xs
first3NumsGreater5 acc x =
if length acc >= 3
then Left acc
else Right (if x > 5 then (x : acc) else acc)
Are there some more clever/generic approaches?
The result of your function is a list, and it would be desirable if it were produced lazily, that is, extracting one item from the result should only require evaluating the input list up until the item is found there.
Unfolds are under-appreciated for these kinds of tasks. Instead of focusing on "consuming" the input list, let's think of it as a seed from which (paired with some internal accumulator) we can produce the result, element by element.
Let's define a Seed type that contains a generic accumulator paired with the as-yet unconsumed parts of the input:
{-# LANGUAGE NamedFieldPuns #-}
import Data.List (unfoldr)
data Seed acc input = Seed {acc :: acc, pending :: [input]}
Now let's reformulate first3NumsGreater5 as a function that either produces the next output element from the Seed, of signals that there aren't any more elements:
type Counter = Int
first3NumsGreater5 :: Seed Counter Int -> Maybe (Int, Seed Counter Int)
first3NumsGreater5 (Seed {acc, pending})
| acc >= 3 =
Nothing
| otherwise =
case dropWhile (<= 5) pending of
[] -> Nothing
x : xs -> Just (x, Seed {acc = succ acc, pending = xs})
Now our main function can be written in terms of unfoldr:
unfoldFromList ::
(Seed acc input -> Maybe (output, Seed acc input)) ->
acc ->
[input] ->
[output]
unfoldFromList next acc pending = unfoldr next (Seed {acc, pending})
Putting it to work:
main :: IO ()
main = print $ unfoldFromList first3NumsGreater5 0 [0, 6, 2, 7, 9, 10, 11]
-- [6,7,9]
Normally an early termination-capable fold is foldr with the combining function which is non-strict in its second argument. But, its information flow is right-to-left (if any), while you want it left-to-right.
A possible solution is to make foldr function as a left fold, which can then be made to stop early:
foldlWhile :: Foldable t
=> (a -> Bool) -> (r -> a -> r) -> r
-> t a -> r
foldlWhile t f a xs = foldr cons (\acc -> acc) xs a
where
cons x r acc | t x = r (f acc x)
| otherwise = acc
You will need to tweak this for t to test the acc instead of x, to fit your purposes.
This function is foldlWhile from https://wiki.haskell.org/Foldl_as_foldr_alternative, re-written a little. foldl'Breaking from there might fit the bill a bit better.
foldr with the lazy reducer function can express corecursion perfectly fine just like unfoldr does.
And your code is already lazy: terminatingFold (\acc x -> Left acc) [1..] => []. That's why I'm not sure if this answer is "more clever", as you've requested.
edit: following a comment by #danidiaz, to make it properly lazy you'd have to code it as e.g.
first3above5 :: (Foldable t, Ord a, Num a)
=> t a -> [a]
first3above5 xs = foldr cons (const []) xs 0
where
cons x r i | x > 5 = if i==2 then [x]
else x : r (i+1)
| otherwise = r i
This can be generalized further by abstracting the test and the count.
Of course it's just reimplementing take 3 . filter (> 5), but shows how to do it in general with foldr.
Given a condition, I want to search through a list of elements and return the first element that reaches the condition, and the previous one.
In C/C++ this is easy :
int i = 0;
for(;;i++) if (arr[i] == 0) break;
After we get the index where the condition is met, getting the previous element is easy, through "arr[i-1]"
In Haskell:
dropWhile (/=0) list gives us the last element I want
takeWhile (/=0) list gives us the first element I want
But I don't see a way of getting both in a simple manner. I could enumerate the list and use indexing, but that seems messy. Is there a proper way of doing this, or a way of working around this?
I would zip the list with its tail so that you have pairs of elements
available. Then you can just use find on the list of pairs:
f :: [Int] -> Maybe (Int, Int)
f xs = find ((>3) . snd) (zip xs (tail xs))
> f [1..10]
Just (3,4)
If the first element matches the predicate this will return
Nothing (or the second match if there is one) so you might need to special-case that if you want something
different.
As Robin Zigmond says break can also work:
g :: [Int] -> (Int, Int)
g xs = case break (>3) xs of (_, []) -> error "not found"
([], _) -> error "first element"
(ys, z:_) -> (last ys, z)
(Or have this return a Maybe as well, depending on what you need.)
But this will, I think, keep the whole prefix ys in memory until it
finds the match, whereas f can start garbage-collecting the elements
it has moved past. For small lists it doesn't matter.
I would use a zipper-like search:
type ZipperList a = ([a], [a])
toZipperList :: [a] -> ZipperList a
toZipperList = (,) []
moveUntil' :: (a -> Bool) -> ZipperList a -> ZipperList a
moveUntil' _ (xs, []) = (xs, [])
moveUntil' f (xs, (y:ys))
| f y = (xs, (y:ys))
| otherwise = moveUntil' f (y:xs, ys)
moveUntil :: (a -> Bool) -> [a] -> ZipperList a
moveUntil f = moveUntil' f . toZipperList
example :: [Int]
example = [2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19]
result :: ZipperList Int
result = moveUntil (>10) example -- ([7,5,3,2], [11,13,17,19])
The good thing about zippers is that they are efficient, you can access as many elements near the index you want, and you can move the focus of the zipper forwards and backwards. Learn more about zippers here:
http://learnyouahaskell.com/zippers
Note that my moveUntil function is like break from the Prelude but the initial part of the list is reversed. Hence you can simply get the head of both lists.
A non-awkward way of implementing this as a fold is making it a paramorphism. For general explanatory notes, see this answer by dfeuer (I took foldrWithTails from it):
-- The extra [a] argument f takes with respect to foldr
-- is the tail of the list at each step of the fold.
foldrWithTails :: (a -> [a] -> b -> b) -> b -> [a] -> b
foldrWithTails f n = go
where
go (a : as) = f a as (go as)
go [] = n
boundary :: (a -> Bool) -> [a] -> Maybe (a, a)
boundary p = foldrWithTails findBoundary Nothing
where
findBoundary x (y : _) bnd
| p y = Just (x, y)
| otherwise = bnd
findBoundary _ [] _ = Nothing
Notes:
If p y is true we don't have to look at bnd to get the result. That makes the solution adequately lazy. You can check that by trying out boundary (> 1000000) [0..] in GHCi.
This solution gives no special treatment to the edge case of the first element of the list matching the condition. For instance:
GHCi> boundary (<1) [0..9]
Nothing
GHCi> boundary even [0..9]
Just (1,2)
There's several alternatives; either way, you'll have to implement this yourself. You could use explicit recursion:
getLastAndFirst :: (a -> Bool) -> [a] -> Maybe (a, a)
getLastAndFirst p (x : xs#(y:ys))
| p y = Just (x, y)
| otherwise = getLastAndFirst p xs
getLastAndFirst _ [] = Nothing
Alternately, you could use a fold, but that would look fairly similar to the above, except less readable.
A third option is to use break, as suggested in the comments:
getLastAndFirst' :: (a -> Bool) -> [a] -> Maybe (a,a)
getLastAndFirst' p l =
case break p l of
(xs#(_:_), (y:_)) -> Just (last xs, y)
_ -> Nothing
(\(xs, ys) -> [last xs, head ys]) $ break (==0) list
Using break as Robin Zigmond suggested ended up short and simple, not using Maybe to catch edge-cases, but I could replace the lambda with a simple function that used Maybe.
I toyed a bit more with the solution and came up with
breakAround :: Int -> Int -> (a -> Bool) -> [a] -> [a]
breakAround m n cond list = (\(xs, ys) -> (reverse (reverse take m (reverse xs))) ++ take n ys) $ break (cond) list
which takes two integers, a predicate, and a list of a, and returns a single list of m elements before the predicate and n elements after.
Example: breakAround 3 2 (==0) [3,2,1,0,10,20,30] would return [3,2,1,0,10]
How can I apply a function to only a single element of a list?
Any suggestion?
Example:
let list = [1,2,3,4,3,6]
function x = x * 2
in ...
I want to apply function only to the first occurance of 3 and stop there.
Output:
List = [1,2,6,4,3,6] -- [1, 2, function 3, 4, 3, 6]
To map or not to map, that is the question.
Better not to map.
Why? Because map id == id anyway, and you only want to map through one element, the first one found to be equal to the argument given.
Thus, split the list in two, change the found element, and glue them all back together. Simple.
See: span :: (a -> Bool) -> [a] -> ([a], [a]).
Write: revappend (xs :: [a]) (ys :: [a]) == append (reverse xs) ys, only efficient.
Or fuse all the pieces together into one function. You can code it directly with manual recursion, or using foldr. Remember,
map f xs = foldr (\x r -> f x : r) [] xs
takeWhile p xs = foldr (\x r -> if p x then x : r else []) [] xs
takeUntil p xs = foldr (\x r -> if p x then [x] else x : r) [] xs
filter p xs = foldr (\x r -> if p x then x : r else r) [] xs
duplicate xs = foldr (\x r -> x : x : r) [] xs
mapFirstThat p f xs = -- ... your function
etc. Although, foldr won't be a direct fit, as you need the combining function of the (\x xs r -> ...) variety. That is known as paramorphism, and can be faked by feeding tails xs to the foldr, instead.
you need to maintain some type of state to indicate the first instance of the value, since map will apply the function to all values.
Perhaps something like this
map (\(b,x) -> if (b) then f x else x) $ markFirst 3 [1,2,3,4,3,6]
and
markFirst :: a -> [a] -> [(Boolean,a)]
markFirst a [] = []
markFirst a (x:xs) | x==a = (True,x): zip (repeat False) xs
| otherwise = (False,x): markFirst a xs
I'm sure there is an easier way, but that's the best I came up with at this time on the day before Thanksgiving.
Here is another approach based on the comment below
> let leftap f (x,y) = f x ++ y
leftap (map (\x -> if(x==3) then f x else x)) $ splitAt 3 [1,2,3,4,3,6]
You can just create a simple function which multiples a number by two:
times_two :: (Num a) => a -> a
times_two x = x * 2
Then simply search for the specified element in the list, and apply times_two to it. Something like this could work:
map_one_element :: (Eq a, Num a) => a -> (a -> a) -> [a] -> [a]
-- base case
map_one_element _ _ [] = []
-- recursive case
map_one_element x f (y:ys)
-- ff element is found, apply f to it and add rest of the list normally
| x == y = f y : ys
-- first occurence hasnt been found, keep recursing
| otherwise = y : map_one_element x f ys
Which works as follows:
*Main> map_one_element 3 times_two [1,2,3,4,3,6]
[1,2,6,4,3,6]
Need to create a list of tuples from a tuple with a static element and a list. Such as:
(Int, [String]) -> [(Int, String)]
Feel like this should be a simple map call but am having trouble actually getting it to output a tuple as zip would need a list input, not a constant.
I think this is the most direct and easy to understand solution (you already seem to be acquainted with map anyway):
f :: (Int, [String]) -> [(Int, String)]
f (i, xs) = map (\x -> (i, x)) xs
(which also happens to be the desugared version of [(i, x) | x < xs], which Landei proposed)
then
Prelude> f (3, ["a", "b", "c"])
[(3,"a"),(3,"b"),(3,"c")]
This solution uses pattern matching to "unpack" the tuple argument, so that the first tuple element is i and the second element is xs. It then does a simple map over the elements of xs to convert each element x to the tuple (i, x), which I think is what you're after. Without pattern matching it would be slightly more verbose:
f pair = let i = fst pair -- get the FIRST element
xs = snd pair -- get the SECOND element
in map (\x -> (i, x)) xs
Furthermore:
The algorithm is no way specific to (Int, [String]), so you can safely generalize the function by replacing Int and String with type parameters a and b:
f :: (a, [b]) -> [(a, b)]
f (i, xs) = map (\x -> (i, x)) xs
this way you can do
Prelude> f (True, [1.2, 2.3, 3.4])
[(True,1.2),(True,2.3),(True,3.4)]
and of course if you simply get rid of the type annotation altogether, the type (a, [b]) -> [(a, b)] is exactly the type that Haskell infers (only with different names):
Prelude> let f (i, xs) = map (\x -> (i, x)) xs
Prelude> :t f
f :: (t, [t1]) -> [(t, t1)]
Bonus: you can also shorten \x -> (i, x) to just (i,) using the TupleSections language extension:
{-# LANGUAGE TupleSections #-}
f :: (a, [b]) -> [(a, b)]
f (i, xs) = map (i,) xs
Also, as Ørjan Johansen has pointed out, the function sequence does indeed generalize this even further, but the mechanisms thereof are a bit beyond the scope.
For completeness, consider also cycle,
f i = zip (cycle [i])
Using foldl,
f i = foldl (\a v -> (i,v) : a ) []
Using a recursive function that illustrates how to divide the problem,
f :: Int -> [a] -> [(Int,a)]
f _ [] = []
f i (x:xs) = (i,x) : f i xs
A list comprehension would be quite intuitive and readable:
f (i,xs) = [(i,x) | x <- xs]
Do you want the Int to always be the same, just feed zip with an infinite list. You can use repeat for that.
f i xs = zip (repeat i) xs
I've figured out myself that foldl (or foldl') is the best approach when you want to produce summarise a list into one result (i.e. sum), and foldr is the best approach when you want to produce another (perhaps even infinite) list (i.e. filter).
So I was considering was processing that combines these two. So I made the function sum_f. sum_f is fairly simple, all it does is add up the elements of a list, but if it finds an element such that f x is true, it gives the current result as output as the element of a list and starts summing from that point all over.
The code is here:
sum_f :: (Num a) => (a -> Bool) -> [a] -> [a]
sum_f f =
let
sum_f_worker s (x:xs) =
let
rec_call z = sum_f_worker z xs
next_sum = s + x
in
next_sum `seq` if (f x) then next_sum : (rec_call 0) else rec_call next_sum
sum_f_worker _ [] = []
in
sum_f_worker 0
Now for example, lets sum all the positive integers grouped by any powers of two. This should output the following:
[1, 2, 3+4, 5+6+7+8, 9+10+11+12+13+14+15+16, ...]
i.e.
[1, 2, 7, 26, 100, ...]
We can do this like the following:
import Data.Bits
main =
let
power_of_two x = (x .&. (x - 1)) == 0 -- .&. is bitwise and
in
print $ take 25 $ sum_f power_of_two [(1::Integer)..]
Now this above function (I believe) runs in constant space (like foldl'), even though the groups grow exponentially. Also, it works on infinite lists (like foldr).
I was wondering whether I could write the above using prelude functions without explicit recursion (i.e. only the recursion inside prelude functions). Or does combining the ideas of foldl and foldr here mean that the recursion here can't be done with standard prelude functions and needs to be explicit?
What you want can be expressed using only a right fold as follows:
{-# LANGUAGE BangPatterns #-}
sum_f :: (Num a) => (a -> Bool) -> [a] -> [a]
sum_f p xs = foldr g (const []) xs 0
where
g x f !a = if p x then x+a:f 0 else f (x+a)
Prelude Data.Bits> sum_f (\x -> x .&. pred x == 0) [1..10]
[1,2,7,26]
And it works on infinite lists:
Prelude Data.Bits> take 10 . sum_f (\x -> x .&. pred x == 0) $ [1..]
[1,2,7,26,100,392,1552,6176,24640,98432]