Haskell - How do I write an idiomatic and efficient loop? - haskell

I'm relatively new to Haskell, so I am working through some old Advent of Code problems to familiarize myself with the language.
However, I got stuck on 2017 day 17, part two.
I've tried three solutions to this problem.
(Edit: reduced the code block to a clearer example)
The following solution is something I would expect to work moderately efficiently:
run :: IO()
run = do
print "Starting:"
print (iteration''' 0 1 3 0 50000000)
iteration''' :: Int -> Int -> Int -> Int -> Int -> (Int, Int, Int, Int)
iteration''' cp cv ss zv 0 = (cp, cv, ss, zv)
iteration''' cp cv ss zv count = iteration''' ncp ncv ss nzv (count - 1)
where
ncp = ((cp + ss) `mod` cv) + 1
nzv = if ncp == 1 then cv else zv
ncv = cv + 1
The problem is that all three are horribly inefficient, both memory-wise and CPU-wise.
The equivalent C-code would be something like the following (completing very quickly).
int stepSize = 3;
int zv = 0;
int position = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < 50000000; i++) {
position = (position + stepSize) % i;
if (position == 0) zv = i;
}
I assumed iteration''' would be able to compile to something similar - but it eats up gigabytes of memory and loops for a long time.
To summarize my question - what is an idiomatic way to "solve this problem efficiently" in Haskell? Why is it eating up so much heap space when there is no actual object turnover necessary?
I am compiling using ghc (cabal).

For completeness, as answered by Daniel Wagner and chi:
The problem in the stated code was strictness (implicitly a large amount of lazily evaluated ints resulted in a large amount of overhead).
This method is a lot faster (adding the BangPatterns header)
iteration''' :: Int -> Int -> Int -> Int -> Int -> (Int, Int, Int, Int)
iteration''' !cp !cv !ss !zv 0 = (cp, cv, ss, zv)
iteration''' !cp !cv !ss !zv !count = iteration''' ncp ncv ss nzv (count - 1)
where
ncp = ((cp + ss) `mod` cv) + 1
nzv = if ncp == 1 then cv else zv
ncv = cv + 1
I think the implication is that this is the idiomatic way to write (some) performant code as well!

Related

Possible tail recursive solution in haskell producing stack overflow

I've been trying to solve the adventofcode day 5 question 2 (https://adventofcode.com/2017/day/5). It differs from the first question where if the item is bigger of equal to 3, it's decreased instead of increased by 1.
When running the implementation with the test data, it produces the correct outcome, so it seems that the implementation is perfect. Also, the recursive call looks to be in tail position, but it's still producing a stackoverflow exception.
The code looks like this
module AdventOfCode5 where
type Instruction = Int
type Position = Int
main :: IO ()
main = do
input <- readFile "day5input.txt"
let instructions = fmap (read :: String -> Instruction) $ lines input
_ <- putStrLn $ show $ computeResult (Prelude.length instructions) 0 (+1) $ instructions
return ()
main2 :: IO ()
main2 = do
input <- readFile "day5input.txt"
let instructions = fmap (read :: String -> Instruction) $ lines input
_ <- putStrLn $ show $ computeResult (Prelude.length instructions) 0 decAbove3AndIncBelow3 instructions
return ()
decAbove3AndIncBelow3 :: Int -> Int
decAbove3AndIncBelow3 x
| x >= 3 = x - 1
| otherwise = x + 1
computeResult :: Int -> Position -> (Int -> Int) -> [Instruction] -> Int
computeResult = takeStep' 0
where takeStep' :: Int -> Int -> Position -> (Int -> Int) -> [Instruction] -> Int
takeStep' count max pos changeInteger instructions
| pos >= max = count
| otherwise =
let
elementAtPos = instructions!!pos
newCount = count + 1
newPos = pos + elementAtPos
newInstructions = (take pos instructions) ++ ([(changeInteger elementAtPos)]) ++ (drop (pos + 1)) instructions
in
takeStep' newCount max newPos changeInteger newInstructions
The idea of the implementation is that you hold a counter and increment the counter for every iteration, in combination with altering the list of instructions with the updated version (where the Int -> Int is the function that knows how to update). You got a position where to look at and the recursion stops as soon as the position is larger than the list size (which i passed as input but could also be derived from the list of instructions).
Can anybody explain to me why this one is producing a stackoverflow?
There is a space leak in the first argument of takeStep', because it builds a thunk (... ((0 + 1) + 1) ...) + 1 instead of just evaluating the integer.
The stack may explode when that thunk gets evaluated.
Use seq to force count before continuing, e.g., count `seq` otherwise in the guard;
or compile with optimizations.
ghci is interpreting it, not compiling it. In particular, it doesn't perform the strictness analysis necessary to automatically fix that leak.
You can run this command to compile with optimizations (-O)
ghc -O -main-is AdventOfCode5.main2 AdventOfCode5.hs
(although even without optimizations compilation seems to reduce space usage enough to succeed.)

Haskell ways to the 3n+1 challenge

Here is a simple programming problem from SPOJ: http://www.spoj.com/problems/PROBTRES/.
Basically, you are asked to output the biggest Collatz cycle for numbers between i and j. (Collatz cycle of a number $n$ is the number of steps to eventually get from $n$ to 1.)
I have been looking for a Haskell way to solve the problem with comparative performance than that of Java or C++ (so as to fits in the allowed run-time limit). Although a simple Java solution that memoizes the cycle length of any already computed cycles will work. I haven't been successful at applying the idea to obtain a Haskell solution.
I have tried the Data.Function.Memoize, as well as home-brewed log time memoization technique using the idea from this post: Memoization in Haskell?. Unfortunately, memoization actually makes the computation of cycle(n) even slower. I believe the slow down comes from the overhead of haskell way. (I tried running with the compiled binary code, instead of interpreting.)
I also suspect that simply iterating numbers from i to j can be costly ($i,j\le10^6$). So I even tried precompute everything for the range query, using idea from http://blog.openendings.net/2013/10/range-trees-and-profiling-in-haskell.html. However, this still gives "Time Limit Exceeding" error.
Can you help to inform a neat competitive Haskell program for this?
Thanks!
>>> using the approach bellow, I could submit an accepted answer to SPOJ. You may check the entire code from here.
The problem has bounds 0 < n < 1,000,000. Pre-calculate all of them and store them inside an array; then freeze the array. The array can be used as its own cache / memoization space.
The problem would then reduce to a range query problem over an array, which can be done very efficiently using trees.
With the code bellow I can get Collatz of 1..1,000,000 in a fraction of a second:
$ time echo 1000000 | ./collatz
525
real 0m0.177s
user 0m0.173s
sys 0m0.003s
Note that collatz function below, uses mutable STUArray internally, but itself is a pure function:
import Control.Monad.ST (ST)
import Control.Monad (mapM_)
import Control.Applicative ((<$>))
import Data.Array.Unboxed (UArray, elems)
import Data.Array.ST (STUArray, readArray, writeArray, runSTUArray, newArray)
collatz :: Int -> UArray Int Int
collatz size = out
where
next i = if odd i then 3 * i + 1 else i `div` 2
loop :: STUArray s Int Int -> Int -> ST s Int
loop arr k
| size < k = succ <$> loop arr (next k)
| otherwise = do
out <- readArray arr k
if out /= 0 then return out
else do
out <- succ <$> loop arr (next k)
writeArray arr k out
return out
out = runSTUArray $ do
arr <- newArray (1, size) 0
writeArray arr 1 1
mapM_ (loop arr) [2..size]
return arr
main = do
size <- read <$> getLine
print . maximum . elems $ collatz size
In order to perform range queries on this array, you may build a balanced tree as simple as below:
type Range = (Int, Int)
data Tree = Leaf Int | Node Tree Tree Range Int
build_tree :: Int -> Tree
build_tree size = loop 1 cnt
where
ctz = collatz size
cnt = head . dropWhile (< size) $ iterate (*2) 1
(Leaf a) +: (Leaf b) = max a b
(Node _ _ _ a) +: (Node _ _ _ b) = max a b
loop lo hi
| lo == hi = Leaf $ if size < lo then minBound else ctz ! lo
| otherwise = Node left right (lo, hi) (left +: right)
where
i = (lo + hi) `div` 2
left = loop lo i
right = loop (i + 1) hi
query_tree :: Tree -> Int -> Int -> Int
query_tree (Leaf x) _ _ = x
query_tree (Node l r (lo, hi) x) i j
| i <= lo && hi <= j = x
| mid < i = query_tree r i j
| j < 1 + mid = query_tree l i j
| otherwise = max (query_tree l i j) (query_tree r i j)
where mid = (lo + hi) `div` 2
Here is the same as in the other answer, but with an immutable recursively defined array (and it also leaks slightly (can someone say why?) and so two times slower):
import Data.Array
upper = 10^6
step :: Integer -> Int
step i = 1 + colAt (if odd i then 3 * i + 1 else i `div` 2)
colAt :: Integer -> Int
colAt i | i > upper = step i
colAt i = col!i
col :: Array Integer Int
col = array (1, upper) $ (1, 1) : [(i, step i) | i <- [2..upper]]
main = print $ maximum $ elems col

My attempt at Project Euler #92 is too slow

I'm trying to solve Project Euler problem #92 with Haskell. I started learning Haskell recently. It's the first Project Euler problem I've tried to solve with Haskell, but my piece of code doesn't terminate even in 10 minutes. I know you don't give me the answer directly, but again I should warn I find answer with c++ doesn't give answer of Euler or new logic to solve Euler. I'm just curious why that guy doesn't work fast and what should I do to make it faster?
{--EULER 92--}
import Data.List
myFirstFunction 1 = 0
myFirstFunction 89 = 1
myFirstFunction x= myFirstFunction (giveResult x)
giveResult 0 = 0
giveResult x = (square (mod x 10)) + (giveResult (div x 10))
square x = x*x
a=[1..10000000]
main = putStrLn(show (sum (map myFirstFunction a)))
The biggest speedup can of course be gained from using a better algorithm. I'm not going deep into that here, though.
Original algorithm tweakings
So let's focus on improving the used algorithm without really changing it.
You never give any type signature, therefore the type defaults to the arbitrary precision Integer. Everything here fits easily in an Int, there's no danger of overflow, so let's use that. Adding a type signature myFirstFunction :: Int -> Int helps: time drops from Total time 13.77s ( 13.79s elapsed) to Total time 6.24s ( 6.24s elapsed) and total allocation drops by a factor of about 15. Not bad for such a simple change.
You use div and mod. These always compute a non-negative remainder and the corresponding quotient, so they need some extra checks in case some negative numbers are involved. The functions quot and rem map to the machine division instructions, they don't involve such checks and therefore are somewhat faster. If you compile via the LLVM backend (-fllvm), that also takes advantage of the fact that you always divide by a single known number (10), and converts the division into multiplication and bit-shift. Time now: Total time 1.56s ( 1.56s elapsed).
Instead of using quot and rem separately, let's use the quotRem function that computes both at once, so that we don't repeat the division (even with multiplication+shift that takes a little time):
giveResult x = case x `quotRem` 10 of
(q,r) -> r*r + giveResult q
That doesn't gain much, but a little: Total time 1.49s ( 1.49s elapsed).
You're using a list a = [1 .. 10000000], and map the function over that list and then sum the resulting list. That's idiomatic, neat and short, but not super fast, since allocating all those list cells and garbage collecting them takes time too - not very much, since GHC is very good at that, but transforming it into a loop
main = print $ go 0 1
where
go acc n
| n > 10000000 = acc
| otherwise = go (acc + myFirstFunction n) (n+1)
gains us a little still: Total time 1.34s ( 1.34s elapsed) and the allocation dropped from 880,051,856 bytes allocated in the heap for the last list version to 51,840 bytes allocated in the heap.
giveResult is recursive, and therefore cannot be inlined. The same holds for myFirstFunction, hence each computation needs two function calls (at least). We can avoid that by rewriting giveResult to a non-recursive wrapper and a recursive local loop,
giveResult x = go 0 x
where
go acc 0 = acc
go acc n = case n `quotRem` 10 of
(q,r) -> go (acc + r*r) q
so that that can be inlined: Total time 1.04s ( 1.04s elapsed).
Those were the most obvious points, further improvements - apart from the memoisation mentioned by hammar in the comments - would need some thinking.
We are now at
module Main (main) where
myFirstFunction :: Int -> Int
myFirstFunction 1 = 0
myFirstFunction 89 = 1
myFirstFunction x= myFirstFunction (giveResult x)
giveResult :: Int -> Int
giveResult x = go 0 x
where
go acc 0 = acc
go acc n = case n `quotRem` 10 of
(q,r) -> go (acc + r*r) q
main :: IO ()
main = print $ go 0 1
where
go acc n
| n > 10000000 = acc
| otherwise = go (acc + myFirstFunction n) (n+1)
With -O2 -fllvm, that runs in 1.04 seconds here, but with the native code generator (only -O2), it takes 3.5 seconds. That difference is due to the fact that GHC itself doesn't convert the division into a multiplication and bit-shift. If we do it by hand, we get pretty much the same performance from the native code generator.
Because we know something that the compiler doesn't, namely that we never deal with negative numbers here, and the numbers don't become large, we can even generate a better multiply-and-shift (that would produce wrong results for negative or large dividends) than the compiler and take the time down to 0.9 seconds for the native code generator and 0.73 seconds for the LLVM backend:
import Data.Bits
qr10 :: Int -> (Int, Int)
qr10 n = (q, r)
where
q = (n * 0x66666667) `unsafeShiftR` 34
r = n - 10 * q
Note: That requires that Int is a 64-bit type, it won't work with 32-bit Ints, it will produce wrong results for negative n, and the multiplication will overflow for large n. We're entering dirty-hack territory. We can alleviate the dirtyness by using Word instead of Int, that leaves only the overflow (which doesn't occur for n <= 10737418236 with Word resp n <= 5368709118 for Int, so here we are comfortably in the safe zone). The times aren't affected.
The corresponding C programme
#include <stdio.h>
unsigned int myFirstFunction(unsigned int i);
unsigned int giveResult(unsigned int i);
int main(void) {
unsigned int sum = 0;
for(unsigned int i = 1; i <= 10000000; ++i) {
sum += myFirstFunction(i);
}
printf("%u\n",sum);
return 0;
}
unsigned int myFirstFunction(unsigned int i) {
if (i == 1) return 0;
if (i == 89) return 1;
return myFirstFunction(giveResult(i));
}
unsigned int giveResult(unsigned int i) {
unsigned int acc = 0, r, q;
while(i) {
q = (i*0x66666667UL) >> 34;
r = i - q*10;
i = q;
acc += r*r;
}
return acc;
}
performs similarly, compiled with gcc -O3, it runs in 0.78 seconds, and with clang -O3 in 0.71.
That's pretty much the end without changing the algorithm.
Memoisation
Now, a minor change of algorithm is memoisation. If we build a lookup table for the numbers <= 7*9², we need only one computation of the sum of the squares of the digits for each number rather than iterating that until we reach 1 or 89, so let's memoise,
module Main (main) where
import Data.Array.Unboxed
import Data.Array.IArray
import Data.Array.Base (unsafeAt)
import Data.Bits
qr10 :: Int -> (Int, Int)
qr10 n = (q, r)
where
q = (n * 0x66666667) `unsafeShiftR` 34
r = n - 10 * q
digitSquareSum :: Int -> Int
digitSquareSum = go 0
where
go acc 0 = acc
go acc n = case qr10 n of
(q,r) -> go (acc + r*r) q
table :: UArray Int Int
table = array (0,567) $ assocs helper
where
helper :: Array Int Int
helper = array (0,567) [(i, f i) | i <- [0 .. 567]]
f 0 = 0
f 1 = 0
f 89 = 1
f n = helper ! digitSquareSum n
endPoint :: Int -> Int
endPoint n = table `unsafeAt` digitSquareSum n
main :: IO ()
main = print $ go 0 1
where
go acc n
| n > 10000000 = acc
| otherwise = go (acc + endPoint n) (n+1)
Doing the memoisation by hand instead of using a library makes the code longer, but we can tailor it to our needs. We can use an unboxed array, and we can omit the bounds check on the array access. Both significantly speed the computation up. The time is now 0.18 seconds for the native code generator, and 0.13 seconds for the LLVM backend. The corresponding C programme runs in 0.16 seconds compiled with gcc -O3, and 0.145 seconds compiled with clang -O3 (Haskell beats C, w00t!).
Scaling and a hint for a better algorithm
The used algorithm however doesn't scale too well, a bit worse than linear, and for an upper bound of 108 (with suitably adapted memoisation limit), it runs in 1.5 seconds (ghc -O2 -fllvm), resp. 1.64 seconds (clang -O3) and 1.87 seconds (gcc -O3) [2.02 seconds for the native code generator].
Using a different algorithm that counts the numbers whose sequence ends in 1 by partitioning such numbers into a sum of squares of digits (The only numbers that directly produce 1 are powers of 10. We can write
10 = 1×3² + 1×1²
10 = 2×2² + 2×1²
10 = 1×2² + 6×1²
10 = 10×1²
From the first, we obtain 13, 31, 103, 130, 301, 310, 1003, 1030, 1300, 3001, 3010, 3100, ...
From the second, we obtain 1122, 1212, 1221, 2112, 2121, 2211, 11022, 11202, ...
From the third 1111112, 1111121, ...
Only 13, 31, 103, 130, 301, 310 are possible sums of squares of the digits of numbers <= 10^10, so only those need to be investigated further. We can write
100 = 1×9² + 1×4² + 3×1²
...
100 = 1×8² + 1×6²
...
The first of these partitions generates no children since it requires five nonzero digits, the other explicitly given generates the two children 68 and 86 (also 608 if the limit is 108, more for larger limits)), we can get better scaling and a faster algorithm.
The fairly unoptimised programme I wrote way back when to solve this problem runs (input is exponent of 10 of the limit)
$ time ./problem92 7
8581146
real 0m0.010s
user 0m0.008s
sys 0m0.002s
$ time ./problem92 8
85744333
real 0m0.022s
user 0m0.018s
sys 0m0.003s
$ time ./problem92 9
854325192
real 0m0.040s
user 0m0.033s
sys 0m0.006s
$ time ./problem92 10
8507390852
real 0m0.074s
user 0m0.069s
sys 0m0.004s
in a different league.
First off, I took the liberty of cleaning up your code a little:
endsAt89 1 = 0
endsAt89 89 = 1
endsAt89 n = endsAt89 (sumOfSquareDigits n)
sumOfSquareDigits 0 = 0
sumOfSquareDigits n = (n `mod` 10)^2 + sumOfSquareDigits (n `div` 10)
main = print . sum $ map endsAt89 [1..10^7]
On my crappy netbook is 1 min 13 sec. Let's see if we can improve that.
Since the numbers are small, we can start by using machine-sized Int instead of arbitrary-size Integer. This is just a matter of adding type signatures, e.g.
sumOfSquareDigits :: Int -> Int
That improves the run time drastically to 20 seconds.
Since the numbers are all positive, we can replace div and mod with the slightly faster quot and rem, or even both in one go with quotRem:
sumOfSquareDigits :: Int -> Int
sumOfSquareDigits 0 = 0
sumOfSquareDigits n = r^2 + sumOfSquareDigits q
where (q, r) = quotRem x 10
Run time is now 17 seconds. Making it tail recursive shaves off another second:
sumOfSquareDigits :: Int -> Int
sumOfSquareDigits n = loop n 0
where
loop 0 !s = s
loop n !s = loop q (s + r^2)
where (q, r) = quotRem n 10
For further improvements, we can notice that sumOfSquareDigits returns at most 567 = 7 * 9^2 for the given input numbers, so we can memoize for small numbers to reduce the number of iterations needed. Here's my final version (using the data-memocombinators package for the memoization):
{-# LANGUAGE BangPatterns #-}
import qualified Data.MemoCombinators as Memo
endsAt89 :: Int -> Int
endsAt89 = Memo.arrayRange (1, 7*9^2) endsAt89'
where
endsAt89' 1 = 0
endsAt89' 89 = 1
endsAt89' n = endsAt89 (sumOfSquareDigits n)
sumOfSquareDigits :: Int -> Int
sumOfSquareDigits n = loop n 0
where
loop 0 !s = s
loop n !s = loop q (s + r^2)
where (q, r) = quotRem n 10
main = print . sum $ map endsAt89 [1..10^7]
This runs in just under 9 seconds on my machine.

Summing a large list of numbers is too slow

Task: "Sum the first 15,000,000 even numbers."
Haskell:
nats = [1..] :: [Int]
evens = filter even nats :: [Int]
MySum:: Int
MySum= sum $ take 15000000 evens
...but MySum takes ages. More precisely, about 10-20 times slower than C/C++.
Many times I've found, that a Haskell solution coded naturally is something like 10 times slower than C. I expected that GHC was a very neatly optimizing compiler and task such this don't seem that tough.
So, one would expect something like 1.5-2x slower than C. Where is the problem?
Can this be solved better?
This is the C code I'm comparing it with:
long long sum = 0;
int n = 0, i = 1;
for (;;) {
if (i % 2 == 0) {
sum += i;
n++;
}
if (n == 15000000)
break;
i++;
}
Edit 1: I really know, that it can be computed in O(1). Please, resist.
Edit 2: I really know, that evens are [2,4..] but the function even could be something else O(1) and need to be implemented as a function.
Lists are not loops
So don't be surprised if using lists as a loop replacement, you get slower code if the loop body is small.
nats = [1..] :: [Int]
evens = filter even nats :: [Int]
dumbSum :: Int
dumbSum = sum $ take 15000000 evens
sum is not a "good consumer", so GHC is not (yet) able to eliminate the intermediate lists completely.
If you compile with optimisations (and don't export nat), GHC is smart enough to fuse the filter with the enumeration,
Rec {
Main.main_go [Occ=LoopBreaker]
:: GHC.Prim.Int# -> GHC.Prim.Int# -> [GHC.Types.Int]
[GblId, Arity=1, Caf=NoCafRefs, Str=DmdType L]
Main.main_go =
\ (x_aV2 :: GHC.Prim.Int#) ->
let {
r_au7 :: GHC.Prim.Int# -> [GHC.Types.Int]
[LclId, Str=DmdType]
r_au7 =
case x_aV2 of wild_Xl {
__DEFAULT -> Main.main_go (GHC.Prim.+# wild_Xl 1);
9223372036854775807 -> n_r1RR
} } in
case GHC.Prim.remInt# x_aV2 2 of _ {
__DEFAULT -> r_au7;
0 ->
let {
wild_atm :: GHC.Types.Int
[LclId, Str=DmdType m]
wild_atm = GHC.Types.I# x_aV2 } in
let {
lvl_s1Rp :: [GHC.Types.Int]
[LclId]
lvl_s1Rp =
GHC.Types.:
# GHC.Types.Int wild_atm (GHC.Types.[] # GHC.Types.Int) } in
\ (m_aUL :: GHC.Prim.Int#) ->
case GHC.Prim.<=# m_aUL 1 of _ {
GHC.Types.False ->
GHC.Types.: # GHC.Types.Int wild_atm (r_au7 (GHC.Prim.-# m_aUL 1));
GHC.Types.True -> lvl_s1Rp
}
}
end Rec }
but that's as far as GHC's fusion takes it. You are left with boxing Ints and constructing list cells. If you give it a loop, like you give it to the C compiler,
module Main where
import Data.Bits
main :: IO ()
main = print dumbSum
dumbSum :: Int
dumbSum = go 0 0 1
where
go :: Int -> Int -> Int -> Int
go sm ct n
| ct >= 15000000 = sm
| n .&. 1 == 0 = go (sm + n) (ct+1) (n+1)
| otherwise = go sm ct (n+1)
you get the approximate relation of running times between the C and the Haskell version you expected.
This sort of algorithm is not what GHC has been taught to optimise well, there are bigger fish to fry elsewhere before the limited manpower is put into these optimisations.
The problem why list fusion can't work here is actually rather subtle. Say we define the right RULE to fuse the list away:
import GHC.Base
sum2 :: Num a => [a] -> a
sum2 = sum
{-# NOINLINE [1] sum2 #-}
{-# RULES "sum" forall (f :: forall b. (a->b->b)->b->b).
sum2 (build f) = f (+) 0 #-}
(The short explanation is that we define sum2 as an alias of sum, which we forbid GHC to inline early, so the RULE has a chance to fire before sum2 gets eliminated. Then we look for sum2 directly next to the list-builder build (see definition) and replace it by direct arithmetic.)
This has mixed success, as it yields the following Core:
Main.$wgo =
\ (w_s1T4 :: GHC.Prim.Int#) ->
case GHC.Prim.remInt# w_s1T4 2 of _ {
__DEFAULT ->
case w_s1T4 of wild_Xg {
__DEFAULT -> Main.$wgo (GHC.Prim.+# wild_Xg 1);
15000000 -> 0
};
0 ->
case w_s1T4 of wild_Xg {
__DEFAULT ->
case Main.$wgo (GHC.Prim.+# wild_Xg 1) of ww_s1T7 { __DEFAULT ->
GHC.Prim.+# wild_Xg ww_s1T7
};
15000000 -> 15000000
}
}
Which is nice, completely fused code - with the sole problem that we have a call to $wgo in a non-tail-call position. This means that we aren't looking at a loop, but actually at a deeply recursive function, with predictable program results:
Stack space overflow: current size 8388608 bytes.
The root problem here is that the Prelude's list fusion can only fuse right folds, and computing the sum as a right fold directly causes the excessive stack consumption.
The obvious fix would be to use a fusion framework that can actually deal with left folds, such as Duncan's stream-fusion package, which actually implements sum fusion.
Another solution would be to hack around it - and implement the left fold using a right fold:
main = print $ foldr (\x c -> c . (+x)) id [2,4..15000000] 0
This actually produces close-to-perfect code with current versions of GHC. On the other hand, this is generally not a good idea as it relies on GHC being smart enough to eliminate the partially applied functions. Already adding a filter into the chain will break that particular optimization.
Sum first 15,000,000 even numbers:
{-# LANGUAGE BangPatterns #-}
g :: Integer -- 15000000*15000001 = 225000015000000
g = go 1 0 0
where
go i !a c | c == 15000000 = a
go i !a c | even i = go (i+1) (a+i) (c+1)
go i !a c = go (i+1) a c
ought to be the fastest.
If you want to be sure to traverse the list only once, you can write the traversal explicitly:
nats = [1..] :: [Int]
requiredOfX :: Int -> Bool -- this way you can write a different requirement
requiredOfX x = even x
dumbSum :: Int
dumbSum = dumbSum' 0 0 nats
where dumbSum' acc 15000000 _ = acc
dumbSum' acc count (x:xs)
| requiredOfX x = dumbSum' (acc + x) (count + 1) xs
| otherwise = dumbSum' acc (count + 1) xs
First, you can be clever as young Gauss was and compute the sum in O(1).
Fun stuff aside, your Haskell solution uses lists. I'm quite sure your C/C++ solution doesn't. (Haskell lists are very easy to use so one is tempted to use them even in cases where it might not be appropriate.) Try benchmarking this:
sumBy2 :: Integer -> Integer
sumBy2 = f 0
where
f result n | n <= 1 = result
| otherwise = f (n + result) (n - 2)
Compile it using GHC with -O2 argument. This function is tail-recursive so compiler can implement it very efficiently.
Update: If you want it using even function, it's possible:
sumBy2 :: Integer -> Integer
sumBy2 = f 0
where
f result n | n <= 0 = result
| even n = f (n + result) (n - 1)
| otherwise = f result (n - 1)
You can also easily make the filtering function a parameter:
sumFilter :: (Integral a) => (a -> Bool) -> a -> a
sumFilter filtfn = f 0
where
f result n | n <= 0 = result
| filtfn n = f (n + result) (n - 1)
| otherwise = f result (n - 1)
Strict version works much faster:
foldl' (+) 0 $ take 15000000 [2, 4..]
Another thing to note is that nats and evens are so-called Constant Applicative Forms, or CAFs for short. Basically, those correspond to top-level definitions without any arguments. CAFs are a bit of an odd duck, for instance being the reason for the Dreaded Monomorphism Restriction; I'm not sure the language definition even allows CAFs to be inlined.
In my mental model of how Haskell executes, by the time dumbSum returns a value, evens will be evaluated to look something like 2:4: ... : 30000000 : <thunk> and nats to 1:2: ... : 30000000 : <thunk>, where the <thunk>s represent something that's not been looked at yet. If my understanding is correct, these allocations of : do have to happen and can't be optimized away.
So one way of speeding things up without altering your code too much would be to simply write:
dumbSum :: Int
dumbSum = sum . take 15000000 . filter even $ [1..]
or
dumbSum = sum $ take 15000000 evens where
nats = [1..]
evens = filter even nats
On my machine, compiled with -O2, that alone seems to result in a roughly 30% speedup.
I'm no GHC connaisseur (I've never even profiled a Haskell program!), so I could be wildly off the mark, though.

Project Euler 14: performance compared to C and memoization

I'm currently working on project euler problem 14.
I solved it using a poorly coded program, without memoization, that took 386 5 seconds to run (see edit).
Here it is:
step :: (Integer, Int) -> Integer -> (Integer, Int)
step (i, m) n | nextValue > m = (n, nextValue)
| otherwise = (i, m)
where nextValue = syr n 1
syr :: Integer -> Int -> Int
syr 1 acc = acc
syr x acc | even x = syr (x `div` 2) (acc + 1)
| otherwise = syr (3 * x + 1) (acc + 1)
p14 = foldl step (0, 0) [500000..999999]
My question is about several comments in the thread related to this problem, where were mentionned execution times of <1 s for programs as follow (C code, credits to the project euler forum user ix for the code -- note: I didn't check that the execution time is in fact as mentionned):
#include <stdio.h>
int main(int argc, char **argv) {
int longest = 0;
int terms = 0;
int i;
unsigned long j;
for (i = 1; i <= 1000000; i++) {
j = i;
int this_terms = 1;
while (j != 1) {
this_terms++;
if (this_terms > terms) {
terms = this_terms;
longest = i;
}
if (j % 2 == 0) {
j = j / 2;
} else {
j = 3 * j + 1;
}
}
}
printf("longest: %d (%d)\n", longest, terms);
return 0;
}
To me, those programs are kind of the same, when talking about the algorithm.
So I wonder why there is such a big difference? Or is there any fondamental difference between our two algorithms that can justify a x6 factor in performance?
BTW, I'm currently trying to implement this algorithm with memoization, but am kind of lost as to me, it's way easier to implement in an imperative language (and I don't manipulate monads yet so I can't use this paradigm). So if you have any good tutorial that fits a beginner to learn memoization, I'll be glad (the ones I encountered were not detailed enough or out of my league).
Note: I came to declarative paradigm through Prolog and am still in the very early process of discovering Haskell, so I might miss important things.
Note2: any general advice about my code is welcome.
EDIT: thanks to delnan's help, I compiled the program and it now runs in 5 seconds, so I mainly look for hints on memoization now (even if ideas about the existing x6 gap are still welcome).
After having compiled it with optimisations, there are still several differences to the C programme
you use div, while the C programme uses machine division (which truncates) [but any self-respecting C compiler transforms that into a shift, so that makes it yet faster], that would be quot in Haskell; that reduced the run time by some 15% here.
the C programme uses fixed-width 64-bit (or even 32-bit, but then it's just luck that it gets the correct answer, since some intermediate values exceed 32-bit range) integers, the Haskell programme uses arbitrary precision Integers. If you have 64-bit Ints in your GHC (64-bit OS other than Windows), replace Integer with Int. That reduced the run time by a factor of about 3 here. If you're on a 32-bit system, you're out of luck, GHC doesn't use native 64-bit instructions there, these operations are implemented as C calls, that's still rather slow.
For the memoisation, you can outsource it to one of the memoisation packages on hackage, the only one that I remember is data-memocombinators, but there are others. Or you can do it yourself, for example keeping a map of previously calculated values - that would work best in the State monad,
import Control.Monad.State.Strict
import qualified Data.Map as Map
import Data.Map (Map, singleton)
type Memo = Map Integer Int
syr :: Integer -> State Memo Int
syr n = do
mb <- gets (Map.lookup n)
case mb of
Just l -> return l
Nothing -> do
let m = if even n then n `quot` 2 else 3*n+1
l <- syr m
let l' = l+1
modify (Map.insert n l')
return l'
solve :: Integer -> Int -> Integer -> State Memo (Integer,Int)
solve maxi len start
| len > 1000000 = return (maxi,len)
| otherwise = do
l <- syr start
if len < l
then solve start l (start+1)
else solve maxi len (start+1)
p14 :: (Integer,Int)
p14 = evalState (solve 0 0 500000) (singleton 1 1)
but that will probably not gain too much (not even when you've added the necessary strictness). The trouble is that a lookup in a Map is not too cheap and an insertion is relatively expensive.
Another method is to keep a mutable array for the lookup. The code becomes more complicated, since you have to choose a reasonable upper bound for the values to cache (should be not much larger than the bound for the starting values) and deal with the parts of the sequences falling outside the memoised range. But an array lookup and write are fast. If you have 64-bit Ints, the below code runs pretty fast, here it takes 0.03s for a limit of 1 million, and 0.33s for a limit of 10 million, the corresponding (as closely as I reasonably could) C code runs in 0.018 resp. 0.2s.
module Main (main) where
import System.Environment (getArgs)
import Data.Array.ST
import Data.Array.Base
import Control.Monad.ST
import Data.Bits
import Data.Int
main :: IO ()
main = do
args <- getArgs
let bd = case args of
a:_ -> read a
_ -> 100000
print $ collMax bd
next :: Int -> Int
next n
| n .&. 1 == 0 = n `unsafeShiftR` 1
| otherwise = 3*n + 1
collMax :: Int -> (Int,Int16)
collMax upper = runST $ do
arr <- newArray (0,upper) 0 :: ST s (STUArray s Int Int16)
let go l m
| upper < m = go (l+1) $ next m
| otherwise = do
l' <- unsafeRead arr m
case l' of
0 -> do
l'' <- go 1 $ next m
unsafeWrite arr m (l'' + 1)
return (l+l'')
_ -> return (l+l'-1)
collect mi ml i
| upper < i = return (mi, ml)
| otherwise = do
l <- go 1 i
if l > ml
then collect i l (i+1)
else collect mi ml (i+1)
unsafeWrite arr 1 1
collect 1 1 2
Well, the C program uses unsigned long, but Integer can store arbitrarily large integers (it's a bignum). If you import Data.Word, then you can use Word, which is a machine-word-sized unsigned integer.
After replacing Integer with Word, and using ghc -O2 and gcc -O3, the C program runs in 0.72 seconds, while the Haskell programs runs in 1.92 seconds. 2.6x isn't bad. However, ghc -O2 doesn't always help, and this is one of the programs on which it doesn't! Using just -O, as you did, brings the runtime down to 1.90 seconds.
I tried replacing div with quot (which uses the same type of division as C; they only differ on negative inputs), but strangely it actually made the Haskell program run slightly slower for me.
You should be able to speed up the syr function with the help of this previous Stack Overflow question I answered about the same Project Euler problem.
On my current system (32-bit Core2Duo) your Haskell code, including all the optimizations given in the answers, takes 0.8s to compile and 1.2s to run.
You could transfer the run-time to compile-time, and reduce the run-time to nearly zero.
module Euler14 where
import Data.Word
import Language.Haskell.TH
terms :: Word -> Word
terms n = countTerms n 0
where
countTerms 1 acc = acc + 1
countTerms n acc | even n = countTerms (n `div` 2) (acc + 1)
| otherwise = countTerms (3 * n + 1) (acc + 1)
longestT :: Word -> Word -> (Word, Word)
longestT mi mx = find mi mx (0, 0)
where
find mi mx (ct,cn) | mi == mx = if ct > terms mi then (ct,cn) else (terms mi, mi)
| otherwise = find (mi + 1) mx
(if ct > terms mi then (ct,cn) else (terms mi, mi))
longest :: Word -> Word -> ExpQ
longest mi mx = return $ TupE [LitE (IntegerL (fromIntegral a)),
LitE (IntegerL (fromIntegral b))]
where
(a,b) = longestT mi mx
and
{-# LANGUAGE TemplateHaskell #-}
import Euler14
main = print $(longest 500000 999999)
On my system it takes 2.3s to compile this but the run-time goes down to 0.003s. Compile Time Function Execution (CTFE) is something you can't do in C/C++. The only other programming language that I know of that supports CTFE is the D programming language. And just to be complete, the C code takes 0.1s to compile and 0.7s to run.

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