How does listx2 = [x * 2 | x<- numberList] work? - haskell

So I m watching a very basic Tutorial, and I m at list comprehension where this comes up:
listx2 = [x * 2 | x<- numberList]
with numberList being a list of numbers
So this takes every number in the list and duplicates it, so numberList = [1,2] results in [2,4].
But HOW does the whole Syntax come together?
I know that x * 2 is the doubleing, but the rest just doesn't make sense to me.
| is the "or" Symbol as far as I know,and what does it do there?
x <- numberList gives x a number from the list, but why does it take just a number? and why so nicely one after the other? There is no recursion or anything that tells it to do one element at a time...
I learn stuff by understanding it, so is that even possible here or do I just have to accept this as "thats how it goes" and memorize the pattern?

List comprehensions use their own special syntax, which is
[ e | q1, q2, ..., qn ]
The | is not an "or", it's part of the syntax, just as [ and ].
Each qi can be of the following forms.
x <- list chooses x from the list
condition is a boolean expression, which discards the xs chosen before if the condition is false
let y = expression defines variable y accordingly
Finally, e is an expression which can involve all the variables defined in the qi, and which forms the elements in the resulting list.

What you see is syntactical sugar. So Haskell does not interpret the pipe (|) as a guard, etc. It sees the list comprehension as a whole.
This however does not mean that the <- are picked at random. Actually list comprehension maps nicely on the list monad. What you see is syntactical sugar for:
listx2 = do
x <- numberList
return x*2
Now a list type [] is actually a monad. It means that we have written:
listx2 = numberList >>= \x -> return (x*2)
Or even shorter:
listx2 = numberList >>= return . (*2)
Now the list monad is defined as:
instance Monad [] where
return x = [x]
xs >>= k = concat $ fmap k xs
So this means that it is equivalent to:
listx2 = numberList >>= return . (*2)
listx2 = concat (fmap (return . (*2)) numberList)
listx2 = concat (fmap (\x -> [2*x]) numberList)
Now for a list fmap is equal to map, so:
listx2 = concat $ map (\x -> [2*x]) numberList
listx2 = concatMap (\x -> [2*x]) numberList
so that means that for every element x in the numberList we will generate a singleton list [2*x] and concatenate all these singleton lists into the result.

Related

How to shorten a Haskell implementation like this?

I have a function with a lot of guards that look like this:
function
| p `elem` [0,1,2,3,4,5,6] = [0,1,2,3,4,5,6]
| p `elem` [7,8,9,10,11,12,13] = [7,8,9,10,11,12,13]
| p `elem` [14,15,16,17,18,19,20] = [14,15,16,17,18,19,20]
| otherwise = []
I'm sure I can write this much shorter with Haskell. If not, then it's okay. I'm new to Haskell and I would love to become better at it by learning different approaches.
Perhaps using "map" may be a good start? But then, I'm not sure how to pass in those specific lists.
The values are not always contiguous.
What about simple bounds checks?
function p
| p < 0 = []
| p < 7 = [0..6]
| p < 14 = [7..13]
| p < 21 = [14..20]
| otherwise = []
It will be faster and for some applications use less memory.
If you don't want to perform a bounds check (but an element check), you can still use the shortened list notation.
Alternatively, you could construct a helper function that iterates over the lists:
helper (x:xs) p | elem p x = x
| otherwise = helper xs p
helper [] _ = []
function = helper [[0..6],[7..13],[14..20]]
Although this is actually longer, you can easily extend the function to use other lists. Note however that this function will be slower, since elem requires O(n) time whereas a bounds check takes O(1) time.
You can also - as is suggested in #jamshidh's answer construct a Data.Map which is a datastructure that guarantees O(log n) lookup time:
import Data.Map (Map)
import qualified Data.Map as Map
import Data.Maybe(fromMaybe)
helper2 :: Ord a => [[a]] -> a -> [a]
helper2 lst p = fromMaybe [] $ Map.lookup p (Map.fromList $ concatMap (\x -> zip x (repeat x)) lst)
function = helper2 [[0..6],[7..13],[14..20]]
For this last piece, it generates (\x -> zip x (repeat x)) generates for a list tuples containing an element of the list e and the entire list l. For example:
Prelude> (\x -> zip x (repeat x)) [0..6]
[(0,[0,1,2,3,4,5,6]),(1,[0,1,2,3,4,5,6]),(2,[0,1,2,3,4,5,6]),(3,[0,1,2,3,4,5,6]),(4,[0,1,2,3,4,5,6]),(5,[0,1,2,3,4,5,6]),(6,[0,1,2,3,4,5,6])]
This works as follows: x unifies with a list, for instance [0,1,2,3,4,5,6], now we apply a zip function on [0,1,2,3,4,5,6] and on the infinite list [[0,1,2,3,4,5,6],[0,1,2,3,4,5,6],[0,1,2,3,4,5,6],....]. zip generates tuples as long as both lists feed elements, so it takes the first element from [0,1,..,6] and the first from [[0,1,..,6],[0,1,..,6],[0,1,..,6],...] so the resulting tuple is (0,[0..6]), next it takes the second element 1 from the list, and the second item from the repeat function, thus (1,[0..6]). It keeps doing this -- although lazily -- until one of the lists is exhausted which is the case for the first list.
You can use the list monad here.
func p = join $ do x <- [[1,3,5], [2,4,6], [7,8,9]]
guard $ p `elem` x
return x
The list of lists are the things you want to check against. The call to guard filters out the choices that don't succeed. As long as the candidate lists are disjoint, at most one will succeed. return x evaluates to either [] or [x] for one of the choices of x, so join
reduces [x] to [].
> func 1
[1,3,5]
> func 2
[2,4,6]
> func 7
[7,8,9]
> func 10
[]
As a list comprehension, it would look like
func p = join [x | x <-[[1,3,5],[2,4,6],[7,8,9]], p `elem` x]
First create the list of lists
lists = [[0,1,2,3,4,5,6], [7,8,9,10,11,12,13], [14,15,16,17,18,19,20]]
Then create a mapping from value to list
theMap = concat $ map (\x -> zip x (repeat x)) lists
This will give you what you need
> lookup 1
Just [0,1,2,3,4,5,6]
Note that the output is a Maybe, in the case you don't supply a value in any list.

Dovetail iteration over infinite lists in Haskell

I want to iterate 2 (or 3) infinite lists and find the "smallest" pair that satisfies a condition, like so:
until pred [(a,b,c) | a<-as, b<-bs, c<-cs]
where pred (a,b,c) = a*a + b*b == c*c
as = [1..]
bs = [1..]
cs = [1..]
The above wouldn't get very far, as a == b == 1 throughout the run of the program.
Is there a nice way to dovetail the problem, e.g. build the infinite sequence [(1,1,1),(1,2,1),(2,1,1),(2,1,2),(2,2,1),(2,2,2),(2,2,3),(2,3,2),..] ?
Bonus: is it possible to generalize to n-tuples?
There's a monad for that, Omega.
Prelude> let as = each [1..]
Prelude> let x = liftA3 (,,) as as as
Prelude> let x' = mfilter (\(a,b,c) -> a*a + b*b == c*c) x
Prelude> take 10 $ runOmega x'
[(3,4,5),(4,3,5),(6,8,10),(8,6,10),(5,12,13),(12,5,13),(9,12,15),(12,9,15),(8,15,17),(15,8,17)]
Using it's applicative features, you can generalize to arbitrary tuples:
quadrupels = (,,,) <$> as <*> as <*> as <*> as -- or call it liftA4
But: this alone does not eliminate duplication, of course. It only gives you proper diagonalization. Maybe you could use monad comprehensions together with an approach like Thomas's, or just another mfilter pass (restricting to b /= c, in this case).
List comprehensions are great (and concise) ways to solve such problems. First, you know you want all combinations of (a,b,c) that might satisfy a^2 + b^2 = c^2 - a helpful observation is that (considering only positive numbers) it will always be the case that a <= c && b <= c.
To generate our list of candidates we can thus say c ranges from 1 to infinity while a and b range from one to c.
[(a,b,c) | c <- [1..], a <- [1..c], b <- [1..c]]
To get to the solution we just need to add your desired equation as a guard:
[(a,b,c) | c <- [1..], a <- [1..c], b <- [1..c], a*a+b*b == c*c]
This is inefficient, but the output is correct:
[(3,4,5),(4,3,5),(6,8,10),(8,6,10),(5,12,13),(12,5,13),(9,12,15)...
There are more principled methods than blind testing that can solve this problem.
{- It depends on what is "smallest". But here is a solution for a concept of "smallest" if tuples were compared first by their max. number and then by their total sum. (You can just copy and paste my whole answer into a file as I write the text in comments.)
We will need nub later. -}
import Data.List (nub)
{- Just for illustration: the easy case with 2-tuples. -}
-- all the two-tuples where 'snd' is 'n'
tuples n = [(i, n) | i <- [1..n]]
-- all the two-tuples where 'snd' is in '1..n'
tuplesUpTo n = concat [tuples i | i <- [1..n]]
{-
To get all results, you will need to insert the flip of each tuple into the stream. But let's do that later and generalize first.
Building tuples of arbitrary length is somewhat difficult, so we will work on lists. I call them 'kList's, if they have a length 'k'.
-}
-- just copied from the tuples case, only we need a base case for k=1 and
-- we can combine all results utilizing the list monad.
kLists 1 n = [[n]]
kLists k n = do
rest <- kLists (k-1) n
add <- [1..head rest]
return (add:rest)
-- same as above. all the klists with length k and max number of n
kListsUpTo k n = concat [kLists k i | i <- [1..n]]
-- we can do that unbounded as well, creating an infinite list.
kListsInf k = concat [kLists k i | i <- [1..]]
{-
The next step is rotating these lists around, because until now the largest number is always in the last place. So we just look at all rotations to get all the results. Using nub here is admittedly awkward, you can improve that. But without it, lists where all elements are the same are repeated k times.
-}
rotate n l = let (init, end) = splitAt n l
in end ++ init
rotations k l = nub [rotate i l | i <- [0..k-1]]
rotatedKListsInf k = concatMap (rotations k) $ kListsInf k
{- What remains is to convert these lists into tuples. This is a bit awkward, because every n-tuple is a separate type. But it's straightforward, of course. -}
kListToTuple2 [x,y] = (x,y)
kListToTuple3 [x,y,z] = (x,y,z)
kListToTuple4 [x,y,z,t] = (x,y,z,t)
kListToTuple5 [x,y,z,t,u] = (x,y,z,t,u)
kListToTuple6 [x,y,z,t,u,v] = (x,y,z,t,u,v)
{- Some tests:
*Main> take 30 . map kListToTuple2 $ rotatedKListsInf 2
[(1,1),(1,2),(2,1),(2,2),(1,3),(3,1),(2,3),(3,2),(3,3),(1,4),(4,1),(2,4),(4,2),(3,4),
(4,3),(4,4),(1,5),(5,1),(2,5),(5,2),(3,5),(5,3),(4,5),(5,4),(5,5),(1,6),(6,1),
(2,6), (6,2), (3,6)]
*Main> take 30 . map kListToTuple3 $ rotatedKListsInf 3
[(1,1,1),(1,1,2),(1,2,1),(2,1,1),(1,2,2),(2,2,1),(2,1,2),(2,2,2),(1,1,3),(1,3,1),
(3,1,1),(1,2,3),(2,3,1),(3,1,2),(2,2,3),(2,3,2),(3,2,2),(1,3,3),(3,3,1),(3,1,3),
(2,3,3),(3,3,2),(3,2,3),(3,3,3),(1,1,4),(1,4,1),(4,1,1),(1,2,4),(2,4,1),(4,1,2)]
Edit:
I realized there is a bug: Just rotating the ordered lists isn't enough of course. The solution must be somewhere along the lines of having
rest <- concat . map (rotations (k-1)) $ kLists (k-1) n
in kLists, but then some issues with repeated outputs arise. You can figure that out, I guess. ;-)
-}
It really depends on what you mean by "smallest", but I assume you want to find a tuple of numbers with respect to its maximal element - so (2,2) is less than (1,3) (while standard Haskell ordering is lexicographic).
There is package data-ordlist, which is aimed precisely at working with ordered lists. It's function mergeAll (and mergeAllBy) allows you to combine a 2-dimensional matrix ordered in each direction into an ordered list.
First let's create a desired comparing function on tuples:
import Data.List (find)
import Data.List.Ordered
compare2 :: (Ord a) => (a, a) -> (a, a) -> Ordering
compare2 x y = compare (max2 x, x) (max2 y, y)
where
max2 :: Ord a => (a, a) -> a
max2 (x, y) = max x y
Then using mergeAll we create a function that takes a comparator, a combining function (which must be monotonic in both arguments) and two sorted lists. It combines all possible elements from the two lists using the function and produces a result sorted list:
mergeWith :: (b -> b -> Ordering) -> (a -> a -> b) -> [a] -> [a] -> [b]
mergeWith cmp f xs ys = mergeAllBy cmp $ map (\x -> map (f x) xs) ys
With this function, it's very simple to produce tuples ordered according to their maximum:
incPairs :: [(Int,Int)]
incPairs = mergeWith compare2 (,) [1..] [1..]
Its first 10 elements are:
> take 10 incPairs
[(1,1),(1,2),(2,1),(2,2),(1,3),(2,3),(3,1),(3,2),(3,3),(1,4)]
and when we (for example) look for the first pair whose sum of squares is equal to 65:
find (\(x,y) -> x^2+y^2 == 65) incPairs
we get the correct result (4,7) (as opposed to (1,8) if lexicographic ordering were used).
This answer is for a more general problem for a unknown predicate. If the predicate is known, more efficient solutions are possible, like others have listed solutions based on knowledge that you don't need to iterate for all Ints for a given c.
When dealing with infinite lists, you need to perform breadth-first search for solution. The list comprehension only affords depth-first search, that is why you never arrive at a solution in your original code.
counters 0 xs = [[]]
counters n xs = concat $ foldr f [] gens where
gens = [[x:t | t <- counters (n-1) xs] | x <- xs]
f ys n = cat ys ([]:n)
cat (y:ys) (x:xs) = (y:x): cat ys xs
cat [] xs = xs
cat xs [] = [xs]
main = print $ take 10 $ filter p $ counters 3 [1..] where
p [a,b,c] = a*a + b*b == c*c
counters generates all possible counters for values from the specified range of digits, including a infinite range.
First, we obtain a list of generators of valid combinations of counters - for each permitted digit, combine it with all permitted combinations for counters of smaller size. This may result in a generator that produces a infinite number of combinations. So, we need to borrow from each generator evenly.
So gens is a list of generators. Think of this as a list of all counters starting with one digit: gens !! 0 is a list of all counters starting with 1, gens !! 1 is a list of all counters starting with 2, etc.
In order to borrow from each generator evenly, we could transpose the list of generators - that way we would get a list of first elements of the generators, followed by a list of second elements of the generators, etc.
Since the list of generators may be infinite, we cannot afford to transpose the list of generators, because we may never get to look at the second element of any generator (for a infinite number of digits we'd have a infinite number of generators). So, we enumerate the elements from the generators "diagonally" - take first element from the first generator; then take the second element from the first generator and the first from the second generator; then take the third element from the first generator, the second from the second, and the first element from the third generator, etc. This can be done by folding the list of generators with a function f, which zips together two lists - one list is the generator, the other is the already-zipped generators -, the beginning of one of them being offset by one step by adding []: to the head. This is almost zipWith (:) ys ([]:n) - the difference is that if n or ys is shorter than the other one, we don't drop the remainder of the other list. Note that folding with zipWith (:) ys n would be a transpose.
For this answer I will take "smallest" to refer to the sum of the numbers in the tuple.
To list all possible pairs in order, you can first list all of the pairs with a sum of 2, then all pairs with a sum of 3 and so on. In code
pairsWithSum n = [(i, n-i) | i <- [1..n-1]]
xs = concatMap pairsWithSum [2..]
Haskell doesn't have facilities for dealing with n-tuples without using Template Haskell, so to generalize this you will have to switch to lists.
ntuplesWithSum 1 s = [[s]]
ntuplesWithSum n s = concatMap (\i -> map (i:) (ntuplesWithSum (n-1) (s-i))) [1..s-n+1]
nums n = concatMap (ntuplesWithSum n) [n..]
Here's another solution, with probably another slightly different idea of "smallest". My order is just "all tuples with max element N come before all tuples with max element N+1". I wrote the versions for pairs and triples:
gen2_step :: Int -> [(Int, Int)]
gen2_step s = [(x, y) | x <- [1..s], y <- [1..s], (x == s || y == s)]
gen2 :: Int -> [(Int, Int)]
gen2 n = concatMap gen2_step [1..n]
gen2inf :: [(Int, Int)]
gen2inf = concatMap gen2_step [1..]
gen3_step :: Int -> [(Int, Int, Int)]
gen3_step s = [(x, y, z) | x <- [1..s], y <- [1..s], z <- [1..s], (x == s || y == s || z == s)]
gen3 :: Int -> [(Int, Int, Int)]
gen3 n = concatMap gen3_step [1..n]
gen3inf :: [(Int, Int, Int)]
gen3inf = concatMap gen3_step [1..]
You can't really generalize it to N-tuples, though as long as you stay homogeneous, you may be able to generalize it if you use arrays. But I don't want to tie my brain into that knot.
I think this is the simplest solution if "smallest" is defined as x+y+z because after you find your first solution in the space of Integral valued pythagorean triangles, your next solutions from the infinite list are bigger.
take 1 [(x,y,z) | y <- [1..], x <- [1..y], z <- [1..x], z*z + x*x == y*y]
-> [(4,5,3)]
It has the nice property that it returns each symmetrically unique solution only once. x and z are also infinite, because y is infinite.
This does not work, because the sequence for x never finishes, and thus you never get a value for y, not to mention z. The rightmost generator is the innermost loop.
take 1 [(z,y,x)|z <- [1..],y <- [1..],x <- [1..],x*x + y*y == z*z]
Sry, it's quite a while since I did haskell, so I'm going to describe it with words.
As I pointed out in my comment. It is not possible to find the smallest anything in an infinite list, since there could always be a smaller one.
What you can do is, have a stream based approach that takes the lists and returns a list with only 'valid' elements, i. e. where the condition is met. Lets call this function triangle
You can then compute the triangle list to some extent with take n (triangle ...) and from this n elements you can find the minium.

Haskell - Most frequent value

how can i get the most frequent value in a list example:
[1,3,4,5,6,6] -> output 6
[1,3,1,5] -> output 1
Im trying to get it by my own functions but i cant achieve it can you guys help me?
my code:
del x [] = []
del x (y:ys) = if x /= y
then y:del x y
else del x ys
obj x []= []
obj x (y:ys) = if x== y then y:obj x y else(obj x ys)
tam [] = 0
tam (x:y) = 1+tam y
fun (n1:[]) (n:[]) [] =n1
fun (n1:[]) (n:[]) (x:s) =if (tam(obj x (x:s)))>n then fun (x:[]) ((tam(obj x (x:s))):[]) (del x (x:s)) else(fun (n1:[]) (n:[]) (del x (x:s)))
rep (x:s) = fun (x:[]) ((tam(obj x (x:s))):[]) (del x (x:s))
Expanding on Satvik's last suggestion, you can use (&&&) :: (b -> c) -> (b -> c') -> (b -> (c, c')) from Control.Arrow (Note that I substituted a = (->) in that type signature for simplicity) to cleanly perform a decorate-sort-undecorate transform.
mostCommon list = fst . maximumBy (compare `on` snd) $ elemCount
where elemCount = map (head &&& length) . group . sort $ list
The head &&& length function has type [b] -> (b, Int). It converts a list into a tuple of its first element and its length, so when it is combined with group . sort you get a list of each distinct value in the list along with the number of times it occurred.
Also, you should think about what happens when you call mostCommon []. Clearly there is no sensible value, since there is no element at all. As it stands, all the solutions proposed (including mine) just fail on an empty list, which is not good Haskell. The normal thing to do would be to return a Maybe a, where Nothing indicates an error (in this case, an empty list) and Just a represents a "real" return value. e.g.
mostCommon :: Ord a => [a] -> Maybe a
mostCommon [] = Nothing
mostCommon list = Just ... -- your implementation here
This is much nicer, as partial functions (functions that are undefined for some input values) are horrible from a code-safety point of view. You can manipulate Maybe values using pattern matching (matching on Nothing and Just x) and the functions in Data.Maybe (preferable fromMaybe and maybe rather than fromJust).
In case you would like to get some ideas from code that does what you wish to achieve, here is an example:
import Data.List (nub, maximumBy)
import Data.Function (on)
mostCommonElem list = fst $ maximumBy (compare `on` snd) elemCounts where
elemCounts = nub [(element, count) | element <- list, let count = length (filter (==element) list)]
Here are few suggestions
del can be implemented using filter rather than writing your own recursion. In your definition there was a mistake, you needed to give ys and not y while deleting.
del x = filter (/=x)
obj is similar to del with different filter function. Similarly here in your definition you need to give ys and not y in obj.
obj x = filter (==x)
tam is just length function
-- tam = length
You don't need to keep a list for n1 and n. I have also made your code more readable, although I have not made any changes to your algorithm.
fun n1 n [] =n1
fun n1 n xs#(x:s) | length (obj x xs) > n = fun x (length $ obj x xs) (del x xs)
| otherwise = fun n1 n $ del x xs
rep xs#(x:s) = fun x (length $ obj x xs) (del x xs)
Another way, not very optimal but much more readable is
import Data.List
import Data.Ord
rep :: Ord a => [a] -> a
rep = head . head . sortBy (flip $ comparing length) . group . sort
I will try to explain in short what this code is doing. You need to find the most frequent element of the list so the first idea that should come to mind is to find frequency of all the elements. Now group is a function which combines adjacent similar elements.
> group [1,2,2,3,3,3,1,2,4]
[[1],[2,2],[3,3,3],[1],[2],[4]]
So I have used sort to bring elements which are same adjacent to each other
> sort [1,2,2,3,3,3,1,2,4]
[1,1,2,2,2,3,3,3,4]
> group . sort $ [1,2,2,3,3,3,1,2,4]
[[1,1],[2,2,2],[3,3,3],[4]]
Finding element with the maximum frequency just reduces to finding the sublist with largest number of elements. Here comes the function sortBy with which you can sort based on given comparing function. So basically I have sorted on length of the sublists (The flip is just to make the sorting descending rather than ascending).
> sortBy (flip $ comparing length) . group . sort $ [1,2,2,3,3,3,1,2,4]
[[2,2,2],[3,3,3],[1,1],[4]]
Now you can just take head two times to get the element with the largest frequency.
Let's assume you already have argmax function. You can write
your own or even better, you can reuse list-extras package. I strongly suggest you
to take a look at the package anyway.
Then, it's quite easy:
import Data.List.Extras.Argmax ( argmax )
-- >> mostFrequent [3,1,2,3,2,3]
-- 3
mostFrequent xs = argmax f xs
where f x = length $ filter (==x) xs

Alternative way of creating a list than a comprehension?

Currently I am doing something like this in my code:
--Generate a list of n 'Foo's
generateFoos n = [createFoo (show i) | i <- [1..n]]
-- Create a Foo with a given name
createFoo :: String -> Foo
I was wandering if there is a another way of doing this than creating a range [1..n] all the time...
I would say don't worry about it. "Creating the range [1..n]" isn't really going on here as a distinct step; that [1..n] desugars to enumFromTo 1 n and it's constructed lazily like everything else anyway. There's no hidden cost here one would need to eliminate.
Expanding on my comment above - the reason the map function arises naturally here is as follows.
In Haskell, list comprehensions are just syntactic sugar for do notation:
[ 2 * x | x <- [1..10] ]
is equivalent to
do { x <- [1..10]; return (2 * x) }
In turn, do notation is syntactic sugar for monadic binds - the above is equivalent to
[1..10] >>= \x -> return (2 * x)
This works because List is a monad. The code that makes List into a monad is (ignoring some irrelevant stuff)
instance Monad [] where
return x = [x]
xs >>= f = concat (map f xs)
so the call to >>= above is equivalent to
concat (map (\x -> return (2 * x)) [1..10])
which, if we replace the call to bind, is equivalent to
concat (map (\x -> [2 * x]) [1..10])
So we map the function \x -> [2 * x] over the list [1..10] and then call concat on the result. But since our function only every builds one element lists, we can skip out the call to concat and replace the code with
map (\x -> 2 * x) [1..10]
So it's natural that relatively simple list comprehensions can be turned into expressions that involve mapping a function over a range.
I prefer it that way:
generateFoos n = map (createFoo . show) [1..n]
Or are the ranges itself the problem? Then I'd recommend:
generateFoos n = map (createFoo . show) (enumFromTo 1 n)
No map, no range.
generateFoos n = unfoldr (doit (createFoo . show)) 1 where
doit f acc = if acc > n then Nothing else Just (f acc, acc + 1)
I do not guarantee any particular quality or property of this code though ;)

Can you create more than one element of a list at a time with a list comprehension in haskell?

So, for example, say I had a list of numbers and I wanted to create a list that contained each number multiplied by 2 and 3. Is there any way to do something like the following, but get back a single list of numbers instead of a list of lists of numbers?
mult_nums = [ [(n*2),(n*3)] | n <- [1..5]]
-- this returns [[2,3],[4,6],[6,9],[8,12],[10,15]]
-- but we want [2,3,4,6,6,9,8,12,10,15]
I find that extending the list comprehension makes this easier to read:
[ m | n <- [1..5], m <- [2*n,3*n] ]
It might be helpful to examine exactly what this does, and how it relates to other solutions. Let's define it as a function:
mult lst = [ m | n <- lst, m <- [2*n,3*n] ]
After a fashion, this desugars to
mult' lst =
concatMap (\n -> concatMap (\m -> [m]) [2*n,3*n]) lst
The expression concatMap (\m -> [m]) is wrapping m up in a list in order to immediately flatten it—it is equivalent to map id.
Compare this to #FunctorSalad's answer:
mult1 lst = concatMap (\n -> [n*2,n*3]) lst
We've optimized away concatMap (\m -> [m]).
Now #vili's answer:
mult2 lst = concat [ [(n*2),(n*3)] | n <- lst]
This desugars to:
mult2' lst = concat (concatMap (\n -> [[2*n,3*n]]) lst)
As in the first solution above, we are unnecessarily creating a list of lists that we have to concat away.
I don't think there is a solution that uses list comprehensions, but desugars to mult1. My intuition is that Haskell compilers are generally clever enough that this wouldn't matter (or, alternatively, that unnecessary concats are cheap due to lazy evaluation (whereas they're lethal in eager languages)).
you could use concat.
concat [ [(n*2),(n*3)] | n <- [1..5]]
output: [2,3,4,6,6,9,8,12,10,15]
In some similar cases concatMap can also be convenient, though here it doesn't change much:
concatMap (\n -> [n*2,n*3]) [1..5]

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