I am a beginner trying to learn functional programming.
Is there a way to pattern match different standard (not user defined) types?
E.g. if the argument of the function is a tuple, add them, if it is just an int, use int:
form (x, y) = x + y
form any_num = any_num
This obviously won't work, because the program thinks any_num is just any tuple and is therefore unreachable.
You can do this with a type class. We can define the class of Formable types that have a form function:
class Formable a where
form :: a -> Int
For ints, just use the int
instance Formable Int where
form x = x
If the argument is a tuple, add its arguments together. I'm going to go one step further, and instead of only working on tuples (Int, Int) its formable instance will work on any tuple (a, b) as long as both a and b are Formable
instance (Formable a, Formable b) => Formable (a, b) where
form (a, b) = form a + form b
We can write Formable instances for other types in a similar vein. Like totaling the elements of a list
instance (Formable a) => Formable [a] where
form = sum . map form
or the alternatives of a sum
instance (Formable a, Formable b) => Formable (Either a b) where
form (Left a) = form a
form (Right b) = form b
or even Maybe, if we know what to do with Nothing
instance (Formable a) => Formable (Maybe a) where
form Nothing = 0
form (Just a) = form a
I guess you may do as follows;
form :: Either (Int,Int) Int -> Int
form (Left (n,m)) = n + m
form (Right n) = n
>> form (Left (2,3))
>> 5
>> form (Right 7)
>> 7
In Miranda, function must be of given type. For example:
Your first line:
form (x, y) = x + y
has type:
form :: (num,num) -> num
There are two solutions:
Use abstract type with alternative cases
Use dynamic FP language (I like Erlang).
Related
I have some data that have different representations based on a type parameter, a la Sandy Maguire's Higher Kinded Data. Here are two examples:
wholeMyData :: MyData Z
wholeMyData = MyData 1 'w'
deltaMyData :: MyData Delta
deltaMyData = MyData Nothing (Just $ Left 'b')
I give some of the implementation details below, but first the actual question.
I often want to get a field of the data, usually via a local definition like:
let x = either (Just . Left . myDataChar) myDataChar -- myDataChar a record of MyData
It happens so often I would like to make a standard combinator,
getSubDelta :: ( _ -> _ ) -> Either a b -> Maybe (Either c d)
getSubDelta f = either (Just . Left . f) f
but filling in that signature is problematic. The easy solution is to just supply the record selector function twice,
getSubDelta :: (a->c) -> (b->d) -> Either a b -> Maybe (Either c d)
getSubDelta f g = either (Just . Left . f) g
but that is unseemly. So my question. Is there a way I can fill in the signature above? I'm assuming there is probably a lens based solution, what would that look like? Would it help with deeply nested data? I can't rely on the data types always being single constructor, so prisms? Traversals? My lens game is weak, so I was hoping to get some advice before I proceed.
Thanks!
Some background. I defined a generic method of performing "deltas", via a mix of GHC.Generics and type families. The gist is to use a type family in the definition of the data type. Then, depending how the type is parameterized, the records will either represent whole data or a change to existing data.
For instance, I define the business data using DeltaPoints.
MyData f = MyData { myDataInt :: DeltaPoint f Int
, myDataChar :: DeltaPoint f Char} deriving Generic
The DeltaPoints are implemented in the library, and have different forms for Delta and Z states.
data DeltaState = Z | Delta deriving (Show,Eq,Read)
type family DeltaPoint (st :: DeltaState) a where
DeltaPoint Z a = a
DeltaPoint Delta a = Maybe (Either a (DeltaOf a))
So a DeltaPoint Z a is just the original data, a, and a DeltaPoint Delta a, may or may not be present, and if it is present will either be a replacement of the original (Left) or an update (DeltaOf a).
The runtime delta functionality is encapsulated in a type class.
class HasDelta a where
type DeltaOf a
delta :: a -> a -> Maybe (Either a (DeltaOf a))
applyDeltaOf :: a -> DeltaOf a -> Maybe a
And with the use of Generics, I can usually get the delta capabilities with something like:
instance HasDelta (MyData Z) where
type (DeltaOf (MyData Z)) = MyData Delta
I think you probably want:
{-# LANGUAGE RankNTypes #-}
getSubDelta :: (forall f . (dat f -> DeltaPoint f fld))
-> Either (dat Z) (dat Delta)
-> Maybe (Either (DeltaPoint Z fld) (DeltaOf fld))
getSubDelta sel = either (Just . Left . sel) sel
giving:
x :: Either (MyData Z) (MyData Delta)
-> Maybe (Either (DeltaPoint Z Char) (DeltaOf Char))
x = getSubDelta myDataChar
-- same as: x = either (Just . Left . myDataChar) myDataChar
Is there a way in haskell to get all function arguments as a list.
Let's supose we have the following program, where we want to add the two smaller numbers and then subtract the largest. Suppose, we can't change the function definition of foo :: Int -> Int -> Int -> Int. Is there a way to get all function arguments as a list, other than constructing a new list and add all arguments as an element of said list? More importantly, is there a general way of doing this independent of the number of arguments?
Example:
module Foo where
import Data.List
foo :: Int -> Int -> Int -> Int
foo a b c = result!!0 + result!!1 - result!!2 where result = sort ([a, b, c])
is there a general way of doing this independent of the number of arguments?
Not really; at least it's not worth it. First off, this entire idea isn't very useful because lists are homogeneous: all elements must have the same type, so it only works for the rather unusual special case of functions which only take arguments of a single type.
Even then, the problem is that “number of arguments” isn't really a sensible concept in Haskell, because as Willem Van Onsem commented, all functions really only have one argument (further arguments are actually only given to the result of the first application, which has again function type).
That said, at least for a single argument- and final-result type, it is quite easy to pack any number of arguments into a list:
{-# LANGUAGE FlexibleInstances #-}
class UsingList f where
usingList :: ([Int] -> Int) -> f
instance UsingList Int where
usingList f = f []
instance UsingList r => UsingList (Int -> r) where
usingList f a = usingList (f . (a:))
foo :: Int -> Int -> Int -> Int
foo = usingList $ (\[α,β,γ] -> α + β - γ) . sort
It's also possible to make this work for any type of the arguments, using type families or a multi-param type class. What's not so simple though is to write it once and for all with variable type of the final result. The reason being, that would also have to handle a function as the type of final result. But then, that could also be intepreted as “we still need to add one more argument to the list”!
With all respect, I would disagree with #leftaroundabout's answer above. Something being
unusual is not a reason to shun it as unworthy.
It is correct that you would not be able to define a polymorphic variadic list constructor
without type annotations. However, we're not usually dealing with Haskell 98, where type
annotations were never required. With Dependent Haskell just around the corner, some
familiarity with non-trivial type annotations is becoming vital.
So, let's take a shot at this, disregarding worthiness considerations.
One way to define a function that does not seem to admit a single type is to make it a method of a
suitably constructed class. Many a trick involving type classes were devised by cunning
Haskellers, starting at least as early as 15 years ago. Even if we don't understand their
type wizardry in all its depth, we may still try our hand with a similar approach.
Let us first try to obtain a method for summing any number of Integers. That means repeatedly
applying a function like (+), with a uniform type such as a -> a -> a. Here's one way to do
it:
class Eval a where
eval :: Integer -> a
instance (Eval a) => Eval (Integer -> a) where
eval i = \y -> eval (i + y)
instance Eval Integer where
eval i = i
And this is the extract from repl:
λ eval 1 2 3 :: Integer
6
Notice that we can't do without explicit type annotation, because the very idea of our approach is
that an expression eval x1 ... xn may either be a function that waits for yet another argument,
or a final value.
One generalization now is to actually make a list of values. The science tells us that
we may derive any monoid from a list. Indeed, insofar as sum is a monoid, we may turn arguments to
a list, then sum it and obtain the same result as above.
Here's how we can go about turning arguments of our method to a list:
class Eval a where
eval2 :: [Integer] -> Integer -> a
instance (Eval a) => Eval (Integer -> a) where
eval2 is i = \j -> eval2 (i:is) j
instance Eval [Integer] where
eval2 is i = i:is
This is how it would work:
λ eval2 [] 1 2 3 4 5 :: [Integer]
[5,4,3,2,1]
Unfortunately, we have to make eval binary, rather than unary, because it now has to compose two
different things: a (possibly empty) list of values and the next value to put in. Notice how it's
similar to the usual foldr:
λ foldr (:) [] [1,2,3,4,5]
[1,2,3,4,5]
The next generalization we'd like to have is allowing arbitrary types inside the list. It's a bit
tricky, as we have to make Eval a 2-parameter type class:
class Eval a i where
eval2 :: [i] -> i -> a
instance (Eval a i) => Eval (i -> a) i where
eval2 is i = \j -> eval2 (i:is) j
instance Eval [i] i where
eval2 is i = i:is
It works as the previous with Integers, but it can also carry any other type, even a function:
(I'm sorry for the messy example. I had to show a function somehow.)
λ ($ 10) <$> (eval2 [] (+1) (subtract 2) (*3) (^4) :: [Integer -> Integer])
[10000,30,8,11]
So far so good: we can convert any number of arguments into a list. However, it will be hard to
compose this function with the one that would do useful work with the resulting list, because
composition only admits unary functions − with some trickery, binary ones, but in no way the
variadic. Seems like we'll have to define our own way to compose functions. That's how I see it:
class Ap a i r where
apply :: ([i] -> r) -> [i] -> i -> a
apply', ($...) :: ([i] -> r) -> i -> a
($...) = apply'
instance Ap a i r => Ap (i -> a) i r where
apply f xs x = \y -> apply f (x:xs) y
apply' f x = \y -> apply f [x] y
instance Ap r i r where
apply f xs x = f $ x:xs
apply' f x = f [x]
Now we can write our desired function as an application of a list-admitting function to any number
of arguments:
foo' :: (Num r, Ord r, Ap a r r) => r -> a
foo' = (g $...)
where f = (\result -> (result !! 0) + (result !! 1) - (result !! 2))
g = f . sort
You'll still have to type annotate it at every call site, like this:
λ foo' 4 5 10 :: Integer
-1
− But so far, that's the best I can do.
The more I study Haskell, the more I am certain that nothing is impossible.
Stack has many threads on overlapping instances, and while these are helpful in explaining the source of the problem, I am still not clear as to how to redesign my code for the problem to go away. While I will certain invest more time and effort in going through the details of existing answers, I will post here the general pattern which I have identified as creating the problem, in the hope that a simple and generic answer exists: I typically find myself defining a class such as:
{-# LANGUAGE FlexibleInstances #-}
class M m where
foo :: m v -> Int
bar :: m v -> String
together with the instance declarations:
instance (M m) => Eq (m v) where
(==) x y = (foo x) == (foo y) -- details unimportant
instance (M m) => Show (m v) where
show = bar -- details unimportant
and in the course of my work I will inevitably create some data type:
data A v = A v
and declare A as an instance of class M:
instance M A where
foo x = 1 -- details unimportant
bar x = "bar"
Then defining some elements of A Integer:
x = A 2
y = A 3
I have no issue printing x and y or evaluating the Boolean x == y, but if I attempt to print the list [x] or evaluate the Boolean [x] == [y], then the overlapping instance error occurs:
main = do
print x -- fine
print y -- fine
print (x == y) -- fine
print [x] -- overlapping instance error
if [x] == [y] then return () else return () -- overlapping instance error
The cause of these errors is now very clear I think: they stem from the existing instance declarations instance Show a => Show [a] and instance Eq a => Eq [a] and while it is true that [] :: * -> * has not yet been declared as an instance of my class M, there is nothing preventing someone doing so at some point: so the compiler ignores the context of instance declarations.
When faced with the pattern I have described, how can it be re-engineered to avoid the problem?
There's no backtracking in instance search. Instances are matched purely based on the syntactic structure of the instance head. That means instance contexts are not accounted for during instance resolution.
So, when you write
instance (M m) => Show (m v) where
show = bar
you're saying "Here is an instance for Show, for any type of the form m v". Since [x] :: [] (A Int) is indeed a type of the form m v (set m ~ [] and v ~ A Int), instance search for Show [A Int] turns up two candidates:
instance Show a => Show [a]
instance M m => Show (m v)
Like I said, the type checker doesn't look at the instances' contexts when selecting an instance, so these two instances are overlapping.
The fix is to not declare instances like Show (m v). As a general rule, it's a bad idea to declare instances whose head is composed purely of type variables. Every instance you write should start with an honest-to-goodness type constructor, and you should approach instances which don't fit that pattern with suspicion.
Supplying a newtype for your default instances is a fairly standard design (see, for example, WrappedBifunctor's Functor instance),
newtype WrappedM m a = WrappedM { unwrapM :: m a }
instance M m => Show (WrappedM m a) where
show = bar . unwrapM
as is giving a default implementation of the function at the top level (see eg foldMapDefault):
showDefault = bar
I need to use this data structure data D = C Int Float and I need to compare it with an Int, for example a::D == 2.
How can I create an instance to define this kind of Eq ?
Thank you!
I would implement a projection:
getInt :: D -> Int
getInt (C i _) = i
and then compare with it:
getInt myD == 5
you can even include this into a record:
data D = C { getInt :: Int, getFloat :: Float }
if you like
You can't; == has signature a -> a -> Bool, so it can't be used like this.
Using the convertible package you can define
(~==) :: (Convertible a b, Eq b) => a -> b -> Bool
x ~== y = case safeConvert x of
Right x' -> x' == y
Left _ -> False
(==~) :: (Convertible b a, Eq a) => a -> b -> Bool
(==~) = flip (~==)
instance Convertible Int D where ...
-- or D Int depending on what you have in mind
Without depending on convertible, you could just define a conversion function either from Int to D (and write a == fromInt 2) or vice versa.
A less recommended route (for this specific case I think it's simply worse than the first solution) would be to define your own type class, e.g.
class Eq' a b where
(=~=) :: a -> b -> Bool
instance Eq a => Eq' a a where
x =~= y = x == y
instance Eq' D Int where ...
etc.
This can be done, but I doubt you will want to do this. As Alexey mentioned the type of (==) is Eq a=>a->a->Bool, so the only way to make this work would be to make 2 have type D. This may seem absurd at first, but in fact numbers can be made to have any type you want, as long as that type is an instance of Num
instance Num D where
fromInteger x = C x 1.0
There are still many things to work out, though....
First, you need to fully implement all the functions in Num, including (+), (*), abs, signum, fromInteger, and (negate | (-)).
Ugh!
Second, you have that extra Float to fill in in fromInteger. I chose the value 1.0 above, but that was arbitrary.
Third, you need to actually make D an instance of Eq also, to fill in the actual (==).
instance Eq D where
(C x _) == (C y _) = x == y
Note that this is also pretty arbitrary, as I needed to ignore the Float values to get (==) to do what you want it to.
Bottom line is, this would do what you want it to do, but at the cost of abusing the Num type, and the Eq type pretty badly.... The Num type should be reserved for things that you actually would think of as a number, and the Eq type should be reserved for a comparison of two full objects, each part included.
I'm having trouble printing contents of a custom matrix type I made. When I try to do it tells me
Ambiguous occurrence `show'
It could refer to either `MatrixShow.show',
defined at Matrices.hs:6:9
or `Prelude.show',
imported from `Prelude' at Matrices.hs:1:8-17
Here is the module I'm importing:
module Matrix (Matrix(..), fillWith, fromRule, numRows, numColumns, at, mtranspose, mmap) where
newtype Matrix a = Mat ((Int,Int), (Int,Int) -> a)
fillWith :: (Int,Int) -> a -> (Matrix a)
fillWith (n,m) k = Mat ((n,m), (\(_,_) -> k))
fromRule :: (Int,Int) -> ((Int,Int) -> a) -> (Matrix a)
fromRule (n,m) f = Mat ((n,m), f)
numRows :: (Matrix a) -> Int
numRows (Mat ((n,_),_)) = n
numColumns :: (Matrix a) -> Int
numColumns (Mat ((_,m),_)) = m
at :: (Matrix a) -> (Int, Int) -> a
at (Mat ((n,m), f)) (i,j)| (i > 0) && (j > 0) || (i <= n) && (j <= m) = f (i,j)
mtranspose :: (Matrix a) -> (Matrix a)
mtranspose (Mat ((n,m),f)) = (Mat ((m,n),\(j,i) -> f (i,j)))
mmap :: (a -> b) -> (Matrix a) -> (Matrix b)
mmap h (Mat ((n,m),f)) = (Mat ((n,m), h.f))
This is my module:
module MatrixShow where
import Matrix
instance (Show a) => Show (Matrix a) where
show (Mat ((x,y),f)) = show f
Also is there some place where I can figure this out on my own, some link with instructions or some tutorial or something to learn how to do this.
The problem is with your indentation. The definition of show needs to be indented relative to the instance show a => Show (Matrix a). As it is, it appears that you are trying to define a new function called show, unrelated to the Show class, which you can't do.
#dfeuer, whose name I continue to have trouble spelling, has given you the direct answer - Haskell is sensitive to layout - but I'm going to try to help you with the underlying question that you've alluded to in the comments, without giving you the full answer.
You mentioned that you were confused about how matrices are represented. Read the source, Luke:
newtype Matrix a = Mat ((Int,Int), (Int,Int) -> a)
This newtype declaration tells you that a Matrix is formed from a pair ((Int,Int), (Int,Int) -> a). If you split up the tuple, that's an (Int, Int) pair and a function of type (Int, Int) -> a (a function with two integer arguments which returns something of arbitrary type a). This suggests to me that the first part of the tuple represents the size of the matrix, and the second part is a function mapping coordinates onto elements. This hypothesis seems to be confirmed by some of the example code your professor has given you - have a look at at or mtranspose, for example.
So, the question is - given the width and height of the matrix, and a function which will give you the element at a given coordinate, how do we give a string showing the items in the matrix?
The first thing we need to do is enumerate all the possible coordinates for the given width and height of the matrix. Haskell provides some useful syntactic constructs for this sort of operation - we can write [x .. y] to enumerate all the values between x and y, and use a list comprehension to unpack those enumerations in a nested loop.
coords :: (Int, Int) -- (width, height)
-> [(Int, Int)] -- (x, y) pairs
coords (w, h) = [(x, y) | x <- [0 .. w], y <- [0 .. h]]
For example:
ghci> coords (2, 4)
[(0,0),(0,1),(0,2),(0,3),(0,4),(1,0),(1,1),(1,2),(1,3),(1,4),(2,0),(2,1),(2,2),(2,3),(2,4)]
Now that we've worked out how to list all the possible coordinates in a matrix, how do we turn coordinates into elements of type a? Well, the Mat constructor contains a function (Int, Int) -> a which gives you the element associated with a single coordinate. We need to apply that function to each of the coordinates in the list which we just enumerated. This is what map does.
elems :: Matrix a -> [a]
elems (Mat (size, f)) = map f $ coords size
So, there's the code to enumerate the elements of a matrix. Can you figure out how to modify this code so that a) it shows the elements as a string and b) it shows them in a row-by-row fashion? You'll probably need to adjust both of these functions.
I suppose the broader point I'd like to make is that even though it feels like your professor has thrown you into the deep end, it's always possible to do a little detective work and figure out for yourself what something means. Many - most? - of the people answering questions on this site are self-taught programmers, myself included. We persevered!
After all, it's just code. If a computer's going to understand it then it must be written down on the page, and that means that you can understand it, too.