Backslash in string changing output - string

I am currently trying to implement a method that counts the number of characters and digits in a string. However if I use a string that contains the '\' character I am getting strange results. I am guessing it's because the backslash character is an escape character.
Here is the method:
import Data.Char
countLettersAndDigits :: String -> Int
countLettersAndDigits [] = 0
countLettersAndDigits (x:xs) = if isDigit x == True || isLetter x == True
then 1 + countLettersAndDigits xs
else countLettersAndDigits xs
Here is a set of inputs with their respective results:
"1234fd" -> 6 (Doesn't contain '\')
"1234f\d" -> lexical error in string/character literal at character
'd'
"1234\fd" -> 5
"123\4fd" -> 5
"12\34fd" -> 4
"1\234fd" -> 4
"\1234fd" -> 3
I find it strange that, for example, "1234\fd" and "123\4fd" both give 5 as a result.
Any help explaining why this maybe the case and also how to get around this problem? would be great!
Cheers.
Edit
I forgot to mention that the string that I used above was just an example I was playing with. The actual string that is causing a problem is being generated by Quick Check. The string was "\178". So I require a way to be able to handle this case in my code when their is only one backslash and the string is being generated for me. Cheers.

You are correct that \ is Haskell's escape character. If you print out the generated strings, the answer may be more obvious:
main = mapM_ putStrLn [ "1234fd"
, "1234\fd"
, "123\4fd"
, "12\34fd"
, "1\234fd"
, "\1234fd"
]
yields...
1234fd
1234d
123fd
12"fd
1êfd
Ӓfd
If you actually intended on including a backslash character in your string, you need to double it up: "\\" will result in a single \ being printed.
You can read up on escape sequences here.

Related

How to deal with file ending '\' in strings haskell

import Data.Char (isAlpha)
import Data.List (elemIndex)
import Data.Maybe (fromJust)
helper = ['a'..'z'] ++ ['a'..'z'] ++ ['A'..'Z'] ++ ['A'..'Z']
rotate :: Char -> Char
rotate x | '\' = '\'
|isAlpha(x) = helper !! (fromJust (elemIndex x helper) + 13)
| otherwise = x
rot13 :: String -> String
rot13 "" = ""
rot13 s = map rotate s
main = do
print $ rot13( "Hey fellow warriors" )
print $ rot13( "This is a test")
print $ rot13( "This is another test" )
print $ rot13("\604099\159558\705559&\546452\390142")
n <- getLine
print $ rot13( show n)
This is my code for ROT13 and there is an error when I try to pass file ending directly
rot13.hs:8:15: error:
lexical error in string/character literal at character ' '
|
8 | rotate x | '\' = '\'
There is also an error even from if not replace just use isAlpha to filter
How to deal with this?
As in many languages, backslash is the escape character. It's used to introduce characters that are hard or impossible to include in strings in other ways. For example, strings can't span multiple lines*, so it's impossible to include a literal newline in a string literal; and double-quotes end the string, so it's normally impossible to include a double quote in a string literal. The \n and \" escapes, respectively, covers those:
> putStrLn "before\nmiddle\"after"
before
middle"after
>
Since \ introduces escape codes, it always expects to be followed by something. If you want a literal backslash to be included at that spot, you can use a second backslash. For example:
> putStrLn "before\\after"
before\after
>
The Report, Section 2.6 is the final word on what escapes are available and what they mean.
Literal characters have a similar (though not quite identical) collection of escapes to strings. So the fix to your syntax looks like this:
rotate x | '\\' = '\\'
This will let your code parse, though there are further errors to fix once you get past that.
* Yes, yes, string gaps. I know. Doesn't actually change the point, since the newline in the gap isn't included in the resulting string.

Haskell - Splitting a string by delimiter

I am trying to write a program in Haskell to split a string by delimiter.
And I have studied different examples provided by other users. An example would the the code that is posted below.
split :: String -> [String]
split [] = [""]
split (c:cs)
| c == ',' = "" : rest
| otherwise = (c : head rest) : tail rest
where
rest = split cs
Sample Input: "1,2,3".
Sample Output: ["1","2","3"].
I have been trying to modify the code so that the output would be something like ["1", "," , "2", "," , "3"] which includes the delimiter in the output as well , but I just cannot succeed.
For example, I changed the line:
| c == ',' = "" : rest
into:
| c == ',' = "," : rest
But the result becomes ["1,","2,","3"].
What is the problem and in which part I have had a misunderstanding?
If you're trying to write this function "for real" instead of writing the character-by-character recursion for practice, I think a clearer method is to use the break function from Data.List. The following expression:
break (==',') str
breaks the string into a tuple (a,b) where the first part consists of the initial "comma-free" part, and the second part is either more string starting with the comma or else empty if there's no more string.
This makes the definition of split clear and straightforward:
split str = case break (==',') str of
(a, ',':b) -> a : split b
(a, "") -> [a]
You can verify that this handles split "" (which returns [""]), so there's no need to treat that as a special case.
This version has the added benefit that the modification to include the delimiter is also easy to understand:
split2 str = case break (==',') str of
(a, ',':b) -> a : "," : split2 b
(a, "") -> [a]
Note that I've written the patterns in these functions in more detail than is necessary to make it absolute clear what's going on, and this also means that Haskell does a duplicate check on each comma. For this reason, some people might prefer:
split str = case break (==',') str of
(a, _:b) -> a : split b
(a, _) -> [a]
or, if they still wanted to document exactly what they were expecting in each case branch:
split str = case break (==',') str of
(a, _comma:b) -> a : split b
(a, _empty) -> [a]
Instead of altering code in the hope that it matches the expecations, it is usually better to understand the code fragment first.
split :: String -> [String]
split [] = [""]
split (c:cs) | c == ',' = "" : rest
| otherwise = (c : head rest) : tail rest
where rest = split cs
First of all we better analyze what split does. The first statement simply says "The split of an empty string, is a list with one element, the empty string". This seems reasonable. Now the second clause states: "In case the head of the string is a comma, we produce a list where the first element is an empty string, followed by splitting up the remainings of the string.". The last guard says "In case the first character of the string is not a comma, we prepend that character to the first item of the split of the remaining string, followed by the remaining elements of the split of the remaining string". Mind that split returns a list of strings, so the head rest is a string.
So if we want to add the delimiter to the output, then we need to add that as a separate string in the output of split. Where? In the first guard. We should not return "," : rest, since the head is - by recursion - prepended, but as a separate string. So the result is:
split :: String -> [String]
split [] = [""]
split (c:cs) | c == ',' = "" : "," : rest
| otherwise = (c : head rest) : tail rest
where rest = split cs
That example code is poor style. Never use head and tail unless you know exactly what you're doing (these functions are unsafe, partial functions). Also, equality comparisons are usually better written as dedicated patterns.
With that in mind, the example becomes:
split :: String -> [String]
split "" = [""]
split (',':cs) = "" : split cs
split (c:cs) = (c:cellCompletion) : otherCells
where cellCompletion : otherCells = split cs
(Strictly speaking, this is still unsafe because the match cellCompletion:otherCells is non-exhaustive, but at least it happens in a well-defined place which will give a clear error message if anything goes wrong.)
Now IMO, this makes it quite a bit clearer what's actually going on here: with "" : split cs, the intend is not really to add an empty cell to the result. Rather, it is to add a cell which will be filled up by calls further up in the recursion stack. This happens because those calls deconstruct the deeper result again, with the pattern match cellCompletion : otherCells = split cs, i.e. they pop off the first cell again and prepend the actual cell contents.
So, if you change that to "," : split, the effect is just that all cells you build will already be pre-terminated with a , character. That's not what you want.
Instead you want to add an additional cell that won't be touched anymore. That needs to be deeper in the result then:
split (',':cs) = "" : "," : split cs

Creating an array of possible string variations

I'm trying to figure out how I would create variations of a string, by replacing one character at a time in the string with a different character from another array.
For example:
variations = "abc"
getVariations "xyz" variations
Should return:
["xbc", "ybc", "zbc", "axc", "ayc", "azc", "abx", "aby", "abz"]
I'm not quite sure how to go about this. I tried iterating through the string, and then using list comprehension to add the possible characters but I end up losing characters.
[c ++ xs | c <- splitOn "" variations]
Where xs is the tail of the string.
Would someone be able to point me in the right direction please?
Recursively you can define getVariations replacements input
if input is empty, the result is ...
if input is (a:as), combine the results of:
replacing a with a character from replacements
keeping a the same and performing getVariations on as
This means the definition of getVariations could look ike:
getVariations replacements [] = ...
getVariations replacements (a:as) = ...#1... ++ ...#2...
It might also help to decide what the type of getVariations is:
getVariations :: String -> String -> ???

Haskell incorrect indentation

I have an error saying "Possibly incorrect indentation"
boyerMooreSearch :: [Char] -> [Char] -> [Int] -> Int
boyerMooreSearch string pattern skipTable
| skip == 0 = 0
| skip > 0 && (string length > pattern length) = boyerMooreSearch (substring string skip (string length)) pattern skipTable
| otherwise = -1
where
subStr = (substring 0 (pattern length))
skip = (calculateSkip subStr pattern skipTable)
Whats wrong with it? Can anyone explain indentation rules in Haskell?
On the line with substr, you have a string of whitespace followed by a literal tab character, and on the line with skip you have the same string followed by four spaces. These are incompatible; one robust, flexible way to get this right is to line things in a block up with exact the same string of whitespace at the beginning of each line.
The real rule, though, since you asked, is that tabs increase the indentation level to the next multiple of eight, and all other characters increase the indentation level by one. Different lines in a block must be at the same indentation level. do, where, let, and of introduce blocks (I may be forgetting a few).

Overwriting previous functions

I have a function, which contains the first 101 characters:
characters :: [String]
characters = [[chr i] |i<-[0..100]]
And what I need to do is to make the next function append to this one permanently, so far I have tried something like this, but this doesn't keep the result.
append :: [String] -> String -> String -> [String]
append characters xs ys = characters ++ [(take 2 (xs++ys))]
So pretty much what I need is to be able to continuously expand my characters function with the append function, and not lose the results.
Thanks for the answers.
Values are immutable in Haskell, so
characters ++ somethingElse
produces a new list, containing a copy of characters at the front, characters itself remains unchanged.
So, as stated, your task is impossible. What are the actual requirements?
I don't know, what you're trying to do with your example. But to answer just your subject, you can import with the hiding-flag and write your own version of a function, like:
import Data.Text hiding (append)
HTH

Resources