Erlang: DRYing up string+binary concatenation - string

I am currently forming strings from strings and binaries like this:
X = string:join(io_lib:format("~s~s~s", ["something1", "something2",<<"something3">>]), "") %X is now something1something2something3
This seems painful and messy. Because in order to dry this up with another such string with a different number of "~n":
Y = string:join(io_lib:format("~s~s", ["something1", <<"something2">>]), "")
I essentially have to write a function that counts the size of the argument list, and forms ~n[that many times] and plugs it into this.
Is there a better way to be doing this?
Eshell V8.0.2 (abort with ^G)
1> F = <<"asdf">>,
1> string:join(io_lib:format("~s~s~s", ["something1", "something2", F]),"").
"something1something2asdf"
2> lists:flatten(["something1", "something2", F]).
[115,111,109,101,116,104,105,110,103,49,115,111,109,101,116,
104,105,110,103,50,<<"asdf">>]
3>

I'm confused as to why you need the call to io_lib:format at all. It's not doing any work in this case.
string:join(["something1","something2","something3"], "").
Would give you the same result. You can simplify even further if there's really no separator character (and taking advantage of the fact that strings are just lists in Erlang):
lists:flatten(["something1", "something2", "something3"]).
Update
I see now that you're working with a list of different data types. While a one-liner may look pretty, you can see that they're not always flexible. In your case, I would create some mapper functions to handle mapping different types to strings. Maybe something like:
-module(string_utils).
-export([concat/1]).
to_string(Value) when is_binary(Value) -> binary_to_list(Value);
to_string(Value) -> Value.
concat(List) ->
lists:flatten(lists:map(fun to_string/1, List)).
And then your calling code would be:
string_utils:concat(["something1", "something2", <<"something3">>]).

Related

Including comments in AST

I'm planning on writing a Parser for some language. I'm quite confident that I could cobble together a parser in Parsec without too much hassle, but I thought about including comments into the AST so that I could implement a code formatter in the end.
At first, adding an extra parameter to the AST types seemed like a suitable idea (this is basically what was suggested in this answer). For example, instead of having
data Expr = Add Expr Expr | ...
one would have
data Expr a = Add a Expr Expr
and use a for whatever annotation (e.g. for comments that come after the expression).
However, there are some not so exciting cases. The language features C-like comments (// ..., /* .. */) and a simple for loop like this:
for (i in 1:10)
{
... // list of statements
}
Now, excluding the body there are at least 10 places where one could put one (or more) comments:
/*A*/ for /*B*/ ( /*C*/ i /*E*/ in /*F*/ 1 /*G*/ : /*H*/ 10 /*I*/ ) /*J*/
{ /*K*/
...
In other words, while the for loop could previously be comfortably represented as an identifier (i), two expressions (1 & 10) and a list of statements (the body), we would now at least had to include 10 more parameters or records for annotations.
This get ugly and confusing quite quickly, so I wondered whether there is a clear better way to handle this. I'm certainly not the first person wanting to write a code formatter that preserves comments, so there must be a decent solution or is writing a formatter just that messy?
You can probably capture most of those positions with just two generic comment productions:
Expr -> Comment Expr
Stmt -> Comment Stmt
This seems like it ought to capture comments A, C, F, H, J, and K for sure; possibly also G depending on exactly what your grammar looks like. That only leaves three spots to handle in the for production (maybe four, with one hidden in Range here):
Stmt -> "for" Comment "(" Expr Comment "in" Range Comment ")" Stmt
In other words: one before each literal string but the first. Seems not too onerous, ultimately.

Fortran CHARACTER FUNCTION without defined size [duplicate]

I am writing the following simple routine:
program scratch
character*4 :: word
word = 'hell'
print *, concat(word)
end program scratch
function concat(x)
character*(*) x
concat = x // 'plus stuff'
end function concat
The program should be taking the string 'hell' and concatenating to it the string 'plus stuff'. I would like the function to be able to take in any length string (I am planning to use the word 'heaven' as well) and concatenate to it the string 'plus stuff'.
Currently, when I run this on Visual Studio 2012 I get the following error:
Error 1 error #6303: The assignment operation or the binary
expression operation is invalid for the data types of the two
operands. D:\aboufira\Desktop\TEMP\Visual
Studio\test\logicalfunction\scratch.f90 9
This error is for the following line:
concat = x // 'plus stuff'
It is not apparent to me why the two operands are not compatible. I have set them both to be strings. Why will they not concatenate?
High Performance Mark's comment tells you about why the compiler complains: implicit typing.
The result of the function concat is implicitly typed because you haven't declared its type otherwise. Although x // 'plus stuff' is the correct way to concatenate character variables, you're attempting to assign that new character object to a (implictly) real function result.
Which leads to the question: "just how do I declare the function result to be a character?". Answer: much as you would any other character variable:
character(len=length) concat
[note that I use character(len=...) rather than character*.... I'll come on to exactly why later, but I'll also point out that the form character*4 is obsolete according to current Fortran, and may eventually be deleted entirely.]
The tricky part is: what is the length it should be declared as?
When declaring the length of a character function result which we don't know ahead of time there are two1 approaches:
an automatic character object;
a deferred length character object.
In the case of this function, we know that the length of the result is 10 longer than the input. We can declare
character(len=LEN(x)+10) concat
To do this we cannot use the form character*(LEN(x)+10).
In a more general case, deferred length:
character(len=:), allocatable :: concat ! Deferred length, will be defined on allocation
where later
concat = x//'plus stuff' ! Using automatic allocation on intrinsic assignment
Using these forms adds the requirement that the function concat has an explicit interface in the main program. You'll find much about that in other questions and resources. Providing an explicit interface will also remove the problem that, in the main program, concat also implicitly has a real result.
To stress:
program
implicit none
character(len=[something]) concat
print *, concat('hell')
end program
will not work for concat having result of the "length unknown at compile time" forms. Ideally the function will be an internal one, or one accessed from a module.
1 There is a third: assumed length function result. Anyone who wants to know about this could read this separate question. Everyone else should pretend this doesn't exist. Just like the writers of the Fortran standard.

Haskell: How to delete the same function and concatenate two lists

I am the beginner of haskell. I want to delete some same functions in the same list and concatenate the two list get together.
For example:
db1 = ["David","worksfor.isa", "IBM" ]
db2 = ["David","isa'.worksfor'", "IBM"]
db3 = ["Tom","worksfor.isa", "IBM" ]
the program can be known that "isa'.worksfor' and "worksfor.isa" is the same String. And then use "Concat" to get the new db: db1 =["David","worksfor.isa", "IBM" ] and the others: db3 = ["Tom","worksfor.isa", "IBM" ]
(map (\(a,b,c) -> concat (map(\(a',b',c') -> if ( a b == b' a') then [] else [(a,b ++ "." ++ b',c')])))) ??????
I want to "split the string, if there are ' characters, reverse it, then remove ' characters and check for equivalence"
This should be a comment, but it is far too long:
I assume you find it hard to express yourself in English. I can relate to that; I find it hard myself. However, beyond English there are two other ways to communicate here:
Using precise technical terms.
Using several, diverse examples. A single example will not suffice, and several examples which are too similar give little information.
As for option 1, you are using the wrong terminology. It is not easy for me to see how can a list with 3 items can be considered a database (as hinted by the names db1, db2). Perhaps you wanted to use a list of triples?
[ ("David","isa'.worksfor'", "IBM") ]
You are not specific about what exactly do you want to concatenate, but the term concatenation always refers to an operation that must be "additive", i.e. length(x ++ y) == length(x) ++ length(y). This does not seem to be the case in your question.
Do you want a union of two databases (lists of triples) up to equivalence?
You want the program to understand that
"isa'.worksfor'" and "worksfor.isa" are the same string
But they are not. They might be equivalent strings. You can generally do that using a map operation, like you tried, but you should note that the character ' is not an operation over strings. So a b == b' a' does nothing close to what you want - it calls the function a on the variable b, and compares this with calling the function b' over the variable a'. I can only assume you want something like "split the string, if there are ' characters, reverse it, then remove ' characters and check for equivalence" but this is completely a guesswork.
To conclude:
Please explain in detail what is the general problem you are trying to solve. Try to find the precise terms; it is difficult, but this way you can learn.
Please add different examples of input and output
Please try to explain what have you tried and where are you stuck
As a last tip, maybe you want to solve this problem in a more forgiving language than Haskell (such as JavaScript, Python, Ruby, etc.)

What's the best way to convert an Int to a String in Julia?

I am using Julia (version 0.4.6), and the method that I have tried is:
a = 123
println( string(Int(a))*"b" )
Which looks long and awkward.
The other way I have tried is to write it to a file, and then read it. This is clearly worse. I wonder if there is a recommended method.
I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish with the *"b" in your syntax, but for the rest of it:
julia> a = 123
123
julia> string(a)
"123"
julia> println(a)
123
The string() function can also take more arguments:
julia> string(a, "b")
"123b"
Note that it is not necessary to convert an Int type to an ASCIIString before calling println() on it - the conversion will occur automatically.
You can also insert (aka interpolate) integers (and certain other types) into strings using $:
julia> MyString = "my integer is $a"
"my integer is 123"
Performance Tip: The above methods can be quite convenient at times. But, if you will be performing many, many such operations and you are concerned about execution speed of your code, the Julia performance guide recommends against this, and instead in favor of the below methods:
You can supply multiple arguments to print() and println() which will operate on them exactly as string() operates on multiple arguments:
julia> println(a, "b")
123b
Or, when writing to file, you can similarly use, e.g.
open("/path/to/MyFile.txt", "w") do file
println(file, a, "b", 13)
end
or
file = open("/path/to/MyFile.txt", "a")
println(file, a, "b", 13)
close(file)
These are faster because they avoid needing to first form a string from given pieces and then output it (either to the console display or a file) and instead just sequentially output the various pieces.
Note: Answer reflects updates based on helpful comment from #Fengyang Wang.

Groovy DSL: creating dynamic closures from Strings

There are some other questions on here that are similar but sufficiently different that I need to pose this as a fresh question:
I have created an empty class, lets call it Test. It doesn't have any properties or methods. I then iterate through a map of key/value pairs, dynamically creating properties named for the key and containing the value... like so:
def langMap = [:]
langMap.put("Zero",0)
langMap.put("One",1)
langMap.put("Two",2)
langMap.put("Three",3)
langMap.put("Four",4)
langMap.put("Five",5)
langMap.put("Six",6)
langMap.put("Seven",7)
langMap.put("Eight",8)
langMap.put("Nine",9)
langMap.each { key,val ->
Test.metaClass."${key}" = val
}
Now I can access these from a new method created like this:
Test.metaClass.twoPlusThree = { return Two + Three }
println test.twoPlusThree()
What I would like to do though, is dynamically load a set of instructions from a String, like "Two + Three", create a method on the fly to evaluate the result, and then iteratively repeat this process for however many strings containing expressions that I happen to have.
Questions:
a) First off, is there simply a better and more elegant way to do this (Based on the info I have given) ?
b) Assuming this path is viable, what is the syntax to dynamically construct this closure from a string, where the string references variable names valid only within a method on this class?
Thanks!
I think the correct answer depends on what you're actually trying to do. Can the input string be a more complicated expression, like '(Two + Six) / Four'?
If you want to allow more complex expressions, you may want to directly evaluate the string as a Groovy expression. Inside the GroovyConsole or a Groovy script, you can directly call evaluate, which will evaluate an expression in the context of that script:
def numNames = 'Zero One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine'.split()
// Add each numer name as a property to the script.
numNames.eachWithIndex { name, i ->
this[name] = i
}
println evaluate('(Two + Six) / Four') // -> 2
If you are not in one of those script-friendly worlds, you can use the GroovyShell class:
def numNames = 'Zero One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine'.split()
def langMap = [:]
numNames.eachWithIndex { name, i -> langMap[name] = i }
def shell = new GroovyShell(langMap as Binding)
println shell.evaluate('(Two + Six) / Four') // -> 2
But, be aware that using eval is very risky. If the input string is user-generated, i would not recommend you going this way; the user could input something like "rm -rf /".execute(), and, depending on the privileges of the script, erase everything from wherever that script is executed. You may first validate that the input string is "safe" (maybe checking it only contains known operators, whitespaces, parentheses and number names) but i don't know if that's safe enough.
Another alternative is defining your own mini-language for those expressions and then parsing them using something like ANTLR. But, again, this really depends on what you're trying to accomplish.

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