What does prime mean in haskell? - haskell

In haskell I can see a lot of prime just like 'chainl1'
what does it mean?
expr = term `chainl1` addop
term = factor `chainl1` mulop
factor = parens expr <|> integer
mulop = do{ symbol "*"; return (*) }
<|> do{ symbol "/"; return (div) }
addop = do{ symbol "+"; return (+) }
<|> do{ symbol "-"; return (-) }

The prime (') is treated like any number in variable names, i.e. unless it's at the beginning you can use it just like a letter. Hence names such as foldl'; generally those will refer some kind of "alternative" of a similar thing, in this case foldl which is equivalent except for lazy evaluation.
However, there aren't actually any primes in your examples. Those are backticks. Surrounding a function with backticks lets you use it like an infix operator, e.g.
plus :: Int -> Int -> Int
plus = (+)
Prelude> 4 `plus` 5
9

A binary function f is usually applied to 2 arguments as f x y. However, there are certain binary functions (like elem) for which it makes sense to see them infix and not postfix. To move a binary function to infix notation one encloses it in backticks (`). Compare
intersect set1 set2 = [x | x <- set1, elem x set2]
with
intersect set1 set2 = [x | x<- set1, x `elem` set2]
The second one is closer to the mathematical notation.
See also the corresponding learn you a Haskell chapter
PS: You can do the reverse for operators. Usually an operator is infix (2 + 3) but you can move it to prefix by enclosing it in parens ((+) 2 3)

Related

Splitting string into type in Haskell

I need to create a parse function. I am new in Haskell and I am interesting can my thinking be implemented in Haskell using only GHC base functions.
So the problem is : I have so message in string with coordinates and value like (x: 01, 01, ...
y:01, 02,: v: X, Y, Z) and i need to parse it type like ([Char], [Int], [Int]).
In language like C , I would create loop and go from start and would check and then put it in there arrays but I am afraid this would not work in Haskell. Can someone give a hint on a approachable solutions to this problem?
If you’re accustomed to imperative programming with loops, you can actually do a fairly literal translation of an imperative solution to Haskell using direct recursion.
Bear in mind, this isn’t the easiest or best way to arrive at a working solution, but it’s good to learn the technique so that you understand what more idiomatic solutions are abstracting away for you.
The basic principle is to replace each loop with a recursive function, and replace each mutable variable with an accumulator parameter to that function. Where you would modify the variable within an iteration of the loop, just make a new variable; where you would modify it between iterations of the loop, call the looping function with a different argument in place of that parameter.
For a simple example, consider computing the sum of a list of integers. In C, that might be written like this:
struct ListInt { int head; struct ListInt *tail; }
int total(ListInt const *list) {
int acc = 0;
ListInt const *xs = list;
while (xs != NULL) {
acc += xs->head;
xs = xs->tail;
}
return acc;
}
We can translate that literally to low-level Haskell:
total :: [Int] -> Int
total list
= loop
0 -- acc = 0
list -- xs = list
where
loop
:: Int -- int acc;
-> [Int] -- ListInt const *xs;
-> Int
loop acc xs -- loop:
| not (null xs) = let -- if (xs != NULL) {
acc' = acc + head xs -- acc += xs->head;
xs' = tail xs -- xs = xs->tail;
in loop acc' xs' -- goto loop;
-- } else {
| otherwise = acc -- return acc;
-- }
The outer function total sets up the initial state, and the inner function loop handles the iteration over the input. In this case, total immediately returns after the loop, but if there were some more code after the loop to process the results, that would go in total:
total list = let
result = loop 0 list
in someAdditionalProcessing result
It’s extremely common in Haskell for a helper function to accumulate a list of results by prepending them to the beginning of an accumulator list with :, and then reversing this list after the loop, because appending a value to the end of a list is much more costly. You can think of this pattern as using a list as a stack, where : is the “push” operation.
Also, straight away, we can make some simple improvements. First, the accessor functions head and tail may throw an error if our code is wrong and we call them on empty lists, just like accessing a head or tail member of a NULL pointer (although an exception is clearer than a segfault!), so we can simplify it and make it safer use pattern matching instead of guards & head/tail:
loop :: Int -> [Int] -> Int
loop acc [] = acc
loop acc (h : t) = loop (acc + h) t
Finally, this pattern of recursion happens to be a fold: there’s an initial value of the accumulator, updated for each element of the input, with no complex recursion. So the whole thing can be expressed with foldl':
total :: [Int] -> Int
total list = foldl' (\ acc h -> acc + h) 0 list
And then abbreviated:
total = foldl' (+) 0
So, for parsing your format, you can follow a similar approach: instead of a list of integers, you have a list of characters, and instead of a single integer result, you have a compound data type, but the overall structure is very similar:
parse :: String -> ([Char], [Int], [Int])
parse input = let
(…, …, …) = loop ([], [], []) input
in …
where
loop (…, …, …) (c : rest) = … -- What to do for each character.
loop (…, …, …) [] = … -- What to do at end of input.
If there are different sub-parsers, where you would use a state machine in an imperative language, you can make the accumulator include a data type for the different states. For example, here’s a parser for numbers separated by spaces:
import Data.Char (isSpace, isDigit)
data ParseState
= Space
| Number [Char] -- Digit accumulator
numbers :: String -> [Int]
numbers input = loop (Space, []) input
where
loop :: (ParseState, [Int]) -> [Char] -> [Int]
loop (Space, acc) (c : rest)
| isSpace c = loop (Space, acc) rest -- Ignore space.
| isDigit c = loop (Number [c], acc) rest -- Push digit.
| otherwise = error "expected space or digit"
loop (Number ds, acc) (c : rest)
| isDigit c = loop (Number (c : ds), acc) rest -- Push digit.
| otherwise
= loop
(Space, read (reverse ds) : acc) -- Save number, expect space.
(c : rest) -- Repeat loop for same char.
loop (Number ds, acc) [] = let
acc' = read (reverse ds) : acc -- Save final number.
in reverse acc' -- Return final result.
loop (Space, acc) [] = reverse acc -- Return final result.
Of course, as you may be able to tell, this approach quickly becomes very complicated! Even if you write your code very compactly, or express it as a fold, if you’re working at the level of individual characters and parser state machines, it will take a lot of code to express your meaning, and there are many opportunities for error. A better approach is to consider the data flow at work here, and put together the parser from high-level components.
For example, the intent of the above parser is to do the following:
Split the input on whitespace
For each split, read it as an integer
And that can be expressed very directly with the words and map functions:
numbers :: String -> [Int]
numbers input = map read (words input)
One readable line instead of dozens! Clearly this approach is better. Consider how you can express the format you’re trying to parse in this style. If you want to avoid libraries like split, you can still write a function to split a string on separators using base functions like break, span, or takeWhile; then you can use that to split the input into records, and split each record into fields, and parse fields as integers or textual names accordingly.
But the preferred approach for parsing in Haskell is not to manually split up input at all, but to use parser combinator libraries like megaparsec. There are parser combinators in base too, under Text.ParserCombinators.ReadP. With those, you can express a parser in the abstract, without talking about splitting up input at all, by just combining subparsers with standard interfaces (Functor, Applicative, Alternative, and Monad), for example:
import Data.Char (isDigit)
import Text.ParserCombinators.ReadP
( endBy
, eof
, munch1
, readP_to_S
, skipSpaces
, skipSpaces
)
numbers :: String -> [Int]
numbers = fst . head . readP_to_S onlyNumbersP
where
onlyNumbersP :: ReadP [Int]
onlyNumbersP = skipSpaces *> numbersP <* eof
numbersP :: ReadP [Int]
numbersP = numberP `endBy` skipSpaces
numberP :: ReadP Int
numberP = read <$> munch1 isDigit
This is the approach I would recommend in your case. Parser combinators are also an excellent way to get comfortable using applicatives and monads in practice.

How to iterate over a list of characters and manipluate the characters in Haskell?

I am trying to go through a list of characters in a list and do something to the current character. My java equivalent of what I am trying to accomplish is:
public class MyClass {
void repeat(String s) {
String newString = "";
for(int i = 0; i < s.length(); i++) {
newString += s.charAt(i);
newString += s.charAt(i);
}
public static void main(String args[]) {
MyClass test = new MyClass();
test.repeat("abc");
}
}
One of the nicest thing about functional programming is that patterns like yours can be encapsulated in one higher-order function; if nothing fits, you can still use recursion.
Recursion
First up, a simple recursive solution. The idea behind this is that it's like a for-loop:
recursiveFunction [] = baseCase
recursiveFunction (char1:rest) = (doSomethingWith char1) : (recursiveFunction rest)
So let's write your repeat function in this form. What is the base case? Well, if you repeat an empty string, you'll get an empty string back. What is the recursion? In this case, we're doubling the first character, then recursing along the rest of the string. So here's a recursive solution:
repeat1 [] = []
repeat1 (c:cs) = c : c : (repeat1 cs)
Higher-order Functions
As you start writing more Haskell, you'll discover that these sort of recursive solutions often fit into a few repetitive patterns. Luckily, the standard library contains several predefined recursive functions for these sort of patterns:
fmap is used to map each element of a list to a different value using a function given as a parameter. For example, fmap (\x -> x + 1) adds 1 to each element of a list. Unfortunately, it can't change the length of a list, so we can't use fmap by itself.
concat is used to 'flatten' a nested list. For example, concat [[1,2],[3,4,5]] is [1,2,3,4,5].
foldr/foldl are two more complex and generic functions. For more details, consult Learn You a Haskell.
None of these seem to directly fit your needs. However, we can use concat and fmap together:
repeat2 list = concat $ fmap (\x -> [x,x]) list
The idea is that fmap changes e.g. [1,2,3] to a nested list [[1,1],[2,2],[3,3]], which concat then flattens. This pattern of generating multiple elements from a single one is so common that the combination even has a special name: concatMap. You use it like so:
repeat3 list = concatMap (\x -> [x,x]) list
Personally, this is how I'd write repeat in Haskell. (Well, almost: I'd use eta-reduction to simplify it slightly more. But at your level that's irrelevant.) This is why Haskell in my opinion is so much more powerful than many other languages: this 7-line Java method is one line of highly readable, idiomatic Haskell!
As others have suggested, it's probably wise to start with a list comprehension:
-- | Repeat each element of a list twice.
double :: [x] -> [x]
double xs = [d | x <- xs, d <- [x, x]]
But the fact that the second list in the comprehension always has the same number of elements, regardless of the value of x, means that we don't need quite that much power: the Applicative interface is sufficient. Let's start by writing the comprehension a bit differently:
double xs = xs >>= \x -> [x, x] >>= \d -> pure d
We can simplify immediately using a monad identity law:
double xs = xs >>= \x -> [x, x]
Now we switch over to Applicative, but let's leave a hole for the hard part:
double :: [x] -> [x]
double xs = liftA2 _1 xs [False, True]
The compiler lets us know that
_1 :: x -> Bool -> x
Since the elements of the inner/second list are always the same, and always come from the current outer/first list element, we don't have to care about the Bool:
double xs = liftA2 const xs [False, True]
Indeed, we don't even need to be able to distinguish the list positions:
double xs = liftA2 const xs [(),()]
Of course, we have a special Applicative method, (<*), that corresponds to liftA2 const, so let's use it:
double xs = xs <* [(),()]
And then, if we like, we can avoid mentioning xs by switching to a "point-free" form:
-- | Repeat each element of a list twice.
double :: [x] -> [x]
double = (<* [(),()])
Now for the test:
main :: IO ()
main = print $ double [1..3]
This will print [1,1,2,2,3,3].
double admits a slight generalization of dubious value:
double :: Alternative f => f x -> f x
double = (<* join (<|>) (pure ()))
This will work for sequences as well as lists:
double (Data.Sequence.fromList [1..3]) = Data.Sequence.fromList [1,1,2,2,3,3]
but it could be a bit confusing for some other Alternative instances:
double (Just 3) = Just 3

Partial Application with Infix Functions

While I understand a little about currying in the mathematical sense, partially
applying an infix function was a new concept which I discovered after diving
into the book Learn You a Haskell for Great Good.
Given this function:
applyTwice :: (a -> a) -> a -> a
applyTwice f x = f (f x)
The author uses it in a interesting way:
ghci> applyTwice (++ [0]) [1]
[1,0,0]
ghci> applyTwice ([0] ++) [1]
[0,0,1]
Here I can see clearly that the resulting function had different parameters
passed, which would not happen by normal means considering it is a curried
function (would it?). So, is there any special treatment on infix sectioning by
Haskell? Is it generic to all infix functions?
As a side note, this is my first week with Haskell and functional programming,
and I'm still reading the book.
Yes, you can partially apply an infix operator by specifying either its left or right operand, just leaving the other one blank (exactly in the two examples you wrote).
So, ([0] ++) is the same as (++) [0] or \x -> [0] ++ x (remember you can turn an infix operator into a standard function by means of parenthesis), while (++ [0]) equals to \x -> x ++ [0].
It is useful to know also the usage of backticks, ( `` ), that enable you to turn any standard function with two arguments in an infix operator:
Prelude> elem 2 [1,2,3]
True
Prelude> 2 `elem` [1,2,3] -- this is the same as before
True
Prelude> let f = (`elem` [1,2,3]) -- partial application, second operand
Prelude> f 1
True
Prelude> f 4
False
Prelude> let g = (1 `elem`) -- partial application, first operand
Prelude> g [1,2]
True
Prelude> g [2,3]
False
Yes, this is the section syntax at work.
Sections are written as ( op e ) or ( e op ), where op is a binary operator and e is an expression. Sections are a convenient syntax for partial application of binary operators.
The following identities hold:
(op e) = \ x -> x op e
(e op) = \ x -> e op x
All infix operators can be used in sections in Haskell - except for - due to strangeness with unary negation. This even includes non-infix functions converted to infix by use of backticks. You can even think of the formulation for making operators into normal functions as a double-sided section:
(x + y) -> (+ y) -> (+)
Sections are (mostly, with some rare corner cases) treated as simple lambdas. (/ 2) is the same as:
\x -> (x / 2)
and (2 /) is the same as \x -> (2 / x), for an example with a non-commutative operator.
There's nothing deeply interesting theoretically going on here. It's just syntactic sugar for partial application of infix operators. It makes code a little bit prettier, often. (There are counterexamples, of course.)

Converting Haskell Polymorphic Cosine function to F#

I'm trying to convert some Haskell code to F# but I'm having some trouble since Haskell is lazy by default and F# is not. I'm also still learning my way around F#. Below is a polymorphic cosine function in Haskell with pretty good performance. I want to try and keep the same or better performance parameters in F#. I would like to see a F# List version and a F# Seq version since the Seq version would be more like the lazy Haskell but the List version would probably perform better. Thanks for any help.
Efficiency: number of arithmetic operations used proportional to number of terms in series
Space: uses constant space, independent of number of terms
takeThemTwoByTwo xs =
takeWhile (not . null) [take 2 ys | ys <- iterate (drop 2) xs]
products xss = [product xs | xs <- xss]
pairDifferences xs =
[foldr (-) 0 adjacentPair | adjacentPair <- takeThemTwoByTwo xs]
harmonics x = [x/(fromIntegral k) | k <- [1 ..]]
cosineTerms = scanl (*) 1 . products . takeThemTwoByTwo . harmonics
cosine = foldl (+) 0 . pairDifferences .
take numberOfTerms . cosineTerms
Here is my attempt in case you're lazy to read:
let harmonics x =
Seq.initInfinite(fun i -> - x*x/(float ((2*i+1)*(2*i+2))))
let cosineTerms = Seq.scan (*) 1.0 << harmonics
let cosine numberOfTerms = Seq.sum << Seq.take numberOfTerms << cosineTerms
I have a hard time finding out that you're calculating cosine in radian using Taylor series:
cosine(x) = 1 - x2/2! + x4/4! - x6/6! +
...
Let me describe what you're doing:
Create an infinite sequence of x/k where k is an integer starting from 1.
Split above sequence into chunks of two and scan by multiplying with a seed of 1 to have a sequence of x2/((2k-1)*(2k)) (with an exception of 1 at the beginning).
Split the new sequence into blocks of two again to have differences in the form of x4k-4/((4k-4)!) - x4k-2/((4k-2)!) and sum all of them to get final result.
Because it's likely to be inefficient to split sequences in F# and takeThemTwoByTwo function is not essential, I chose another approach:
Create an infinite sequence of - x2/((2k-1)*(2k)) where k is an integer starting from 1.
Scan the sequence by multiplying with a seed of 1; we get a sequence of (-1)k * x2k/((2k)!).
Sum all elements to obtain final result.
Above program is a direct translation of my description, succinct and simple. Computing cosine with numberOfTerms = 200000 iterations takes 0.15 seconds on my machine; I suppose it is efficient enough for your purpose.
Furthermore, a List version should be easy to translate from this one.
UPDATE:
Ok, my fault was to underestimate the polymorphism part of the question. I focused more on the performance part. Here is a polymorphic version (keeping closely to the float version):
let inline cosine n (x: ^a) =
let one: ^a = LanguagePrimitives.GenericOne
Seq.initInfinite(fun i -> LanguagePrimitives.DivideByInt (- x*x) ((2*i+1)*(2*i+2)))
|> Seq.scan (*) one
|> Seq.take n
|> Seq.sum
Seq.initInfinite is less powerful than Seq.unfold in #kvb 's answer. I keep it to make things simple because n is in int range anyway.
Pad's answer is good, but not polymorphic. In general, it's significantly less common to create such definitions in F# than in Haskell (and a bit of a pain). Here's one approach:
module NumericLiteralG =
let inline FromZero() = LanguagePrimitives.GenericZero
let inline FromOne() = LanguagePrimitives.GenericOne
module ConstrainedOps =
let inline (~-) (x:^a) : ^a = -x
let inline (+) (x:^a) (y:^a) : ^a = x + y
let inline (*) (x:^a) (y:^a) : ^a = x * y
let inline (/) (x:^a) (y:^a) : ^a = x / y
open ConstrainedOps
let inline cosine n x =
let two = 1G + 1G
Seq.unfold (fun (twoIp1, t) -> Some(t, (twoIp1+two, -t*x*x/(twoIp1*(twoIp1+1G))))) (1G,1G)
|> Seq.take n
|> Seq.sum
As Pad wrote, this appears to be the Taylor series expansion of cos(x) about x=0:
cosine(x) = 1 - x²/2! + x⁴/4! - x⁶/6! + ...
So your question is an XY question: you presented a solution rather than posing the problem. Presenting the problem instead makes it much easier to solve it differently.
Let's start by writing a float-specific version in F#:
let cosine n x =
let rec loop i q t c =
if i=n then c else
loop (i + 1) (q + 10 + 8*i) (-t * x * x / float q) (c + t)
loop 0 2 1.0 0.0
For example, we can compute 1M terms of the expansion of x=0.1:
cosine 1000000 0.1
The best way to make this polymorphic in F# is to parameterize the function over the operators it uses and mark it as inline in order to remove the performance overhead of this parameterization:
let inline cosine zero one ofInt ( ~-. ) ( +. ) ( *. ) ( /. ) n x =
let rec loop i q t c =
if i=n then c else
loop (i + 1) (q + 10 + 8*i) (-.t *. x *. x /. ofInt q) (c +. t)
loop 0 2 one zero
Now we can compute 1M terms using float like this, which is just as fast as before:
cosine 0.0 1.0 float ( ~- ) (+) (*) (/) 1000000 0.1
But we can also do single-precision float:
cosine 0.0f 1.0f float32 ( ~- ) (+) (*) (/) 1000000 0.1f
And arbitrary-precision rational:
cosine 0N 1N BigNum.FromInt (~-) (+) (*) (/) 10 (1N / 10N)
And even symbolic:
type Expr =
| Int of int
| Var of string
| Add of Expr * Expr
| Mul of Expr * Expr
| Pow of Expr * Expr
static member (~-) f = Mul(Int -1, f)
static member (+) (f, g) = Add(f, g)
static member (*) (f, g) = Mul(f, g)
static member (/) (f, g) = Mul(f, Pow(g, Int -1))
cosine (Int 0) (Int 1) Int (~-) (+) (*) (/) 3 (Var "x")
To make it faster, hoist the common subexpression -x*x out of loop.

What do the parentheses signify in (x:xs) when pattern matching?

when you split a list using x:xs syntax why is it wrapped in a parentheses? what is the significance of the parentheses? why not [x:xs] or just x:xs?
The cons cell doesn't have to be parenthesized in every context, but in most contexts it is because
Function application binds tighter than any infix operator.
Burn this into your brain in letters of fire.
Example:
length [] = 0
length (x:xs) = 1 + length xs
If parentheses were omitted the compiler would think you had an argument x followed by an ill-placed infix operator, and it would complain bitterly. On the other hand this is OK
length l = case l of [] -> 0
x:xs -> 1 + length xs
In this case neither x nor xs can possibly be construed as part of a function application so no parentheses are needed.
Note that the same wonderful rule function application binds tighter than any infix operator is what allows us to write length xs in 1 + length xs without any parentheses. The infix rule giveth and the infix rule taketh away.
You're simply using the cons operator :, which has low precedence. Parentheses are needed so that things stay right.
And you don't use [x:xs], because that would match a list whose only element is a list with head x and tail xs.
I don't know exact answer, but I guess that is due to what can be matched in patterns. Only constructors can be matched. Constructors can be of single word or composite. Look at the next code:
data Foo = Bar | Baz Int
f :: Foo -> Int
f Bar = 1
f (Baz x) = x - 1
Single word constructors match as is. But composite constructors must be surrounded with parens in order to avoid ambiguity. If we skip parens it looks like matching against two independent arguments:
f Baz x = x - 1
So, as (:) is composite it must be in parens. Skipping parens for Bar is a kind of syntactic sugar.
UPDATE: I realized that (as sykora noted) it is a consequence of operator precedence. It clarifies my assumptions. Function application (which is just space between function and argument) has highest precedence. Others including (:) have lower precedence. So f x:xs is to be interpreted as ((:) (f x)) xs that is presumably not what we need. While f (x:xs) is interpreted as f applied to x:xs which is in turn (:) applied to x and xs.
It's to do with parsing.
Remember, the colon : is just a constructor that's written with operator syntax. So a function like
foo [] = 0
foo (x:xs) = x + foo xs
could also be written as
foo [] = 0
foo ((:) x xs) = x + foo xs
If you drop the parenthesis in that last line, it becomes very hard to parse!
: is a data constructor, like any other pattern match, but written infix. The parentheses are purely there because of infix precedence; they're actually not required and can be safely omitted when precedence rules allow. For instance:
> let (_, a:_) = (1, [2, 3, 4]) in a
2
> let a:_ = "xyzzy"
'x'
> case [1, 2, 3] of; a:b -> a; otherwise -> 0;
1
Interestingly, that doesn't seem to work in the head of a lambda. Not sure why.
As always, the "juxtaposition" operator binds tighter than anything else, so more often than not the delimiters are necessary, but they're not actually part of the pattern match--otherwise you wouldn't be able to use patterns like (x:y:zs) instead of (x:(y:zs)).

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