So I'm working on a minimax implementation for a checkers-like game to help myself learn Haskell better. The function I'm having trouble with takes a list for game states, and generates the list of immediate successor game states. Like checkers, if a jump is available, the player must take it. If there's more than one, the player can choose.
For the most part, this works nicely with the list monad: loop over all the input game states, loop over all marbles that could be jumped, loop over all jumps of that marble. This list monad nicely flattens all the lists out into a simple list of states at the end.
The trick is that, if no jumps are found for a given game state, I need to return the current game state, rather than the empty list. The code below is the best way I've come up with of doing that, but it seems really ugly to me. Any suggestions on how to clean it up?
eHex :: Coord -> Coord -- Returns the coordinates immediately to the east on the board
nwHex :: Coord -> Coord -- Returns the coordinates immediately to the northwest on the board
generateJumpsIter :: [ZertzState] -> [ZertzState]
generateJumpsIter states = do
ws <- states
case children ws of
[] -> return ws
n#_ -> n
where
children ws#(ZertzState s1 s2 b p) = do
(c, color) <- occupiedCoords ws
(start, end) <- [(eHex, wHex), (wHex, eHex), (swHex, neHex),
(neHex, swHex), (nwHex, seHex), (seHex, nwHex)]
if (hexOccupied b $ start c) && (hexOpen b $ end c)
then case p of
1 -> return $ ZertzState (scoreMarble s1 color) s2
(jumpMarble (start c) c (end c) b) p
(-1) -> return $ ZertzState s1 (scoreMarble s2 color)
(jumpMarble (start c) c (end c) b) p
else []
EDIT: Provide example type signatures for the *Hex functions.
The trick is that, if no jumps are found for a given game state, I need to return the current game state, rather than the empty list.
Why? I've written minimax several times, and I can't imagine a use for such a function. Wouldn't you be better off with a function of type
nextStates :: [ZertzState] -> [Maybe [ZertzState]]
or
nextStates :: [ZertzState] -> [[ZertzState]]
However if you really want to return "either the list of next states, or if that list is empty, the original state", then the type you want is
nextStates :: [ZertzState] -> [Either ZertzState [ZertzState]]
which you can then flatten easily enough.
As to how to implement, I recommend defining a helper function of type
[ZertzState] -> [(ZertzState, [ZertzState])]
and than you can map
(\(start, succs) -> if null succs then Left start else Right succs)
over the result, plus various other things.
As Fred Brooks said (paraphrasing), once you get the types right, the code practically writes itself.
Don't abuse monads notation for list, it's so heavy for nothing. Moreover you can use list comprehension in the same fashion :
do x <- [1..3]
y <- [2..5] <=> [ x + y | x <- [1..3], y <- [2..5] ]
return x + y
now for the 'simplification'
listOfHex :: [(Coord -> Coord,Coord -> Coord)]
listOfHex = [ (eHex, wHex), (wHex, eHex), (swHex, neHex)
, (neHex, swHex), (nwHex, seHex), (seHex, nwHex)]
generateJumpsIter :: [ZertzState] -> [ZertzState]
generateJumpsIter states =
[if null ws then ws else children ws | ws <- states]
where -- I named it foo because I don t know what it do....
foo True 1 = ZertzState (scoreMarble s1 color) s2
(jumpMarble (start c) c (end c) b) p
foo True (-1) = ZertzState s1 (scoreMarble s2 color)
(jumpMarble (start c) c (end c) b) p
foo False _ = []
foo _ _ = error "Bleh"
children ws#(ZertzState s1 s2 b p) =
[ foo (valid c hex) p | (c, _) <- occupiedCoords ws, hex <- listOfHex ]
where valid c (start, end) =
(hexOccupied b $ start c) && (hexOpen b $ end c)
The let in the let in list commprehension at the top bother me a little, but as I don't have all the code, I don't really know how to do it in an other way. If you can modify more in depth, I suggest you to use more combinators (map, foldr, foldl' etc) as they really reduce code size in my experience.
Note, the code is not tested, and may not compile.
Related
Apologies for my poor wording of the question. I've tried searching for an answer but not knowing what to search is making it very difficult to find one.
Here is a simple function which calculates the area of a triangle.
triangleArea :: Float -> Float -> Float -> Float
triangleArea a b c
| (a + b) <= c = error "Not a triangle!"
| (a + c) <= b = error "Not a triangle!"
| (b + c) <= a = error "Not a triangle!"
| otherwise = sqrt (s * (s - a) * (s - b) * (s - c))
where s = (a + b + c) / 2
Three lines of the function have been taken up for the purposes of error checking. I was wondering if these three lines could be condensed into one generic line.
I was wondering if something similar to the following would be possible
(arg1 + arg2) == arg3
where Haskell knows to check each possible combination of the three arguments.
I think #behzad.nouri's comment is the best. Sometimes doing a little math is the best way to program. Here's a somewhat overdone expansion on #melpomene's solution, which I thought would be fun to share. Let's write a function similar to permutations but that computes combinations:
import Control.Arrow (first, second)
-- choose n xs returns a list of tuples, the first component of each having
-- n elements and the second component having the rest, in all combinations
-- (ignoring order within the lists). N.B. this would be faster if implemented
-- using a DList.
choose :: Int -> [a] -> [([a],[a])]
choose 0 xs = [([], xs)]
choose _ [] = []
choose n (x:xs) =
map (first (x:)) (choose (n-1) xs) ++
map (second (x:)) (choose n xs)
So..
ghci> choose 2 [1,2,3]
[([1,2],[3]),([1,3],[2]),([2,3],[1])]
Now you can write
triangleArea a b c
| or [ x + y <= z | ([x,y], [z]) <- choose 2 [a,b,c] ] = error ...
This doesn't address the question of how to shorten your error checking code, but you may be able to limit how often you repeat it by defining some new types with invariants. This function needs error checking because you can't trust the user to supply Float triples that make a reasonable triangle, and if you continue to define functions this way then every triangle-related function you write would need similar error checks.
However, if you define a Triangle type, you can check your invariants only once, when a triangle is created, and then all other functions will be guaranteed to receive valid triangles:
module Triangle (Triangle(), mkTriangle, area) where
data Triangle a = Triangle a a a deriving Show
mkTriangle :: (Num a, Ord a) => a -> a -> a -> Either String (Triangle a)
mkTriangle a b c
| a + b <= c = wrong
| a + c <= b = wrong
| b + c <= a = wrong
| otherwise = Right $ Triangle a b c
where wrong = Left "Not a triangle!"
area :: Floating a => Triangle a -> a
area (Triangle a b c) = sqrt (s * (s - a) * (s - b) * (s - c))
where s = (a + b + c) / 2
Here we export the Triangle type, but not its constructor, so that the client must use mkTriangle instead, which can do the required error checking. Then area, and any other triangle functions you write, can omit the checks that they are receiving a valid triangle. This general pattern is called "smart constructors".
Here are two ideas.
Using existing tools, you can generate all the permutations of the arguments and check that they all satisfy a condition. Thus:
import Data.List
triangleArea a b c
| any (\[x, y, z] -> x + y <= z) (permutations [a,b,c])
= error "Not a triangle!"
| otherwise = {- ... -}
This doesn't require writing very much additional code; however, it will search some permutations you don't care about.
Use the usual trick for choosing an element from a list and the left-overs. The zippers function is one I use frequently:
zippers :: [a] -> [([a], a, [a])]
zippers = go [] where
go b [] = []
go b (v:e) = (b, v, e) : go (v:b) e
We can use it to build a function which chooses only appropriate triples of elements:
triples :: [a] -> [(a, a, a)]
triples xs = do
(b1, v1, e1) <- zippers xs
(b2, v2, e2) <- zippers e1
v3 <- b1 ++ b2 ++ e2
return (v1, v2, v3)
Now we can write our guard like in part (1), but it will only consider unique pairings for the addition.
triangleArea a b c
| any (\(x, y, z) -> x + y <= z) (triples [a,b,c])
= error "Not a triangle!"
| otherwise = {- ... -}
I'm writing a program to allocate pizzas to people; each person will get one pizza, ideally of their favorite type, unless stock has run out, in which case they are given their next favorite type recursively.
My approach is to compute a ((User, Pizza), Int) for the amount a person would like said pizza, sort those, and recurse through using a state monad to keep inventory counts.
The program is written and type checks:
allocatePizzasImpl :: [((User, Pizza), Int)]
-> State [(Pizza, Int)] [(User, Pizza)]
allocatePizzasImpl [] = return []
allocatePizzasImpl ((user, (flavor, _)):ranks) =
do inventory <- get
-- this line is never hit
put $ updateWith inventory (\i -> if i <= 0
then Nothing
else Just $ i - 1) flavor
next <- allocatePizzasImpl $ filter ((/= user) . fst) ranks
return $ (user, flavor) : next
and I have a helper function to extract the result:
allocatePizzas :: [Pizza]
-> [((User, Pizza), Int)]
-> [(User, Pizza)]
allocatePizzas pizzas rank = fst
. runState (allocatePizzasImpl rank)
$ buildQuotas pizzas
but the line indicated by -- this line is never hit is... never hit by any GHCI breakpoints; furthermore, if I break on the return call, GHCI says inventory isn't in scope.
When run, the result is assigning the same pizza (with one inventory count) to all users. Something is going wrong, but I have absolutely no idea how to proceed. I'm new to Haskell, so any comments on style would be appreciated as well =)
Thanks!
PS: For completeness, updateWith is defined as:
updateWith :: (Eq a, Eq b)
=> [(a, b)] -- inventory
-> (b -> Maybe b) -- update function; Nothing removes it
-> a -- key to update
-> [(a, b)]
updateWith set update key =
case lookup key set of
Just b -> replace set
(unwrapPair (key, update b))
(fromMaybe 0 $ elemIndex (key, b) set)
Nothing -> set
where replace :: [a] -> Maybe a -> Int -> [a]
replace [] _ _ = []
replace (_:xs) (Just val) 0 = val:xs
replace (_:xs) Nothing 0 = xs
replace (x:xs) val i = x : (replace xs val $ i - 1)
unwrapPair :: Monad m => (a, m b) -> m (a, b)
unwrapPair (a, mb) = do b <- mb
return (a, b)
I think your function replace is broken:
replace (_:xs) (Just val) 0 = val:xs
This doesn't pay any attention to the value it's replacing. Wasn't your intention to replace just the pair corresponding to key?
I think you want
updateWith [] e k = []
updateWith ((k', v):kvs) e k
| k' == k = case e v of
Just v' -> (k, v'):kvs
Nothing -> kvs
| otherwise = (k', v) : updateWith kvs e k
The issue (ignoring other conceptual things mentioned by the commenters) turned out to be using fst to extract the result from the State would for some reason not cause the State to actually be computed. Running the result through seq fixed it.
I'd be interested in knowing why this is the case, though!
Edit: As Daniel Wagner pointed out in the comments, I wasn't actually using inventory, which turned out to be the real bug. Marking this as accepted.
Making tree like data structures is relatively easy in Haskell. However, what if I want a structure like the following:
A (root)
/ \
B C
/ \ / \
D E F
So if I traverse down the structure through B to update E, the returned new updated structure also has E updated if I traverse through C.
Could someone give me some hints about how to achieve this? You can assume there are no loops.
I would flatten the data structure to an array, and operate on this instead:
import Data.Array
type Tree = Array Int -- Bounds should start at (1) and go to sum [1..n]
data TreeTraverse = TLeft TreeTraverse | TRight TreeTraverse | TStop
Given some traverse directions (left, right, stop), it's easy to see that if we go left, we simply add the current level to our position, and if we go right, we also add the current position plus one:
getPosition :: TreeTraverse -> Int
getPosition = getPosition' 1 1
where
getPosition' level pos (TLeft ts) = getPosition' (level+1) (pos+level) ts
getPosition' level pos (TRight ts) = getPosition' (level+1) (pos+level + 1) ts
getPosition' _ pos (TStop) = pos
In your case, you want to traverse either ABE or ACE:
traverseABE = TLeft $ TRight TStop
traverseACE = TRight $ TLeft TStop
Since we already now how to get the position of your element, and Data.Array provides some functions to set/get specific elements, we can use the following functions to get/set tree values:
getElem :: TreeTraverse -> Tree a -> a
getElem tt t = t ! getPosition tt
setElem :: TreeTraverse -> Tree a -> a -> Tree a
setElem tt t x = t // [(getPosition tt, x)]
To complete the code, lets use your example:
example = "ABCDEF"
exampleTree :: Tree Char
exampleTree = listArray (1, length example) example
And put everything to action:
main :: IO ()
main = do
putStrLn $ "Traversing from A -> B -> E: " ++ [getElem traverseABE exampleTree]
putStrLn $ "Traversing from A -> C -> E: " ++ [getElem traverseACE exampleTree]
putStrLn $ "exampleTree: " ++ show exampleTree ++ "\n"
putStrLn $ "Setting element from A -> B -> E to 'X', "
let newTree = setElem traverseABE exampleTree 'X'
putStrLn $ "but show via A -> C -> E: " ++ [getElem traverseACE newTree]
putStrLn $ "newTree: " ++ show newTree ++ "\n"
Note that this is most-likely not the best way to do this, but the first thing that I had in mind.
Once you've established identity, it can be done.
But first you must establish identity.
In many languages, values can be distinct from each other, but equal. In Python, for example:
>>> a = [1]
>>> b = [1]
>>> a == b
True
>>> a is b
False
You want to update E in one branch of the tree, and also update all other elements for which that element is E. But Haskell is referentially transparent: it has no notion of things being the same object; only equality, and even that is not applicable for every object.
One way you could do this is equality. Say this was your tree:
__A__
/ \
B C
/ \ / \
1 2 2 3
Then we could go through the tree and update all the 2s to, say, four. But this isn't exactly what you want in some cases.
In Haskell, if you want to update one thing in multiple places, you'll have to be explicit about what is and isn't the same thing. Another way you could deal with this is to tag each different value with a unique integer, and use that integer to determine identity:
____________A___________
/ \
B C
/ \ / \
(id=1)"foo" (id=2)"bar" (id=2)"bar" (id=3)"baz"
Then we could update all values with an identity of 2. Accidental collisions cannot be a problem, as there can be no collisions except those that are intentional.
This is essentially what STRef and IORef do, except they hoist the actual value into the monad's state and hide the identities from you. The only downside of using these is you'll need to make much of your code monadic, but you're probably not going to get away from that easily whatever you do. (Modifying values rather than replacing them is an inherently effectful thing to do.)
The structure you gave was not specified in much detail so it's impossible to tailor an example to your use case, but here's a simple example using the ST monad and a Tree:
import Control.Monad
import Control.Monad.ST
import Data.Tree
import Data.Traversable (traverse)
import Data.STRef
createInitialTree :: ST s (Tree (STRef s String))
createInitialTree = do
[a, b, c, d, e, f] <- mapM newSTRef ["A", "B", "C", "D", "E", "F"]
return $ Node a [ Node b [Node d [], Node e []]
, Node c [Node e [], Node f []]
]
dereferenceTree :: Tree (STRef s a) -> ST s (Tree a)
dereferenceTree = traverse readSTRef
test :: ST s (Tree String, Tree String)
test = do
tree <- createInitialTree
before <- dereferenceTree tree
let leftE = subForest (subForest tree !! 0) !! 1
writeSTRef (rootLabel leftE) "new" -- look ma, single update!
after <- dereferenceTree tree
return (before, after)
main = do
let (before, after) = runST test
putStrLn $ drawTree before
putStrLn $ drawTree after
Observe that although we only explicitly modified the value of the left E value, it changed on the right side, too, as desired.
I should note that these are not the only ways. There are probably many other solutions to this same problem, but they all require you to define identity sensibly. Only once that has been done can one begin the next step.
So I have a Tic Tac Toe board, in the form of nested tuples, like so:
type Row = (Field, Field, Field)
type Board = (Row, Row, Row)
data Field = X | O | B
deriving (Eq, Ord)
Where B stands for empty. I need to take a player, a given board state, and then generate a list of all possible board states after the next move.
moves :: Player -> Board -> [Board]
However, I just can't figure it out. My initial thought is that I need to iterate through every field, to check whether or not it is empty, and then add a new Board to the list or do nothing. However, I see no way to iterate through all the fields. Even if I manually check every field with if statement or guards, how do I move onto the next field to check it, regardless of whether I end up with a possible move or not?
If I convert the board format into a list I could do it, but I feel like that defeats the purpose of this problem. There's got to be a better solution that doesn't require restructuring Board.
You're not going to be able to iterate through the fields of a tuple -- tuples aren't intended for that. A list of lists is probably a more natural representation for this problem.
That said, you can implement this function with the board representation you're using by following the types. A move on a Board is a move on either the first, second, or third row. A move on a row is the placement of the player on either the first, second, or third field. The difficulty with your representation is that there's no simple way to map over a tuple, since tuples are generally heterogeneous. So instead, one thing you can do is write yourself a generic way to apply a function to a location in a tuple. Here's one way to do that (if the Monad stuff confuses you, mentally substitute "list of foo" everywhere you see m foo and you'll be okay):
mReplace1 :: Monad m => (a -> m d) -> (a,b,c) -> m (d,b,c)
mReplace1 f (a,b,c) = f a >>= \d -> return (d,b,c)
mReplace2 :: Monad m => (b -> m d) -> (a,b,c) -> m (a,d,c)
mReplace2 f (a,b,c) = f b >>= \d -> return (a,d,c)
mReplace3 :: Monad m => (c -> m d) -> (a,b,c) -> m (a,b,d)
mReplace3 f (a,b,c) = f c >>= \d -> return (a,b,d)
These functions provide a way to apply a function to the first, second, and third slots in a tuple, respectively. They're wrapped in a monad so that we can have a function that returns a list of possibilities for the slot, and automatically convert that to a list of possibilities for the tuple as a whole.
With these, we can write the overall function just by stringing these calls together.
moves p board = mReplace1 rowMoves board ++
mReplace2 rowMoves board ++
mReplace3 rowMoves board
where rowMoves row = mReplace1 fieldMoves row ++
mReplace2 fieldMoves row ++
mReplace3 fieldMoves row
fieldMoves B = [p]
fieldMoves _ = []
That is: the moves for a board are all the possibilities for a move in row 1, plus all the possibilities for row 2, plust all the possibilities for row 3. For a given row, the possible moves are all the moves for slot 1, plus all the moves for slot 2, plus all the moves for slot 3. For a given slot, if there's already an X or an O there, then there are no possible moves; otherwise there's one possible move (placing the player in that slot).
Here's a simple solution that I've used before
import qualified Data.Map as Map
data Piece = O | X deriving (Eq,Ord)
type Position = (Int,Int)
type Board = Map.Map Position Piece
positions = [(i,j) | i <- [0,1,2], j <- [0,1,2]]
spaces board = map (\pos -> Map.notMember pos board) positions
moves player board = map (\pos -> Map.insert pos player board) (spaces board)
As other people have stated, tuples is not a very good idea for this approach, since there is no way to traverse them.
You said you needed tuples, so there you go, I'm almost sure it works, test it.
First your code how I would've done it
import Control.Monad (msum)
import Control.Applicative ((<*>), pure)
data Player = P1 | P2 deriving (Eq, Show)
data Field = X | O | B deriving (Eq, Show)
type Board = ((Field,Field,Field)
,(Field,Field,Field)
,(Field,Field,Field))
symbolToPlayer :: Field -> Player
symbolToPlayer X = P1
symbolToPlayer O = P2
checkThree :: (Field,Field,Field) -> Maybe Player
checkThree (a,b,c)
| a == b && a == c = Just $ symbolToPlayer a
| otherwise = Nothing
winHorizontal :: Board -> Maybe Player
winHorizontal (r1, r2, r3) = msum $ map checkThree [r1, r2, r3]
winVertical :: Board -> Maybe Player
winVertical ((a,b,c), (d,e,f), (g,h,i)) =
msum $ map checkThree [(a,d,g), (b,e,h), (c,f,i)]
winDiagonal :: Board -> Maybe Player
winDiagonal ((a,_,c), (_,e,_), (g,_,i)) =
msum $ map checkThree [(a,e,i), (c,e,g)]
hasWinner :: Board -> Maybe Player
hasWinner b = msum $ [winHorizontal, winVertical, winHorizontal] <*> pure b
This is the part of nextStates function
boardBlanks :: Board -> Int
boardBlanks (r1,r2,r3) = rowBlanks r1 + rowBlanks r2 + rowBlanks r3
rowBlanks :: (Field, Field, Field) -> Int
rowBlanks (a,b,c) = foldr hack 0 [a,b,c]
where hack B c = 1 + c
hack _ c = c
changeBoard :: Field -> Int -> Board -> Board
changeBoard f i (a,b,c)
| hack [a] > i = (changeRow f (i - hack []) a, b, c)
| hack [a,b] > i = (a, changeRow f (i - hack [a]) b, c)
| hack [a,b,c] > i= (a, b, changeRow f (i - hack [a,b]) c)
where
hack ls = sum $ map rowBlanks ls
changeRow f 0 row =
case row of
(B,a,b) -> (f,a,b)
(a,B,b) -> (a,f,b)
(a,b,B) -> (a,b,f)
otherwise -> row
changeRow f 1 row =
case row of
(B,B,a) -> (B,f,a)
(a,B,B) -> (a,B,f)
otherwise -> row
changeRow f 2 row =
case row of
(B,B,B) -> (B,B,f)
otherwise -> row
nextStates :: Board -> [Board]
nextStates b = os ++ xs
where
os = foldr (hack O) [] . zip [0..] $ replicate (boardBlanks b) b
xs = foldr (hack X) [] . zip [0..] $ replicate (boardBlanks b) b
hack f (i,a) ls = changeBoard f i a : ls
How do you increment a variable in a functional programming language?
For example, I want to do:
main :: IO ()
main = do
let i = 0
i = i + 1
print i
Expected output:
1
Simple way is to introduce shadowing of a variable name:
main :: IO () -- another way, simpler, specific to monads:
main = do main = do
let i = 0 let i = 0
let j = i i <- return (i+1)
let i = j+1 print i
print i -- because monadic bind is non-recursive
Prints 1.
Just writing let i = i+1 doesn't work because let in Haskell makes recursive definitions — it is actually Scheme's letrec. The i in the right-hand side of let i = i+1 refers to the i in its left hand side — not to the upper level i as might be intended. So we break that equation up by introducing another variable, j.
Another, simpler way is to use monadic bind, <- in the do-notation. This is possible because monadic bind is not recursive.
In both cases we introduce new variable under the same name, thus "shadowing" the old entity, i.e. making it no longer accessible.
How to "think functional"
One thing to understand here is that functional programming with pure — immutable — values (like we have in Haskell) forces us to make time explicit in our code.
In imperative setting time is implicit. We "change" our vars — but any change is sequential. We can never change what that var was a moment ago — only what it will be from now on.
In pure functional programming this is just made explicit. One of the simplest forms this can take is with using lists of values as records of sequential change in imperative programming. Even simpler is to use different variables altogether to represent different values of an entity at different points in time (cf. single assignment and static single assignment form, or SSA).
So instead of "changing" something that can't really be changed anyway, we make an augmented copy of it, and pass that around, using it in place of the old thing.
As a general rule, you don't (and you don't need to). However, in the interests of completeness.
import Data.IORef
main = do
i <- newIORef 0 -- new IORef i
modifyIORef i (+1) -- increase it by 1
readIORef i >>= print -- print it
However, any answer that says you need to use something like MVar, IORef, STRef etc. is wrong. There is a purely functional way to do this, which in this small rapidly written example doesn't really look very nice.
import Control.Monad.State
type Lens a b = ((a -> b -> a), (a -> b))
setL = fst
getL = snd
modifyL :: Lens a b -> a -> (b -> b) -> a
modifyL lens x f = setL lens x (f (getL lens x))
lensComp :: Lens b c -> Lens a b -> Lens a c
lensComp (set1, get1) (set2, get2) = -- Compose two lenses
(\s x -> set2 s (set1 (get2 s) x) -- Not needed here
, get1 . get2) -- But added for completeness
(+=) :: (Num b) => Lens a b -> Lens a b -> State a ()
x += y = do
s <- get
put (modifyL x s (+ (getL y s)))
swap :: Lens a b -> Lens a b -> State a ()
swap x y = do
s <- get
let x' = getL x s
let y' = getL y s
put (setL y (setL x s y') x')
nFibs :: Int -> Int
nFibs n = evalState (nFibs_ n) (0,1)
nFibs_ :: Int -> State (Int,Int) Int
nFibs_ 0 = fmap snd get -- The second Int is our result
nFibs_ n = do
x += y -- Add y to x
swap x y -- Swap them
nFibs_ (n-1) -- Repeat
where x = ((\(x,y) x' -> (x', y)), fst)
y = ((\(x,y) y' -> (x, y')), snd)
There are several solutions to translate imperative i=i+1 programming to functional programming. Recursive function solution is the recommended way in functional programming, creating a state is almost never what you want to do.
After a while you will learn that you can use [1..] if you need a index for example, but it takes a lot of time and practice to think functionally instead of imperatively.
Here's a other way to do something similar as i=i+1 not identical because there aren't any destructive updates. Note that the State monad example is just for illustration, you probably want [1..] instead:
module Count where
import Control.Monad.State
count :: Int -> Int
count c = c+1
count' :: State Int Int
count' = do
c <- get
put (c+1)
return (c+1)
main :: IO ()
main = do
-- purely functional, value-modifying (state-passing) way:
print $ count . count . count . count . count . count $ 0
-- purely functional, State Monad way
print $ (`evalState` 0) $ do {
count' ; count' ; count' ; count' ; count' ; count' }
Note: This is not an ideal answer but hey, sometimes it might be a little good to give anything at all.
A simple function to increase the variable would suffice.
For example:
incVal :: Integer -> Integer
incVal x = x + 1
main::IO()
main = do
let i = 1
print (incVal i)
Or even an anonymous function to do it.