Get even numbers with composition - f#

I can obtain the even numbers in a list using the lambda syntax:
[1..10] |> List.filter (fun x -> x % 2 = 0)
But I want get it with composition, like this:
[1..10] |> List.filter ((% 2) >> (= 0))
Error: stdin(7,37): error FS0010: Unexpected integer literal in expression. Expected ')' or other token.

F# does not support operator sections. You can partially apply an operator by enclosing it in parentheses, like so:
let five = (+) 2 3
let add2 = (+) 2
let alsoFive = add2 3
However, this will not allow you to partially apply the right argument of the operator. In other words, F# does not offer anything equivalent to Haskell expression (/ 2). This can be worked around for commutative operators, such as addition or multiplication, because (+ 2) === (2 +), which in F# can be expressed as ((+) 2), but not for non-commutative ones.
The best you can do is declare the section as a separate function, like this:
let mod2 x = x % 2
[1..10] |> List.filter (mod2 >> ((=) 0))
If you absolutely insist on not declaring any more functions, you could try to do with a flip:
[1..10] |> List.filter ((flip (%) 2) >> ((=) 0))
But sadly, F# standard library does not provide a flip function either, so you'd have to declare it yourself anyway:
let inline flip f a b = f b a
Personally, I would rather go for increased readability and declare an isEven function:
let isEven x = (x % 2) = 0
[1..10] |> List.filter isEven

Related

Is there a modulo equivalent for (<) in functions?

For example; the following line
|> Seq.filter(fun i -> i < 123)
is the same thing as
|> Seq.filter((<) 123)
Is there such a thing for the modulo operator? I'm not sure what the 2nd variant is, and can't find it referenced in the documentation either, so it makes searching somewhat difficult. So for bonus points, please tell me what this operator is called! :)
Currently using:
|> Seq.filter (fun i -> i % 2 = 0)
Looking for something like:
|> Seq.filter ((%) 2 = 0)
Your first example is incorrect in saying that fun i -> i < 123 is equal to ((<) 123). That is actually equivalent to fun i -> 123 < i. Let me explain, every operator is just a function but infix rather than prefix. As an example
let (+) x y = x + y
let add x y = x + y
let (-) a b = a - b // notice that the first argument (a) is on the left side of the operator
let subs a b = a - b
knowing this, we can then reason about % and < the same way
let (%) x y = x % y
let (<) x y = x < y
// therefore
fun i -> i < 123
// is equivalent to
fun i -> (<) i 123
// and mathematically equiv to
((>=) 123)
// same with %
fun i -> i % 2
// is equiv to
fun i -> (%) i 2
// thus cant be reduced to eliminate the lambda
Another alternative, if you're dead-set on not writing out the lambda, is to lift it into a function:
let inline isEven x = x % 2 = 0
...
|> Seq.filter isEven
Alas, you are out of luck, because for partial application to be suitable, you need to swap both arguments of the mod operator. The lambda function is way more concise when taking into account that you are applying two operators, which requires function composition.
let flip f a b = f b a
{0..9}
|> Seq.filter ((flip (%) 2) >> ((=) 0))
|> (Seq.map string >> String.concat ", ")
// val it : string = "0, 2, 4, 6, 8"

Infinite fibonacci sequence

I'm trying to imitate Haskell's famous infinite fibonacci list in F# using sequences. Why doesn't the following sequence evaluate as expected? How is it being evaluated?
let rec fibs = lazy (Seq.append
(Seq.ofList [0;1])
((Seq.map2 (+) (fibs.Force())
(Seq.skip 1 (fibs.Force())))))
The problem is that your code still isn't lazy enough: the arguments to Seq.append are evaluated before the result can be accessed, but evaluating the second argument (Seq.map2 ...) requires evaluating its own arguments, which forces the same lazy value that's being defined. This can be
worked around by using the Seq.delay function. You can also forgo the lazy wrapper, and lists are already seqs, so you don't need Seq.ofList:
let rec fibs =
Seq.append [0;1]
(Seq.delay (fun () -> Seq.map2 (+) fibs (Seq.skip 1 fibs)))
However, personally I'd recommend using a sequence expression, which I find to be more pleasant to read (and easier to write correctly):
let rec fibs = seq {
yield 0
yield 1
yield! Seq.map2 (+) fibs (fibs |> Seq.skip 1)
}
To add to kvb's answer, you can also use Seq.unfold to generate a (lazy) sequence:
let fibs = Seq.unfold (fun (a, b) -> Some(a+b, (b, a+b))) (0, 1)
val fibs : seq<int>
Yet another way:
let rec fib = seq { yield 0; yield! Seq.scan (+) 1 fib }
In addition to #kvb's answer: if you just want lazy and not necessarily the zip trick, you can do this:
let fibs = Seq.unfold (fun (m,n) -> Some (m, (n,n+m))) (0,1)
This makes Seq.take n fibs run in time O(n).

How do I do in F# what would be called compression in APL?

In APL one can use a bit vector to select out elements of another vector; this is called compression. For example 1 0 1/3 5 7 would yield 3 7.
Is there a accepted term for this in functional programming in general and F# in particular?
Here is my F# program:
let list1 = [|"Bob"; "Mary"; "Sue"|]
let list2 = [|1; 0; 1|]
[<EntryPoint>]
let main argv =
0 // return an integer exit code
What I would like to do is compute a new string[] which would be [|"Bob"; Sue"|]
How would one do this in F#?
Array.zip list1 list2 // [|("Bob",1); ("Mary",0); ("Sue",1)|]
|> Array.filter (fun (_,x) -> x = 1) // [|("Bob", 1); ("Sue", 1)|]
|> Array.map fst // [|"Bob"; "Sue"|]
The pipe operator |> does function application syntactically reversed, i.e., x |> f is equivalent to f x. As mentioned in another answer, replace Array with Seq to avoid the construction of intermediate arrays.
I expect you'll find many APL primitives missing from F#. For lists and sequences, many can be constructed by stringing together primitives from the Seq, Array, or List modules, like the above. For reference, here is an overview of the Seq module.
I think the easiest is to use an array sequence expression, something like this:
let compress bits values =
[|
for i = 0 to bits.Length - 1 do
if bits.[i] = 1 then
yield values.[i]
|]
If you only want to use combinators, this is what I would do:
Seq.zip bits values
|> Seq.choose (fun (bit, value) ->
if bit = 1 then Some value else None)
|> Array.ofSeq
I use Seq functions instead of Array in order to avoid building intermediary arrays, but it would be correct too.
One might say this is more idiomatic:
Seq.map2 (fun l1 l2 -> if l2 = 1 then Some(l1) else None) list1 list2
|> Seq.choose id
|> Seq.toArray
EDIT (for the pipe lovers)
(list1, list2)
||> Seq.map2 (fun l1 l2 -> if l2 = 1 then Some(l1) else None)
|> Seq.choose id
|> Seq.toArray
Søren Debois' solution is good but, as he pointed out, but we can do better. Let's define a function, based on Søren's code:
let compressArray vals idx =
Array.zip vals idx
|> Array.filter (fun (_, x) -> x = 1)
|> Array.map fst
compressArray ends up creating a new array in each of the 3 lines. This can take some time, if the input arrays are long (1.4 seconds for 10M values in my quick test).
We can save some time by working on sequences and creating an array at the end only:
let compressSeq vals idx =
Seq.zip vals idx
|> Seq.filter (fun (_, x) -> x = 1)
|> Seq.map fst
This function is generic and will work on arrays, lists, etc. To generate an array as output:
compressSeq sq idx |> Seq.toArray
The latter saves about 40% of computation time (0.8s in my test).
As ildjarn commented, the function argument to filter can be rewritten to snd >> (=) 1, although that causes a slight performance drop (< 10%), probably because of the extra function call that is generated.

How to forward pipe a value to the left side parameter of a function?

For example,
let fn x y = printfn "%i %i" x y
1 |> fn 2 // this is the same as fn 2 1 instead of fn 1 2
How to make it fn 1 2?
This is just a simplified example for test. I have a complex function return a value and I want to forward pipe it to the left side (in stead of right side) of a function.
I assume that you have at least two pipes. Otherwise, fn 1 2 does the job; why should we make it more complicated?
For commutative functions (which satisfy f x y = f y x) such as (+), (*), etc. you can just use 1 |> fn 2.
For other functions, I can see a few alternatives:
Use backward pipes
arg1
|> fn1
|> fn2 <| arg2
I tend to use this with care since operators' precedence might cause some subtle bugs.
Use flip function
let inline flip f x y = f y x
Array.map2 (fun y d -> (y - d) ** 2.0) y d
|> Array.sum
|> flip (/) 2.0
It's not pretty but it's clear that order of arguments in (/) is treated differently.
Use anonymous functions with fun and function keywords
This is handy if you need pattern matching in place.
input
|> createOption
|> function None -> 0 | Some _ -> 1
IMO, you don't have to pipe all the way. Create one more let binding, then your intention is clear and you can avoid bugs due to unusual styles.
let sum =
Array.map2 (fun y d -> (y - d) ** 2.0) y d
|> Array.sum
sum / 2.0
Here is a solution that looks pretty. I don't know if it is too practical though
1 |> fn <| 2

Why does the pipe operator work?

If the pipe operator is created like this:
let (|>) f g = g f
And used like this:
let result = [2;4;6] |> List.map (fun x -> x * x * x)
Then what it seems to do is take List.Map and puts it behind (fun x -> x * x * x)
And doesn't change anything about the position of [2;4;6]
So now it looks like this:
let result2 = [2;4;6] (fun x -> x * x * x) List.map
However this doesn't work.
I am just learning f# for the first time now. And this bothered me while reading a book about f#. So I might learn what I'm missing later but I decided to ask anyway.
It is obvious though that I am missing something major. Since I can easily recreate the pipe operator. But I don't get why it works. I might embarrass myself very soon as I learn more. Oh well.
The pipe operator is simply syntactic sugar for chained method calls. It's very similar to how linq expressions are expressed in C#.
Explanation from here:
Forward Pipe Operator
I love this guy. The Forward pipe operator is simply defined as:
let (|>) x f = f x
And has a type signature:
'a -> ('a -> 'b) -> 'b
Which translates to: given a generic type 'a, and a function which takes an 'a and returns a 'b, then return the application of the function on the input.
Rather than explaining this, let me give you an example of where it can be used:
// Take a number, square it, then convert it to a string, then reverse that string
let square x = x * x
let toStr (x : int) = x.ToString()
let rev (x : string) = new String(Array.rev (x.ToCharArray()))
// 512 -> 1024 -> "1024" -> "4201"
let result = rev (toStr (square 512))
The code is very straight forward, but notice just how unruly the syntax looks. All we want to do is take the result of one computation and pass that to the next computation. We could rewrite it by introducing a series of new variables:
let step1 = square 512
let step2 = toStr step1
let step3 = rev step2
let result = step3
But now you need to keep all those temporary variables straight. What the (|>) operator does is take a value, and 'forward it' to a function, essentially allowing you to specify the parameter of a function before the function call. This dramatically simplifies F# code by allowing you to pipe functions together, where the result of one is passed into the next. So to use the same example the code can be written clearly as:
let result = 512 |> square |> toStr |> rev
Edit:
In F# what you're really doing with a method call is taking a function and then applying it to the parameter that follows, so in your example it would be List.map (fun x -> x * x * x) is applied to [2;4;6]. All that the pipe operator does is take the parameters in reverse order and then do the application reversing them back.
function: List.map (fun x -> x * x * x)
parameter: [2;4;6]
Standard F# call syntax: f g
Reversed F# call syntax: g f
Standard:
let var = List.map (fun x -> x * x * x) [2;4;6]
Reversed:
let var = [2;4;6] |> List.map (fun x -> x * x * x)
The brackets around |> mean it is an infix operator so your example could be written
let result = (|>) [2;4;6] (List.map (fun x -> x * x * x))
Since |> applies its first argument to the second, this is equivalent to
let result = (List.map (fun x -> x * x)) [2;4;6]
As others have said above, basically you're misunderstanding what result2 would resolve to. It would actually resolve to
List.map (fun x -> x * x * x) [2;4;6]
List.map takes two arguments: a function to apply to all elements in a list and a list. (fun x -> x * x * x) is the first argument and [2;4;6] is the second.
Basically just put what's on the left of |> after the end of what's on the right.
If you enter your definition of |> into fsi and look at the operator's signature derived by type inference you'll notice val ( |> ) : 'a -> ('a -> 'b) -> 'b, i.e. argument 'a being given to function ('a -> 'b) yields 'b.
Now project this signature onto your expression [2;4;6] |> List.map (fun x -> x * x * x) and you'll get List.map (fun x -> x * x * x) [2;4;6], where the argument is list [2;4;6] and the function is partially applied function of one argument List.map (fun x -> x * x * x).

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