Make a function that takes two arguments, an integer and a five element tuple of integers that returns true if the sum of any three elements of the tuple is greater than the first argument, else false.
let func el tupl =
match tupl with
|(a,b,c,d,e) when (a+b+c) > el || (a+d+e) > el || (b+c+d)> el || (b+c+e) > el -> true
| _-> false
There isn't really an advantage to using an explicit match expression in this case, you can solve the problem using when guards as you suggested in your question but it transfers a lot of the thinking burden to you.
Here is an alternative:
let inline func el (a,b,c,d,e) =
let sum3 =
[a; b; c; d; e] // create a list of elements
|> List.sortDescending // sort list by descending
|> List.take 3 // take the 3 largest elements
|> List.sum // sum them
sum3 > el // if not true for 3 largest, it's not true for any
Note: I made the function inline so it would work with any type that supports comparison and +. You could remove the inline and just accept, for example ints.
Related
The following code will not work as I expected it to:
// Gets all or nothing. If predicate is false for at least one item
// in the sequence, returns None. If seq is empty, returns the empty seq.
let tryGetAllOrNone predicate (source: seq<_>) =
let mutable condition = true
let resultSeq =
seq {
use e = source.GetEnumerator()
while condition && e.MoveNext() && (condition <- predicate e.Current; condition) do
yield e.Current
}
if condition then Some resultSeq
else None
The reason is quite clear: a sequence is lazily evaluated, which means that here the if statement will be evaluated first, returning the sequence. Then, when we consume the resulting sequence we will always get Some results, until the condition turns false:
// expect: None (predicate is false for the first item)
> [1;2;3] |> tryGetAllOrNone (fun x -> x = 2);;
val it : seq<int> option = Some (seq [])
// expect None (predicate is false for the second item)
> [1;2;3] |> tryGetAllOrNone (fun x -> x = 1);;
val it : seq<int> option = Some (seq [1])
// correct (predicate is always true)
> [1;2;3] |> tryGetAllOrNone (fun x -> x > 0);;
val it : seq<int> option = Some (seq [1; 2; 3])
I might just have to consume the sequence first, i.e. by using [...yield ...] instead of seq { .. yield ...}, but maybe there's a simpler solution that retains the laziness (just asking the question makes it sound backwards, so my gut tells me: consume first, right)?
EDIT: thinking about this is a tad longer has me come to the conclusion that what I'm asking is not possible. You cannot first lazily return one after the other from a sequence and then, upon hitting an invalid item, say: "hey, all those items you got thus far, give them back, if one is invalid, all are invalid!".
Leaving it out here nonetheless in case it helps someone else or in case someone has a better idea ;).
You are right that, in general, you will need to iterate over the whole sequence until you can return None or Some. If the last element of the sequence does not satsify the condition, then you need to first read all the preceding elements until you know that you have failed.
The only optimization you can do is that you can return None as soon as you find a first element that does not satisfy the condition. This is slightly better than building the whole sequence and then checking if the condition was false for any of the elemnetns (in that, if an earlier element fails to satisfy the condition, you can return None sooner). The following implementation does that:
// Gets all or nothing. If predicate is false for at least one item
// in the sequence, returns None. If seq is empty, returns the empty seq.
let tryGetAllOrNone predicate (source: seq<_>) =
let results = ResizeArray<_>()
let mutable failed = false
use e = source.GetEnumerator()
while not failed && e.MoveNext() do
if not (predicate e.Current) then failed <- true
else results.Add(e.Current)
if failed then None
else Some(seq results)
I am trying to figure out a nice way to check if a string contains only number. This is the result of my effort but it seems really verbose:
let isDigit c = Char.IsDigit c
let rec strContainsOnlyNumber (s:string)=
let charList = List.ofSeq s
match charList with
| x :: xs ->
if isDigit x then
strContainsOnlyNumber ( String.Concat (Array.ofList xs))
else
false
| [] -> true
for example it seems really ugly that I have to convert a string to char list and then back to a string.
Can you figure out a better solution?
There are a few different options for approaching this.
Given that System.String is a sequence of characters, which you're currently using to turn into a list, you can skip the list conversions and just use Seq.forall to directly test:
let strContainsOnlyNumber (s:string) = s |> Seq.forall Char.IsDigit
If you want to see if it's a valid number, you can parse it into a number directly:
let strContainsOnlyNumber (s:string) = System.Int32.TryParse s |> fst
Note that this will also return true for things like "-342" (which contains -, but is a valid number).
Another approach would be to use a regular expression:
let numberCheck = System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex("^[0-9]+$")
let strContainsOnlyNumbers (s:string) = numberCheck.IsMatch s
This will also handle numeric characters, but could be adapted to include other symbols in numbers if needed.
If the goal is to later use the string as a number, my suggestion would be to just do a conversion, and store in an option:
let tryToInt s =
match System.Int32.TryParse s with
| true, v -> Some v
| false, _ -> None
This will allow you to check to see if the value was a number (via Option.isSome), pattern match to use the results, and more.
Note that conversions to floating point numbers is nearly identical - just change the Int32.TryParse to a Double.TryParse if you want to handle float values.
I'm trying to wrap my head around functional programming using F#. I'm working my way through the Project Euler problems, and I feel like I am just writing procedural code in F#. For instance, this is my solution to #3.
let Calc() =
let mutable limit = 600851475143L
let mutable factor = 2L // Start with the lowest prime
while factor < limit do
if limit % factor = 0L then
begin
limit <- limit / factor
end
else factor <- factor + 1L
limit
This works just fine, but all I've really done is taken how I would solve this problem in c# and converted it to F# syntax. Looking back over several of my solutions, this is becoming a pattern. I think that I should be able to solve this problem without using mutable, but I'm having trouble not thinking about the problem procedurally.
Why not with recursion?
let Calc() =
let rec calcinner factor limit =
if factor < limit then
if limit % factor = 0L then
calcinner factor (limit/factor)
else
calcinner (factor + 1L) limit
else limit
let limit = 600851475143L
let factor = 2L // Start with the lowest prime
calcinner factor limit
For algorithmic problems (like project Euler), you'll probably want to write most iterations using recursion (as John suggests). However, even mutable imperative code sometimes makes sense if you are using e.g. hashtables or arrays and care about performance.
One area where F# works really well which is (sadly) not really covered by the project Euler exercises is designing data types - so if you're interested in learning F# from another perspective, have a look at Designing with types at F# for Fun and Profit.
In this case, you could also use Seq.unfold to implement the solution (in general, you can often compose solutions to sequence processing problems using Seq functions - though it does not look as elegant here).
let Calc() =
// Start with initial state (600851475143L, 2L) and generate a sequence
// of "limits" by generating new states & returning limit in each step
(600851475143L, 2L)
|> Seq.unfold (fun (limit, factor) ->
// End the sequence when factor is greater than limit
if factor >= limit then None
// Update limit when divisible by factor
elif limit % factor = 0L then
let limit = limit / factor
Some(limit, (limit, factor))
// Update factor
else
Some(limit, (limit, factor + 1L)) )
// Take the last generated limit value
|> Seq.last
In functional programming when I think mutable I think heap and when trying to write code that is more functional, you should use the stack instead of the heap.
So how do you get values on to the stack for use with a function?
Place the value in the function's parameters.
let result01 = List.filter (fun x -> x % 2 = 0) [0;1;2;3;4;5]
here both a function an a list of values are hard coded into the List.filter parameter's.
Bind the value to a name and then reference the name.
let divisibleBy2 = fun x -> x % 2 = 0
let values = [0;1;2;3;4;5]
let result02 = List.filter divisibleBy2 values
here the function parameter for list.filter is bound to divisibleBy2 and the list parameter for list.filter is bound to values.
Create a nameless data structure and pipe it into the function.
let result03 =
[0;1;2;3;4;5]
|> List.filter divisibleBy2
here the list parameter for list.filter is forward piped into the list.filter function.
Pass the result of a function into the function
let result04 =
[ for i in 1 .. 5 -> i]
|> List.filter divisibleBy2
Now that we have all of the data on the stack, how do we process the data using only the stack?
One of the patterns often used with functional programming is to put data into a structure and then process the items one at a time using a recursive function. The structure can be a list, tree, graph, etc. and is usually defined using a discriminated union. Data structures that have one or more self references are typically used with recursive functions.
So here is an example where we take a list and multiply all the values by 2 and put the result back onto the stack as we progress. The variable on the stack holding the new values is accumulator.
let mult2 values =
let rec mult2withAccumulator values accumulator =
match values with
| headValue::tailValues ->
let newValue = headValue * 2
let accumulator = newValue :: accumulator
mult2withAccumulator tailValues accumulator
| [] ->
List.rev accumulator
mult2withAccumulator values []
We use an accumulator for this which being a parameter to a function and not defined mutable is stored on the stack. Also this method is using pattern matching and the list discriminated union. The accumulator holds the new values as we process the items in the input list and then when there are not more items in the list ([]) we just reverse the list to get the new list in the correct order because the new items are concatenated to the head of the accumulator.
To understand the data structure (discriminated union) for a list you need to see it, so here it is
type list =
| Item of 'a * List
| Empty
Notice how the end of the definition of an item is List referring back to itself, and that a list can ben an empty list, which is when used with pattern match is [].
A quick example of how list are built is
empty list - []
list with one int value - 1::[]
list with two int values - 1::2::[]
list with three int values - 1::2::3::[]
Here is the same function with all of the types defined.
let mult2 (values : int list) =
let rec mult2withAccumulator (values : int list) (accumulator : int list) =
match (values : int list) with
| (headValue : int)::(tailValues : int list) ->
let (newValue : int) = headValue * 2
let (accumulator : int list) =
(((newValue : int) :: (accumulator : int list)) : int list)
mult2withAccumulator tailValues accumulator
| [] ->
((List.rev accumulator) : int list)
mult2withAccumulator values []
So putting values onto the stack and using self referencing discriminated unions with pattern matching will help to solve a lot of problems with functional programming.
Is it just me, or does F# not cater for cyclic lists?
I looked at the FSharpList<T> class via reflector, and noticed, that neither the 'structural equals' or the length methods check for cycles. I can only guess if 2 such primitive functions does not check, that most list functions would not do this either.
If cyclic lists are not supported, why is that?
Thanks
PS: Am I even looking at the right list class?
There are many different lists/collection types in F#.
F# list type. As Chris said, you cannot initialize a recursive value of this type, because the type is not lazy and not mutable (Immutability means that you have to create it at once and the fact that it's not lazy means that you can't use F# recursive values using let rec). As ssp said, you could use Reflection to hack it, but that's probably a case that we don't want to discuss.
Another type is seq (which is actually IEnumerable) or the LazyList type from PowerPack. These are lazy, so you can use let rec to create a cyclic value. However, (as far as I know) none of the functions working with them take cyclic lists into account - if you create a cyclic list, it simply means that you're creating an infinite list, so the result of (e.g.) map will be a potentially infinite list.
Here is an example for LazyList type:
#r "FSharp.PowerPack.dll"
// Valid use of value recursion
let rec ones = LazyList.consDelayed 1 (fun () -> ones)
Seq.take 5 l // Gives [1; 1; 1; 1; 1]
The question is what data types can you define yourself. Chris shows a mutable list and if you write operations that modify it, they will affect the entire list (if you interpret it as an infinite data structure).
You can also define a lazy (potentionally cyclic) data type and implement operations that handle cycles, so when you create a cyclic list and project it into another list, it will create cyclic list as a result (and not a potentionally infinite data structure).
The type declaration may look like this (I'm using object type, so that we can use reference equality when checking for cycles):
type CyclicListValue<'a> =
Nil | Cons of 'a * Lazy<CyclicList<'a>>
and CyclicList<'a>(value:CyclicListValue<'a>) =
member x.Value = value
The following map function handles cycles - if you give it a cyclic list, it will return a newly created list with the same cyclic structure:
let map f (cl:CyclicList<_>) =
// 'start' is the first element of the list (used for cycle checking)
// 'l' is the list we're processing
// 'lazyRes' is a function that returns the first cell of the resulting list
// (which is not available on the first call, but can be accessed
// later, because the list is constructed lazily)
let rec mapAux start (l:CyclicList<_>) lazyRes =
match l.Value with
| Nil -> new CyclicList<_>(Nil)
| Cons(v, rest) when rest.Value = start -> lazyRes()
| Cons(v, rest) ->
let value = Cons(f v, lazy mapAux start rest.Value lazyRes)
new CyclicList<_>(value)
let rec res = mapAux cl cl (fun () -> res)
res
The F# list type is essentially a linked list, where each node has a 'next'. This in theory would allow you to create cycles. However, F# lists are immutable. So you could never 'make' this cycle by mutation, you would have to do it at construction time. (Since you couldn't update the last node to loop around to the front.)
You could write this to do it, however the compiler specifically prevents it:
let rec x = 1 :: 2 :: 3 :: x;;
let rec x = 1 :: 2 :: 3 :: x;;
------------------------^^
stdin(1,25): error FS0260: Recursive values cannot appear directly as a construction of the type 'List`1' within a recursive binding. This feature has been removed from the F# language. Consider using a record instead.
If you do want to create a cycle, you could do the following:
> type CustomListNode = { Value : int; mutable Next : CustomListNode option };;
type CustomListNode =
{Value: int;
mutable Next: CustomListNode option;}
> let head = { Value = 1; Next = None };;
val head : CustomListNode = {Value = 1;
Next = null;}
> let head2 = { Value = 2; Next = Some(head) } ;;
val head2 : CustomListNode = {Value = 2;
Next = Some {Value = 1;
Next = null;};}
> head.Next <- Some(head2);;
val it : unit = ()
> head;;
val it : CustomListNode = {Value = 1;
Next = Some {Value = 2;
Next = Some ...;};}
The answer is same for all languages with tail-call optimization support and first-class functions (function types) support: it's so easy to emulate cyclic structures.
let rec x = seq { yield 1; yield! x};;
It's simplest way to emulate that structure by using laziness of seq.
Of course you can hack list representation as described here.
As was said before, your problem here is that the list type is immutable, and for a list to be cyclic you'd have to have it stick itself into its last element, so that doesn't work. You can use sequences, of course.
If you have an existing list and want to create an infinite sequence on top of it that cycles through the list's elements, here's how you could do it:
let round_robin lst =
let rec inner_rr l =
seq {
match l with
| [] ->
yield! inner_rr lst
| h::t ->
yield h
yield! inner_rr t
}
if lst.IsEmpty then Seq.empty else inner_rr []
let listcycler_sequence = round_robin [1;2;3;4;5;6]
Anyone have a decent example, preferably practical/useful, they could post demonstrating the concept?
(Edit: a small Ocaml FP Koan to start things off)
The Koan of Currying (A koan about food, that is not about food)
A student came to Jacques Garrigue and said, "I do not understand what currying is good for." Jacques replied, "Tell me your favorite meal and your favorite dessert". The puzzled student replied that he liked okonomiyaki and kanten, but while his favorite restaurant served great okonomiyaki, their kanten always gave him a stomach ache the following morning. So Jacques took the student to eat at a restaurant that served okonomiyaki every bit as good as the student's favorite, then took him across town to a shop that made excellent kanten where the student happily applied the remainder of his appetite. The student was sated, but he was not enlightened ... until the next morning when he woke up and his stomach felt fine.
My examples will cover using it for the reuse and encapsulation of code. This is fairly obvious once you look at these and should give you a concrete, simple example that you can think of applying in numerous situations.
We want to do a map over a tree. This function could be curried and applied to each node if it needs more then one argument -- since we'd be applying the one at the node as it's final argument. It doesn't have to be curried, but writing another function (assuming this function is being used in other instances with other variables) would be a waste.
type 'a tree = E of 'a | N of 'a * 'a tree * 'a tree
let rec tree_map f tree = match tree with
| N(x,left,right) -> N(f x, tree_map f left, tree_map f right)
| E(x) -> E(f x)
let sample_tree = N(1,E(3),E(4)
let multiply x y = x * y
let sample_tree2 = tree_map (multiply 3) sample_tree
but this is the same as:
let sample_tree2 = tree_map (fun x -> x * 3) sample_tree
So this simple case isn't convincing. It really is though, and powerful once you use the language more and naturally come across these situations. The other example with some code reuse as currying. A recurrence relation to create prime numbers. Awful lot of similarity in there:
let rec f_recurrence f a seed n =
match n with
| a -> seed
| _ -> let prev = f_recurrence f a seed (n-1) in
prev + (f n prev)
let rowland = f_recurrence gcd 1 7
let cloitre = f_recurrence lcm 1 1
let rowland_prime n = (rowland (n+1)) - (rowland n)
let cloitre_prime n = ((cloitre (n+1))/(cloitre n)) - 1
Ok, now rowland and cloitre are curried functions, since they have free variables, and we can get any index of it's sequence without knowing or worrying about f_recurrence.
While the previous examples answered the question, here are two simpler examples of how Currying can be beneficial for F# programming.
open System.IO
let appendFile (fileName : string) (text : string) =
let file = new StreamWriter(fileName, true)
file.WriteLine(text)
file.Close()
// Call it normally
appendFile #"D:\Log.txt" "Processing Event X..."
// If you curry the function, you don't need to keep specifying the
// log file name.
let curriedAppendFile = appendFile #"D:\Log.txt"
// Adds data to "Log.txt"
curriedAppendFile "Processing Event Y..."
And don't forget you can curry the Printf family of function! In the curried version, notice the distinct lack of a lambda.
// Non curried, Prints 1 2 3
List.iter (fun i -> printf "%d " i) [1 .. 3];;
// Curried, Prints 1 2 3
List.iter (printfn "%d ") [1 .. 3];;
Currying describes the process of transforming a function with multiple arguments into a chain of single-argument functions. Example in C#, for a three-argument function:
Func<T1, Func<T2, Func<T3, T4>>> Curry<T1, T2, T3, T4>(Func<T1, T2, T3, T4> f)
{
return a => b => c => f(a, b, c);
}
void UseACurriedFunction()
{
var curryCompare = Curry<string, string, bool, int>(String.Compare);
var a = "SomeString";
var b = "SOMESTRING";
Console.WriteLine(String.Compare(a, b, true));
Console.WriteLine(curryCompare(a)(b)(true));
//partial application
var compareAWithB = curryCompare(a)(b);
Console.WriteLine(compareAWithB(true));
Console.WriteLine(compareAWithB(false));
}
Now, the boolean argument is probably not the argument you'd most likely want to leave open with a partial application. This is one reason why the order of arguments in F# functions can seem a little odd at first. Let's define a different C# curry function:
Func<T3, Func<T2, Func<T1, T4>>> BackwardsCurry<T1, T2, T3, T4>(Func<T1, T2, T3, T4> f)
{
return a => b => c => f(c, b, a);
}
Now, we can do something a little more useful:
void UseADifferentlyCurriedFunction()
{
var curryCompare = BackwardsCurry<string, string, bool, int>(String.Compare);
var caseSensitiveCompare = curryCompare(false);
var caseInsensitiveCompare = curryCompare(true);
var format = Curry<string, string, string, string>(String.Format)("Results of comparing {0} with {1}:");
var strings = new[] {"Hello", "HELLO", "Greetings", "GREETINGS"};
foreach (var s in strings)
{
var caseSensitiveCompareWithS = caseSensitiveCompare(s);
var caseInsensitiveCompareWithS = caseInsensitiveCompare(s);
var formatWithS = format(s);
foreach (var t in strings)
{
Console.WriteLine(formatWithS(t));
Console.WriteLine(caseSensitiveCompareWithS(t));
Console.WriteLine(caseInsensitiveCompareWithS(t));
}
}
}
Why are these examples in C#? Because in F#, function declarations are curried by default. You don't usually need to curry functions; they're already curried. The major exception to this is framework methods and other overloaded functions, which take a tuple containing their multiple arguments. You therefore might want to curry such functions, and, in fact, I came upon this question when I was looking for a library function that would do this. I suppose it is missing (if indeed it is) because it's pretty trivial to implement:
let curry f a b c = f(a, b, c)
//overload resolution failure: there are two overloads with three arguments.
//let curryCompare = curry String.Compare
//This one might be more useful; it works because there's only one 3-argument overload
let backCurry f a b c = f(c, b, a)
let intParse = backCurry Int32.Parse
let intParseCurrentCultureAnyStyle = intParse CultureInfo.CurrentCulture NumberStyles.Any
let myInt = intParseCurrentCultureAnyStyle "23"
let myOtherInt = intParseCurrentCultureAnyStyle "42"
To get around the failure with String.Compare, since as far as I can tell there's no way to specify which 3-argument overload to pick, you can use a non-general solution:
let curryCompare s1 s2 (b:bool) = String.Compare(s1, s2, b)
let backwardsCurryCompare (b:bool) s1 s2 = String.Compare(s1, s2, b)
I won't go into detail about the uses of partial function application in F# because the other answers have covered that already.
It's a fairly simple process. Take a function, bind one of its arguments and return a new function. For example:
let concatStrings left right = left + right
let makeCommandPrompt= appendString "c:\> "
Now by currying the simple concatStrings function, you can easily add a DOS style command prompt to the front of any string! Really useful!
Okay, not really. A more useful case I find is when I want to have a make a function that returns me data in a stream like manner.
let readDWORD array i = array[i] | array[i + 1] << 8 | array[i + 2] << 16 |
array[i + 3] << 24 //I've actually used this function in Python.
The convenient part about it is that rather than creating an entire class for this sort of thing, calling the constructor, calling obj.readDWORD(), you just have a function that can't be mutated out from under you.
You know you can map a function over a list? For example, mapping a function to add one to each element of a list:
> List.map ((+) 1) [1; 2; 3];;
val it : int list = [2; 3; 4]
This is actually already using currying because the (+) operator was used to create a function to add one to its argument but you can squeeze a little more out of this example by altering it to map the same function of a list of lists:
> List.map (List.map ((+) 1)) [[1; 2]; [3]];;
val it : int list = [[2; 3]; [4]]
Without currying you could not partially apply these functions and would have to write something like this instead:
> List.map((fun xs -> List.map((fun n -> n + 1), xs)), [[1; 2]; [3]]);;
val it : int list = [[2; 3]; [4]]
I gave a good example of simulating currying in C# on my blog. The gist is that you can create a function that is closed over a parameter (in my example create a function for calculating the sales tax closed over the value of a given municipality)out of an existing multi-parameter function.
What is appealing here is instead of having to make a separate function specifically for calculating sales tax in Cook County, you can create (and reuse) the function dynamically at runtime.