I have two collections (they happen to be arrays, but it doesn't really matter, I think): L and R. They are both sorted and now I want to compare them. I want to end up with two collections: one for each input array containing the items which were not in the other.
I could just take the first item from L and then search R and, if there isn't a match, add it to my "unique" collection (Lu). But that's extremely inefficient, and I am expecting to have some very large collections to process in the near future.
I though about possibly "playing hopscotch":
Step 1: Take two lists, L and R, and compare the head of each list ( l :: L and r :: R):
Branch 1: if l < r, then add l to Lu and recurse, passing in L and r :: R
Branch 2: if l > r, then add r to Ru and recurse, passing in l :: L and R
Branch 3: if l = r, then recurse, passing in L and R
Step 2: return Lu and Ru
I can write this function, but before I put in the effort I was wondering if a function already exists which can do this for me. It seems like a not-to-uncommon scenario, and I'd always rather use an existing solution to rolling my own.
(Also, if there's a more recognizable name for this algorithm, I'd like to know what it's called.)
(I wrote the question above about 2 hours ago. Since then, I found the answer on my own. The following is what I discovered.)
In set theory, the "list" of items in L but not in R is known as "the relative complement of R in L", also known as "set-theoretic difference of L and R"
(See Wikipedia's Complement (set theory) article)
F#, being a mathematical language, has this concept baked right in to it's Core library. First, you need to build your collections as sets:
// example arrays:
let arr1 = [| 1; 2; 3 |]
let arr2 = [| 2; 3; 4 |]
// build the L and R sets
let L = set arr1
let R = set arr2
Now you can call the "difference" function and quickly get the relative complement for each array:
let Lu = Set.difference L R |> Set.toArray
let Ru = Set.difference R L |> Set.toArray
> val Lu : int [] = [|1|]
> val Ru : int [] = [|4|]
There's also a shorter syntax. The Set type has overloaded the minus operator. Set.difference just subtracts the second parameter from the first, so you can actually just use the following:
let Lu = L - R |> Set.toArray
let Ru = R - L |> Set.toArray
> val Lu : int [] = [|1|]
> val Ru : int [] = [|4|]
Related
I have recently started learning f# and I have a problem with a task like the one in the subject line. I managed to solve this task but not using a recursive function. I have tried to convert my function to a recursive function but it does not work because in the function I create arrays which elements I then change. Please advise me how to convert my function to a recursive function or how else to perform this task.
let list = [8;4;3;3;5;9;-7]
let comp (a,b) = if a>b then a elif b = a then a else b
let maks (b: _ list) =
let x = b.Length
if x % 2 = 0 then
let tab = Array.create ((x/2)) 0
for i = 0 to (x/2)-1 do
tab.[i] <- (comp(b.Item(2*i),b.Item(2*i+1)))
let newlist = tab |> Array.toList
newlist
else
let tab = Array.create (((x-1)/2)+1) 0
tab.[(((x-1)/2))] <- b.Item(x-1)
for i = 0 to ((x-1)/2)-1 do
tab.[i] <- (comp(b.Item(2*i),b.Item(2*i+1)))
let newlist = tab |> Array.toList
newlist
It is worth noting that, if you were doing this not for learning purposes, there is a nice way of doing this using the chunkBySize function:
list
|> List.chunkBySize 2
|> List.map (fun l -> comp(l.[0], l.[l.Length-1]))
This splits the list into chunks of size at most 2. For each chunk, you can then compare the first element with the last element and that is the result you wanted.
If this is a homework question, I don't want to give away the answer, so consider this pseudocode solution instead:
If the list contains at least two elements:
Answer a new list consisting of:
The greater of the first two elements, followed by
Recursively applying the function to the rest of the list
Else the list contains less than two elements:
Answer the list unchanged
Hint: F#'s pattern matching ability makes this easy to implement.
Thanks to your guidance I managed to create the following function:
let rec maks2 (b: _ list,newlist: _ list,i:int) =
let x = b.Length
if x >= 2 then
if x % 2 = 0 then
if i < ((x/2)-1)+1 then
let d = (porownaj(b.Item(2*i),b.Item(2*i+1)))
let list2 = d::newlist
maks2(b,list2,i+1)
else
newlist
else
if i < ((x/2)-1)+1 then
let d = (porownaj(b.Item(2*i),b.Item(2*i+1)))
let list2 = d::newlist
maks2(b,list2,i+1)
else
let list3 = b.Item(x-1)::newlist
list3
else
b
The function works correctly, it takes as arguments list, empty list and index.
The only problem is that the returned list is reversed, i.e. values that should be at the end are at the beginning. How to add items to the end of the list?
You can use pattern matching to match and check/extract lists in one step.A typical recursive function, would look like:
let rec adjGreater xs =
match xs with
| [] -> []
| [x] -> [x]
| x::y::rest -> (if x >= y then x else y) :: adjGreater rest
It checks wether the list is empty, has one element, or has two elements and the remaining list in rest.
Then it builds a new list by either using x or y as the first element, and then compute the result of the remaing rest recursivly.
This is not tail-recursive. A tail-call optimized version would be, that instead of using the result of the recursive call. You would create a new list, and pass the computed valuke so far, to the recursive function. Usually this way, you want to create a inner recursive loop function.
As you only can add values to the top of a list, you then need to reverse the result of the recursive function like this:
let adjGreater xs =
let rec loop xs result =
match xs with
| [] -> result
| [x] -> x :: result
| x::y::rest -> loop rest ((if x >= y then x else y) :: result)
List.rev (loop xs [])
I wonder if there's a cheap(performance wise) option to search an index of array element which meets certain criteria starting from an index?
Array.tryFindIndex method doesn't have an argument startIndex. I could do Array.skip(n) and then search there but it seems expensive to create an array just for search. How do I do this?
I looked List also doesn't have that argument.
Do I have to use while ... do? Is there a nicer way?
The base libraries try to provide functions for your convenience but they cannot possibly anticipate all use cases. Nothing wrong with writing your own if need be:
module Array =
let tryFindIndexFrom i p (a : _ []) =
let rec loop k =
if k >= a.Length then None
elif p a.[k] then Some k
else loop (k + 1)
if i < 0 then None else loop i
EDIT: p is the predicate testing the array elements. tryFindIndexFrom has the same signature as tryFindIndex but with the starting index added as first parameter.
EDIT 2: Added test for k < 0 for fool-proof usage.
EDIT 3: Moved test for k < 0 out of the loop as it needs to be checked only once.
Here's a way to do it using a lazy sequence of array indexes:
let input = [| 'a' .. 'z' |]
seq { 4 .. input.Length - 1 }
|> Seq.tryFind (fun i -> input |> Array.tryItem i = Some 'x')
I'll leave it to you to generalise this into a helper function if you think that's necessary.
The nice thing about the current form is that it's quite flexible. You can change the maximum index easily, or search backwards, e.g. seq { input.Length - 1 .. -1 .. 4 }.
Follow your instinct. Considering Array.skip but noting the obvious waste of allocating a second array, you can take it one step further and generalize to the lazily evaluated Seq.skip, compose it with the standard Seq.tryFindIndex function and add the offset, if applicable.
let tryFindIndexMin n p =
Seq.skip n
>> Seq.tryFindIndex p
>> Option.map ((+) n)
// val tryFindIndexMin : n:int -> p:('a -> bool) -> (seq<'a> -> int option)
[ for i in 0..3 ->
[|"a"; "b"; "a"; "b"|]
|> tryFindIndexMin i ((=) "a") ]
// val it : int option list = [Some 0; Some 2; Some 2; null]
I'm writing some thing really easy, a program that finds all factors of an int. Here is what I have
let factor n=
let ls=[]
for i=1 to n do
if i % n =0 then ls = i::ls
l
If I do this then it pops an error This expression was expected to have the type unit. But I tried to put an expression that prints something after if..then.., which is suppose to return type unit, but it still gives the same error. I am lost about this. Can someone help please? Thanks
You are trying to make ls into a mutable variable nd assign it with =. While this is possible, by using mutable (1) or ref (2) along with <- or := assignment operators, this is generally discouraged in the functional world.
A possibly more idiomatic implementation of the naive algorithm could be:
let factor n =
let rec factorLoop curr divs =
if curr > n then divs
else
if n % curr = 0
then factorLoop (curr+1) (curr::divs)
else factorLoop (curr+1) divs
factorLoop 1 [] |> List.rev
> factor 12;;
val it : int list = [1; 2; 3; 4; 6; 12]
Here the main function defines an inner factorLoop function that is recursive. Recursion is the way we can avoid many uses of mutable variables in functional languages. The recursive inner function threads along a curr variable that is the current divisor to be tested and a list divs of currently found divisors. The result includes 1 and n. This can be altered respectively by changing the initial value of curr and the terminating condition in the first line of factorLoop.
It is worth noting that it can all be shrunk down to one line by making use of the F# library:
let factor n =
[1..n] |> List.filter (fun x -> n % x = 0)
Here we build a list of values 1..n and feed them to List.filter which applies the given predicate (at the end of the line) to select only divisors on n. If n is large, however, the temp list will grow very large. We can use a lazily evaluated sequence instead, which won't blow the memory usage:
let factor n =
{1..n} |> Seq.filter (fun x -> n % x = 0) |> Seq.toList
Here we filter on a 'lazy' sequence and only convert the (much smaller) sequence of results to a list at the end:
> factor 10000000;;
val it : int list =
[1; 2; 4; 5; 8; 10; 16; 20; 25; 32; ... etc
= is comparison, not assignment. You want either
let factor n =
let mutable ls = []
for i = 1 to n do
if n % i = 0 then ls <- i::ls
ls
or
let factor n =
let ls = ref []
for i = 1 to n do
if n % i = 0 then ls := i::(!ls)
!ls
Note, however, that both of these solutions are highly unidiomatic, as there are equally easy immutable solutions to this problem.
I have this code written for a Project Euler problem in c++:
int sum = 0;
for(int i =0; i < 1000; i++)
{
//Check if multiple of 3 but not multiple of 5 to prevent duplicate
sum += i % 3 == 0 && i % 5 != 0 ? i: 0;
//check for all multiple of 5, including those of 3
sum += i % 5 == 0 ? i: 0;
}
cout << sum;
I'm trying to learn f# and rewriting this in f#. This is what I have so far:
open System
//function to calculate the multiples
let multiple3v5 num =
num
//function to calculate sum of list items
let rec SumList xs =
match xs with
| [] -> 0
| y::ys -> y + SumList ys
let sum = Array.map multiple3v5 [|1 .. 1000|]
What I have may be complete nonsense...so help please?
Your sumList function is a good start. It already iterates (recursively) over the entire list, so you don't need to wrap it in an additional Array.map. You just need to extend your sumList so that it adds the number only when it matches the specified condition.
Here is a solution to a simplified problem - add all numbers that are divisible by 3:
open System
let rec sumList xs =
match xs with
| [] -> 0 // If the list is empty, the sum is zero
| y::ys when y % 3 = 0 ->
// If the list starts with y that is divisible by 3, then we add 'y' to the
// sum that we get by recursively processing the rest of the list
y + sumList ys
| y::ys ->
// This will only execute when y is not divisible by 3, so we just
// recursively process the rest of the list and return
/// that (without adding current value)
sumList ys
// For testing, let's sum all numbers divisble by 3 between 1 and 10.
let sum = sumList [ 1 .. 10 ]
This is the basic way of writing the function using explicit recursion. In practice, the solution by jpalmer is how I'd solve it too, but it is useful to write a few recursive functions yourself if you're learning F#.
The accumulator parameter mentioned by sashang is a more advanced way to write this. You'll need to do that if you want to run the function on large inputs (which is likely the case in Euler problem). When using accumulator parameter, the function can be written using tail recursion, so it avoids stack overflow even when processing long lists.
The idea of a accumulator-based version is that the function takes additional parameter, which represents the sum calculated so far.
let rec sumList xs sumSoFar = ...
When you call it initially, you write sumList [ ... ] 0. The recursive calls will not call y + sumList xs, but will instead add y to the accumulator and then make the recursive call sumList xs (y + sumSoFar). This way, the F# compiler can do tail-call optimization and it will translate code to a loop (similar to the C++ version).
I'm not sure if translating from an imperative language solution is a good approach to developing a functional mindset as instrument (C++ in your case) had already defined an (imperative) approach to solution, so it's better sticking to original problem outlay.
Overall tasks from Project Euler are excellent for mastering many F# facilities. For example, you may use list comprehensions like in the snippet below
// multipleOf3Or5 function definition is left for your exercise
let sumOfMultiples n =
[ for x in 1 .. n do if multipleOf3Or5 x then yield x] |> List.sum
sumOfMultiples 999
or you can a bit generalize the solution suggested by #jpalmer by exploiting laziness:
Seq.initInfinite id
|> Seq.filter multipleOf3Or5
|> Seq.takeWhile ((>) 1000)
|> Seq.sum
or you may even use this opportunity to master active patterns:
let (|DivisibleBy|_) divisior num = if num % divisor = 0 the Some(num) else None
{1..999}
|> Seq.map (fun i ->
match i with | DivisibleBy 3 i -> i | DivisibleBy 5 i -> i | _ -> 0)
|> Seq.sum
All three variations above implement a common pattern of making a sequence of members with sought property and then folding it by calculating sum.
F# has many more functions than just map - this problem suggests using filter and sum, my approach would be something like
let valid n = Left as an exercise
let r =
[1..1000]
|> List.filter valid
|> List.sum
printfn "%i" r
I didn't want to do the whole problem, but filling in the missing function shouldn't be too hard
This is how you turn a loop with a counter into a recursive function. You do this by passing an accumulator parameter to the loop function that holds the current loop count.
For example:
let rec loop acc =
if acc = 10 then
printfn "endloop"
else
printfn "%d" acc
loop (acc + 1)
loop 0
This will stop when acc is 10.
I've trying to learn F#. I'm a complete beginner, so this might be a walkover for you guys :)
I have the following function:
let removeEven l =
let n = List.length l;
let list_ = [];
let seq_ = seq { for x in 1..n do if x % 2 <> 0 then yield List.nth l (x-1)}
for x in seq_ do
let list_ = list_ # [x];
list_;
It takes a list, and return a new list containing all the numbers, which is placed at an odd index in the original list, so removeEven [x1;x2;x3] = [x1;x3]
However, I get my already favourite error-message: Incomplete construct at or before this point in expression...
If I add a print to the end of the line, instead of list_:
...
print_any list_;
the problem is fixed. But I do not want to print the list, I want to return it!
What causes this? Why can't I return my list?
To answer your question first, the compiler complains because there is a problem inside the for loop. In F#, let serves to declare values (that are immutable and cannot be changed later in the program). It isn't a statement as in C# - let can be only used as part of another expression. For example:
let n = 10
n + n
Actually means that you want the n symbol to refer to the value 10 in the expression n + n. The problem with your code is that you're using let without any expression (probably because you want to use mutable variables):
for x in seq_ do
let list_ = list_ # [x] // This isn't assignment!
list_
The problematic line is an incomplete expression - using let in this way isn't allowed, because it doesn't contain any expression (the list_ value will not be accessed from any code). You can use mutable variable to correct your code:
let mutable list_ = [] // declared as 'mutable'
let seq_ = seq { for x in 1..n do if x % 2 <> 0 then yield List.nth l (x-1)}
for x in seq_ do
list_ <- list_ # [x] // assignment using '<-'
Now, this should work, but it isn't really functional, because you're using imperative mutation. Moreover, appending elements using # is really inefficient thing to do in functional languages. So, if you want to make your code functional, you'll probably need to use different approach. Both of the other answers show a great approach, although I prefer the example by Joel, because indexing into a list (in the solution by Chaos) also isn't very functional (there is no pointer arithmetic, so it will be also slower).
Probably the most classical functional solution would be to use the List.fold function, which aggregates all elements of the list into a single result, walking from the left to the right:
[1;2;3;4;5]
|> List.fold (fun (flag, res) el ->
if flag then (not flag, el::res) else (not flag, res)) (true, [])
|> snd |> List.rev
Here, the state used during the aggregation is a Boolean flag specifying whether to include the next element (during each step, we flip the flag by returning not flag). The second element is the list aggregated so far (we add element by el::res only when the flag is set. After fold returns, we use snd to get the second element of the tuple (the aggregated list) and reverse it using List.rev, because it was collected in the reversed order (this is more efficient than appending to the end using res#[el]).
Edit: If I understand your requirements correctly, here's a version of your function done functional rather than imperative style, that removes elements with odd indexes.
let removeEven list =
list
|> Seq.mapi (fun i x -> (i, x))
|> Seq.filter (fun (i, x) -> i % 2 = 0)
|> Seq.map snd
|> List.ofSeq
> removeEven ['a'; 'b'; 'c'; 'd'];;
val it : char list = ['a'; 'c']
I think this is what you are looking for.
let removeEven list =
let maxIndex = (List.length list) - 1;
seq { for i in 0..2..maxIndex -> list.[i] }
|> Seq.toList
Tests
val removeEven : 'a list -> 'a list
> removeEven [1;2;3;4;5;6];;
val it : int list = [1; 3; 5]
> removeEven [1;2;3;4;5];;
val it : int list = [1; 3; 5]
> removeEven [1;2;3;4];;
val it : int list = [1; 3]
> removeEven [1;2;3];;
val it : int list = [1; 3]
> removeEven [1;2];;
val it : int list = [1]
> removeEven [1];;
val it : int list = [1]
You can try a pattern-matching approach. I haven't used F# in a while and I can't test things right now, but it would be something like this:
let rec curse sofar ls =
match ls with
| even :: odd :: tl -> curse (even :: sofar) tl
| even :: [] -> curse (even :: sofar) []
| [] -> List.rev sofar
curse [] [ 1; 2; 3; 4; 5 ]
This recursively picks off the even elements. I think. I would probably use Joel Mueller's approach though. I don't remember if there is an index-based filter function, but that would probably be the ideal to use, or to make if it doesn't exist in the libraries.
But in general lists aren't really meant as index-type things. That's what arrays are for. If you consider what kind of algorithm would require a list having its even elements removed, maybe it's possible that in the steps prior to this requirement, the elements can be paired up in tuples, like this:
[ (1,2); (3,4) ]
That would make it trivial to get the even-"indexed" elements out:
thelist |> List.map fst // take first element from each tuple
There's a variety of options if the input list isn't guaranteed to have an even number of elements.
Yet another alternative, which (by my reckoning) is slightly slower than Joel's, but it's shorter :)
let removeEven list =
list
|> Seq.mapi (fun i x -> (i, x))
|> Seq.choose (fun (i,x) -> if i % 2 = 0 then Some(x) else None)
|> List.ofSeq