I'd like to know if all formatting rules of printf functions currently work (or are implemented) in F# ?
For instance, if I want to align arguments on 9 characters (padding with spaces or 0), I would use:
printfn "%9A %9A" arg1 arg2 //don't seem to work
Thanks!
Do check out the docs
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee370560(v=VS.100).aspx
(and possibly also these
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/F_Sharp_Programming/Input_and_Output
http://blogs.msdn.com/dsyme/archive/2010/01/08/some-tips-and-tricks-for-formatting-data-in-f-interactive-and-a-in-sprintf-printf-fprintf.aspx
)
though I am unclear about the fine points of the spec and implementation, especially regarding the %A specifier, which does various magical things. I'll see what other info I can dig up right now...
Read the documentation:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee370560.aspx
Related
I am using a function to create a list from a float.
float_to_list(0.02).
It returns:
"2.00000000000000000000e-002"
I need it to give me a number exactly like:
"0.20"
If I fed it 5.23
"5.23"
If I fed it 5.5
"5.50"
So basically the number rounded to two decimal places.
Probably an easy fix.
Thanks
EDIT:
I would like to use the io format it looks like it might work,
but it dosen't in this example:
wxTextCtrl:setValue( TcGrossProfit, io:format("~p", [NUMBER]), ),
seems textctrl wants a string, I don't want to print it to the screen.
Are you looking for something like this:
6> F = 5/2.
2.50000
7> io_lib:format("~.1f",[F]).
["2.5"]
8> io_lib:format("~.2f",[F]).
["2.50"]
9> io_lib:format("~.3f",[F]).
["2.500"]
If yes, have a look at the io_lib module.
mochinum:digits converts a float to a string with an appropriate level of precision.
1> mochinum:digits(1.1).
"1.1"
2> mochinum:digits(1.2345).
"1.2345"
Not exactly what the OP requested, but useful nonetheless.
Alternatively you could use the function you were already using.
float_to_list(0.02,[{decimals, 2}]) outputs '0.02'
Or for Elixir users ;)
:erlang.float_to_list(5.231,[{:decimals, 2}]) outputs '5.2'
This link provides functions that truncate/floor or ceil or round a float. Given those you can round to 2 digits by multiplying by 100, rounging and then dividing back by 100 (and possibly rounding again to avoid precision errors)
I know people don't like the, "I am not an expert in language X" answers, but the printf command is quite ubiquitous so I will say, look for an analog of printf in Erlang.
Edit: It looks like the format and fwrite may be those analogs. For more info from erlang.org.
I'm trying to automate some output using printf but I'm struggling to find a way to pass to it the list of arguments expr_1, ..., expr_n in
printf (dest, string, expr_1, ..., expr_n)
I thought of using something like Javascript's spread operator but I'm not even sure I should need it.
For instace, say I have a list of strings to be output
a:["foo","bar","foobar"];
a string of appropriate format descriptors, say
s: "~a ~a ~a ~%";
and an output stream, say os. How can I invoke printf using these things in such a way that the result will be the same as writing
printf(os,s,a[1],a[2],a[3]);
Then I could generalize it to output lists of variable size.
Any suggestions?
Thanks.
EDIT:
I just learned about apply and, using the conditions I posed in my OP, the following seems to work wonderfully:
apply(printf,append([os,s],a));
Maxima printf implements most or maybe all of the formatting operators from Common Lisp FORMAT, which are quite extensive; see: http://www.lispworks.com/documentation/HyperSpec/Body/22_c.htm See also ? printf in Maxima to get an abbreviated list of formatting operators.
In particular for a list you can do something like:
printf (os, "my list: ~{~a~^, ~}~%", a);
to get the elements of a separated by ,. Here "~{...~}" tells printf to expect a list, and ~a is how to format each element, ~^ means omit the inter-element stuff after the last element, and , means put that between elements. Of course , could be anything.
There are many variations on that; if that's not what you're looking for, maybe I can help you find it.
Suppose in a (wx)Maxima session I have the following
f:sin(x);
df:diff(f,x);
Now I want to have it output a text file containing something like, for example
If $f(x)=\sin(x)$, then $f^\prime(x)=\cos(x)$.
I found the tex and tex1 functions but I think I need some additional string processing to be able to do what I want.
Any help appreciated.
EDIT: Further clarifications.
Auto Multiple Choice is a software that helps you create and manage questionaires. To declare questions one may use LaTeX syntax. From AMC's documentation, a question looks like this:
\element{geographie}{
\begin{question}{Cameroon}
Which is the capital city of Cameroon?
\begin{choices}
\correctchoice{Yaoundé}
\wrongchoice{Douala}
\wrongchoice{Abou-Dabi}
\end{choices}
\end{question}
}
As can be seen, it is just LaTeX. Now, with a little modification, I can turn this example into a math question
\element{derivatives}{
\begin{question}{trig_fun_diff_1}
If $f(x)=\sin(x)$ then $f^\prime(0)$ is
\begin{choices}
\correctchoice{$1$}
\wrongchoice{$-1$}
\wrongchoice{$0$}
\end{choices}
\end{question}
}
This is the sort of output I want. I'll have, say, a list of functions then execute a loop calculating their derivatives and so on.
OK, in response to your updated question. My advice is to work with questions and answers as expressions -- build up your list of questions first, and then when you have the list in the structure that you want, then output the TeX file as the last step. It is generally much clearer and simpler to work with expressions than with strings.
E.g. Here is a simplistic approach. I'll use defstruct to define a structure so that I can refer to its parts by name.
defstruct (question (name, datum, item, correct, incorrect));
myq1 : new (question);
myq1#name : "trig_fun_diff_1";
myq1#datum : f(x) = sin(x);
myq1#item : 'at ('diff (f(x), x), x = 0);
myq1#correct : 1;
myq1#incorrect : [0, -1];
You can also write
myq1 : question ("trig_fun_diff_1", f(x) = sin(x),
'at ('diff (f(x), x), x = 0), 1, [0, -1]);
I don't know which form is more convenient for you.
Then you can make an output function similar to this:
tex_question (q, output_stream) :=
(printf (output_stream, "\\begin{question}{~a}~%", q#name),
printf (output_stream, "If $~a$, then $~a$ is:~%", tex1 (q#datum), tex1 (q#item)),
printf (output_stream, "\\begin{choices}~%"),
/* make a list comprising correct and incorrect here */
/* shuffle the list (see random_permutation) */
/* output each correct or incorrect here */
printf (output_stream, "\\end{choices}~%"),
printf (output_stream, "\\end{question}~%));
where output_stream is an output stream as returned by openw (which see).
It may take a little bit of trying different stuff to get derivatives to be output in just the format you want. My advice is to put the logic for that into the output function.
A side effect of working with expressions is that it is straightforward to output some representations other than TeX (e.g. plain text, XML, HTML). That might or might not become important for your project.
Well, tex is the TeX output function. It can be customized to some extent via texput (which see).
As to post-processing via string manipulation, I don't recommend it. However, if you want to go down that road, there are regex functions which you can access via load(sregex). Unfortunately it's not yet documented; see the comment header of sregex.lisp (somewhere in your Maxima installation) for examples.
Is there a good reason why the type of Prelude.read is
read :: Read a => String -> a
rather than returning a Maybe value?
read :: Read a => String -> Maybe a
Since the string might fail to be parseable Haskell, wouldn't the latter be be more natural?
Or even an Either String a, where Left would contain the original string if it didn't parse, and Right the result if it did?
Edit:
I'm not trying to get others to write a corresponding wrapper for me. Just seeking reassurance that it's safe to do so.
Edit: As of GHC 7.6, readMaybe is available in the Text.Read module in the base package, along with readEither: http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/base/latest/doc/html/Text-Read.html#v:readMaybe
Great question! The type of read itself isn't changing anytime soon because that would break lots of things. However, there should be a maybeRead function.
Why isn't there? The answer is "inertia". There was a discussion in '08 which got derailed by a discussion over "fail."
The good news is that folks were sufficiently convinced to start moving away from fail in the libraries. The bad news is that the proposal got lost in the shuffle. There should be such a function, although one is easy to write (and there are zillions of very similar versions floating around many codebases).
See also this discussion.
Personally, I use the version from the safe package.
Yeah, it would be handy with a read function that returns Maybe. You can make one yourself:
readMaybe :: (Read a) => String -> Maybe a
readMaybe s = case reads s of
[(x, "")] -> Just x
_ -> Nothing
Apart from inertia and/or changing insights, another reason might be that it's aesthetically pleasing to have a function that can act as a kind of inverse of show. That is, you want that read . show is the identity (for types which are an instance of Show and Read) and that show . read is the identity on the range of show (i.e. show . read . show == show)
Having a Maybe in the type of read breaks the symmetry with show :: a -> String.
As #augustss pointed out, you can make your own safe read function. However, his readMaybe isn't completely consistent with read, as it doesn't ignore whitespace at the end of a string. (I made this mistake once, I don't quite remember the context)
Looking at the definition of read in the Haskell 98 report, we can modify it to implement a readMaybe that is perfectly consistent with read, and this is not too inconvenient because all the functions it depends on are defined in the Prelude:
readMaybe :: (Read a) => String -> Maybe a
readMaybe s = case [x | (x,t) <- reads s, ("","") <- lex t] of
[x] -> Just x
_ -> Nothing
This function (called readMaybe) is now in the Haskell prelude! (As of the current base -- 4.6)
This is a stupid question. I've been reading a couple books on F# and can't find anything that explains when you put ;; after a statement, nor can I find a pattern in the reading. When do you end a statement with double semi-colons?
In the non-interactive F# code that's not supposed to be compatible with OCaml, you shouldn't need to ever need double semicolon. In the OCaml compatible mode, you would use it at the end of a top-level function declaration (In the recent versions, you can switch to this mode by using files with .ml extension or by adding #light "off" to the top).
If you're using the command-line fsi.exe tool or F# Interactive in Visual Studio then you'd use ;; to end the current input for F#.
When I'm posting code samples here at StackOverflow (and in the code samples from my book), I use ;; in the listing when I also want to show the result of evaluating the expression in F# interactive:
Listing from F# interactive
> "Hello" + " world!";;
val it : string = "Hello world!"
> 1 + 2;;
val it : int = 3
Standard F# source code
let n = 1 + 2
printf "Hello world!"
Sometimes it is also useful to show the output as part of the listing, so I find this notation quite useful, but I never explained it anywhere, so it's great that you asked!
Are you talking about F# proper or about running F# functions in the F# Interactive? In F# Interactive ;; forces execution of the code just entered. other than that ;; does not have any special meaning that I know of
In F#, the only place ;; is required is to end expressions in the interactive mode.
;; is left over from the transition from OCaml, where in turn it is left over from Caml Light. Originally ;; was used to end top-level "phrases"--that is, let, type, etc. OCaml made ;; optional since the typical module consists of a series of let statements with maybe one statement at the end to call the main function. If you deviate from this pattern, you need to separate the statements with ;;. Unfortunately, in OCaml, when ;; is optional versus required is hard to learn.
However, F# introduces two relevant modifications to OCaml syntax: indentation and do. Top-level statements have to go inside a do block, and indentation is required for blocks, so F# always knows that each top-level statement begin with do and an indent and ends with an outdent. No more ;; required.
Overall, all you need to know is that [O']Caml's syntax sucks, and F# fixes a lot of its problems, but maintains a lot of confusing backward compatibility. (I believe that F# can still compile a lot of OCaml code.)
Note: This answer was based on my experience with OCaml and the link Adam Gent posted (which is unfortunately not very enlightening unless you know OCaml).
Symbol and Operator Reference (F#)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd233228(v=VS.100).aspx
Semi Colon:
•Separates expressions (used mostly in verbose syntax).
•Separates elements of a list.
•Separates fields of a record.
Double Semi Colon:
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/products/fsharp_journal/free/introduction.html
Articles in The F#.NET Journal quote F# code as it would appear in an interactive session. Specifically, the interactive session provides a > prompt, requires a double semicolon ;; identifier at the end of a code snippet to force evaluation, and returns the names (if any) and types of resulting definitions and values.
I suspect that you have seen F# code written when #light syntax wasn't enabled by default (#light syntax is on by default for the May 2009 CTP and later ones as well as for Visual Studio 2010) and then ;; means the end of a function declaration.
So what is #light syntax? It comes with the #light declaration:
The #light declaration makes
whitespace significant. Allowing the
developer to omit certain keywords
such as in, ;, ;;, begin, and end.
Here's a code written without #light syntax:
let halfWay a b =
let dif = b - a in
let mid = dif / 2 in
mid + a;;
and becomes with light syntax:
#light
let halfWay a b =
let dif = b - a
let mid = dif / 2
mid + a
As said you can omit the #light declaration now (which should be the case if you're on a recent CTP or Visual Studio 2010).
See also this thread if you want know more on the #light syntax: F# - Should I learn with or without #light?
The double semi-colon is used to mark the end of a block of code that is ready for evaluation in F# interactive when you are typing directly into the interactive session. For example, when using it as a calculator.
This is rarely seen in F# because you typically write code into a script file, highlight it and use ALT+ENTER to have it evaluated, with Visual Studio effectively injecting the ;; at the end for you.
OCaml is the same.
Literature often quotes code written as it would appear if it had been typed into an interactive session because this is a clear way to convey not only the code but also its inferred type. For example:
> [1; 2; 3];;
val it : int list = [1; 2; 3]
This means that you type the expression [1; 2; 3] into the interactive session followed by the ;; denoting the end of a block of code that is ready to be evaluated interactively and the compiler replies with val it : int list = [1; 2; 3] describing that the expression evaluated to a value of the type int list.
The double semicolon most likely comes from OCaml since that is what the language is based on.
See link text
Basically its for historical purposes and you need it for the evaluator (repl) if you use it.
There is no purpose for double semi-colons (outside of F# interactive). The semi-colon, according to MSDN:
Separates expressions (used mostly
in verbose syntax).
Separates
elements of a list.
Separates
fields of a record.
Therefore, in the first instance, ;; would be separating the expression before the first semi-colon from the empty expression after it but before the second semi-colon, and separating that empty expression from whatever came after the second semi-colon (just as in, say C# or C++).
In the instance of the list, I suspect you'd get an error for defining an empty list element.
With regards to the record, I suspect it would be similar to separating expressions, with the empty space between the semi-colons effectively being ignored.
F# interactive executes the entered F# on seeing a double semi-colon.
[Updated to cover F# interactive - courtesy of mfeingold)
The history of the double semicolon can be traced back to the beginnings of ML when semicolons were used as a separator in lists instead of commas. In this ICFP 2010 - Tribute to Robin Milner video around 50:15 Mike Gordon mentions:
There was a talk on F# where someone asked "Why is there double semicolon on the end of F# commands?" The reason is the separator in lists in the original ML is semicolons, so if you wanted a list 1;2;3; and put it on separate lines- if you ended a line with semicolon you were not ending the phrase, so using double semicolon meant the end of the expression. Then in Standard ML the separator for lists became comma, so that meant you could use single semicolons to end lists.