recursion in Ocaml - output unexpected result - recursion

let n = read_int();;
let ftp = Hashtbl.create 1;;
let rec perrin n =
match n with
0 -> 3
|1 -> 0
|2 -> 2
|_ -> if Hashtbl.mem ftp n
then Hashtbl.find ftp n
else
begin
Hashtbl.add ftp n (perrin (n-2) + perrin (n-3));
Hashtbl.find ftp n
end;;
print_int (perrin n);;
print_newline ();;
The function works for small numbers. but for big numbers begins to return negative numbers in the result. Anyone know how to solve this?
example:
perrin 6443;;
output: returns an unexpected result

In short, this is because of integer overflow. The perrin number 6443 is so big that it doesn't fit into the standard OCaml representation. You can switch to int64 type, but you will hit the maximum very soon. If you would like to compute perrin numbers of arbitrary length, then you should switch to some library that provide arbitrary large numbers, for example Zarith.
Here is the example of the same algorithm, that computes perrin numbers using arbitrary precision numbers (using Zarith library):
let ftp = Hashtbl.create 1
let (+) = Z.add
let rec perrin n =
match n with
| 0 -> Z.of_int 3
| 1 -> Z.of_int 0
| 2 -> Z.of_int 2
|_ -> if Hashtbl.mem ftp n
then Hashtbl.find ftp n
else
begin
Hashtbl.add ftp n (perrin (n-2) + perrin (n-3));
Hashtbl.find ftp n
end
And here are the results:
# #install_printer Z.pp_print;;
# perrin 6443;;
- : Z.t =
6937727487481534145345362428447384488478299624972546803624695551910667531554047522814387413304226129434527926499509496229770899828053746244703038130158033495659756925642507460705324476565619563726313143585381473818236243926914534542432440183345586679670347146768666345957457035004600496858722149019370892348066080092386227405747647480490430105430719428536606680584617305233160609609912020683184996768739606851007812320606992975981778299643926692143069608878875765580902743031572791438636355138605019665803104979890697923714757674707178907100143056837109943637042907642787339851137110850937972239227931113199614637067827389939915715964263895232644082473556841869600234790536494644702234455771939854947229042244627157330814752633389708917381476591438570001576028511405244641287078061574227
#
You may notice that the number is indeed very large, and have no chances to fit into 32 or even 64 bits. In fact, it needs 2614 bits:
# Z.numbits (perrin 6443);;
- : int = 2614
If you don't want to install zarith library and to add extra dependencies, then you can use OCaml builtin Big_int module for arbitrary precision numbers. Here is the implementation based on the Big_int module:
open Big_int
let ftp = Hashtbl.create 1
let (+) = add_big_int
let rec perrin n =
match n with
| 0 -> big_int_of_int 3
| 1 -> big_int_of_int 0
| 2 -> big_int_of_int 2
|_ -> if Hashtbl.mem ftp n
then Hashtbl.find ftp n
else
begin
Hashtbl.add ftp n (perrin (n-2) + perrin (n-3));
Hashtbl.find ftp n
end;;

Related

how do I count the amount of times a (recursive) function executes itself in ocaml?

needing some help (if possible) in how to count the amount of times a recursive function executes itself.
I don't know how to make some sort of counter in OCaml.
Thanks!
Let's consider a very simple recursive function (not Schroder as I don't want to do homework for you) to calculate Fibonacci numbers.
let rec fib n =
match n with
| 0 | 1 -> 1
| _ when n > 0 -> fib (n - 2) + fib (n - 1)
| _ -> raise (Invalid_argument "Negative values not supported")
Now, if we want to know how many times it's been passed in, we can have it take a call number and return a tuple with that call number updated.
To get each updated call count and pass it along, we explicitly call fib in let bindings. Each time c shadows its previous binding, as we don't need that information.
let rec fib n c =
match n with
| 0 | 1 -> (1, c + 1)
| _ when n > 0 ->
let n', c = fib (n - 1) (c + 1) in
let n'', c = fib (n - 2) (c + 1) in
(n' + n'', c)
| _ -> raise (Invalid_argument "Negative values not supported")
And we can shadow that to not have to explicitly pass 0 on the first call.
let fib n = fib n 0
Now:
utop # fib 5;;
- : int * int = (8, 22)
The same pattern can be applied to the Schroder function you're trying to write.
You can create a reference in any higher scope like so
let counter = ref 0 in
let rec f ... =
counter := !counter + 1;
... (* Function body *)
If the higher scope happens to be the module scope (or file top-level scope) you should omit the in
You can return a tuple (x,y) where y you increment by one for each recursive call. It can be useful if your doing for example a Schroder sequence ;)

Tail-recursive solution to the coin change problem

I am trying to solve the coin change problem with tail recursion. The recursive solutions I come across are usually something like this
let rec combinations (amount:int) (coins:list<int>) =
if amount = 0 then
1
elif coins.IsEmpty || amount < 0 then
0
else
combinations (amount - coins.Head) coins + combinations amount coins.Tail
clearly inefficient and non tail recursive. I tried to make the solution tail recursive myself:
let combinationsTail (amount:int) (coins:list<int>) : int =
let rec go (amount:int) (sum:int) (coins:list<int>) =
match amount,sum ,coins with
| _,_, [] -> 0
| n,s,_ when n = 0 -> s
| n,_,cs when n < 0 || cs.IsEmpty -> 0
| n,s,h::t -> go (n - h) (n + s) t
go amount 0 coins
But it doesn't work. Does anyone know how to implement a tail recursive solution to this problem? is it even possible?
For achieving tail-recursiveness, you probably want to look into continuation-passing style. Here's an example applied to the Fibonacci sequence, which you could translate verbatim to the coins change problem, since both problems are dealing with aggregation of a recursive tree structure.
It's not the last word on efficiency.
let cc amount coins =
let rec aux k = function
| amount, _ when amount = 0 -> k 1
| amount, _ when amount < 0 -> k 0
| _, [] -> k 0
| amount, hd::tl ->
let k' x =
let k'' y = k (x + y)
aux k'' (amount - hd, hd::tl)
aux k' (amount, tl)
aux id (amount, coins)

Reversing an int in OCaml

I'm teaching myself OCaml, and the main resources I'm using for practice are some problem sets Cornell has made available from their 3110 class. One of the problems is to write a function to reverse an int (i.e: 1234 -> 4321, -1234 -> -4321, 2 -> 2, -10 -> -1 etc).
I have a working solution, but I'm concerned that it isn't exactly idiomatic OCaml:
let rev_int (i : int) : int =
let rec power cnt value =
if value / 10 = 0 then cnt
else power (10 * cnt) (value/10) in
let rec aux pow temp value =
if value <> 0 then aux (pow/10) (temp + (value mod 10 * pow)) (value / 10)
else temp in
aux (power 1 i) 0 i
It works properly in all cases as far as I can tell, but it just seems seriously "un-OCaml" to me, particularly because I'm running through the length of the int twice with two inner-functions. So I'm just wondering whether there's a more "OCaml" way to do this.
I would say, that the following is idiomatic enough.
(* [rev x] returns such value [y] that its decimal representation
is a reverse of decimal representation of [x], e.g.,
[rev 12345 = 54321] *)
let rev n =
let rec loop acc n =
if n = 0 then acc
else loop (acc * 10 + n mod 10) (n / 10) in
loop 0 n
But as Jeffrey said in a comment, your solution is quite idiomatic, although not the nicest one.
Btw, my own style, would be to write like this:
let rev n =
let rec loop acc = function
| 0 -> acc
| n -> loop (acc * 10 + n mod 10) (n / 10) in
loop 0 n
As I prefer pattern matching to if/then/else. But this is a matter of mine personal taste.
I can propose you some way of doing it:
let decompose_int i =
let r = i / 10 in
i - (r * 10) , r
This function allows me to decompose the integer as if I had a list.
For instance 1234 is decomposed into 4 and 123.
Then we reverse it.
let rec rev_int i = match decompose_int i with
| x , 0 -> 10 , x
| h , t ->
let (m,r) = rev_int t in
(10 * m, h * m + r)
The idea here is to return 10, 100, 1000... and so on to know where to place the last digit.
What I wanted to do here is to treat them as I would treat lists, decompose_int being a List.hd and List.tl equivalent.

reverse recursion in F#

(I am not sure about that whether reverse recursion is a correct name..)
I'd like to define a recursive function with initial value at k=n and terminate at k = 0
So I tried to write it in this way(here n = 10):
let rec f k =
match k with
|_ when k > 10 -> 0
| 10 -> 1
|_ -> (f n+1)-1
and the VS crashed. Could anyone help me?
dividing line------------------
I think my question is a little like this:
Consider a sequence with
a(10) = 1
a(k) = [a(k+1)*a(k+1)] + 1
a(k) = 0 if (k < 0 or k > 10)
How could I implement it in the F# ?
let rec f k =
match k with
|_ when k > 10 || k < 0 -> 0
| 10 -> 1
|_ -> f (k+1) * f (k+1) + 1

F# tail call optimization with 2 recursive calls?

As I was writing this function I knew that I wouldn't get tail call optimization. I still haven't come up with a good way of handling this and was hoping someone else might offer suggestions.
I've got a tree:
type Heap<'a> =
| E
| T of int * 'a * Heap<'a> * Heap<'a>
And I want to count how many nodes are in it:
let count h =
let rec count' h acc =
match h with
| E -> 0 + acc
| T(_, value, leftChild, rightChild) ->
let acc = 1 + acc
(count' leftChild acc) + (count' rightChild acc)
count' h 0
This isn't isn't optimized because of the addition of the counts for the child nodes. Any idea of how to make something like this work if the tree has 1 million nodes?
Thanks, Derek
Here is the implementation of count using CPS. It still blew the stack though.
let count h =
let rec count' h acc cont =
match h with
| E -> cont (1 + acc)
| T(_,_,left,right) ->
let f = (fun lc -> count' right lc cont)
count' left acc f
count' h 0 (fun (x: int) -> x)
Maybe I can come up with some way to partition the tree into enough pieces that I can count without blowing the stack?
Someone asked about the code which generates the tree. It is below.
member this.ParallelHeaps threads =
let rand = new Random()
let maxVal = 1000000
let rec heaper i h =
if i < 1 then
h
else
let heap = LeftistHeap.insert (rand.Next(100,2 * maxVal)) h
heaper (i - 1) heap
let heaps = Array.create threads E
printfn "Creating heap of %d elements, with %d threads" maxVal threads
let startTime = DateTime.Now
seq { for i in 0 .. (threads - 1) ->
async { Array.set heaps i (heaper (maxVal / threads) E) }}
|> Async.Parallel
|> Async.RunSynchronously
|> ignore
printfn "Creating %d sub-heaps took %f milliseconds" threads (DateTime.Now - startTime).TotalMilliseconds
let startTime = DateTime.Now
Array.length heaps |> should_ equal threads <| "The size of the heaps array should match the number of threads to process the heaps"
let rec reMerge i h =
match i with
| -1 -> h
| _ ->
printfn "heap[%d].count = %d" i (LeftistHeap.count heaps.[i])
LeftistHeap.merge heaps.[i] (reMerge (i-1) h)
let heap = reMerge (threads-1) E
printfn "Merging %d heaps took %f milliseconds" threads (DateTime.Now - startTime).TotalMilliseconds
printfn "heap min: %d" (LeftistHeap.findMin heap)
LeftistHeap.count heap |> should_ equal maxVal <| "The count of the reMerged heap should equal maxVal"
You can use continuation-passing style (CPS) to solve that problem. See Recursing on Recursion - Continuation Passing by Matthew Podwysocki.
let tree_size_cont tree =
let rec size_acc tree acc cont =
match tree with
| Leaf _ -> cont (1 + acc)
| Node(_, left, right) ->
size_acc left acc (fun left_size ->
size_acc right left_size cont)
size_acc tree 0 (fun x -> x)
Note also that in Debug builds, tail call optimization is disabled. If you don't want to run in Release mode, you can enable the optimization in the project's properties in Visual Studio.
CPS is a good general solution but you might also like to consider explicit use of a stack because it will be faster and is arguably simpler:
let count heap =
let stack = System.Collections.Generic.Stack[heap]
let mutable n = 0
while stack.Count > 0 do
match stack.Pop() with
| E -> ()
| T(_, _, heap1, heap2) ->
n <- n + 1
stack.Push heap1
stack.Push heap2
n

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