How do you flatten nested vectors in Clojure? - vector

I have an atom called history:
(def history (atom []))
I want it to hold a vector of vectors. each vector is a "command" and the history vector holds the history of all of the commands in order:
(swap! history conj current-command)
I want it to look like:
[["move" 20] ["turn" 90]]
but currently it is in the form:
atom[[["move" 20] ["turn" 90] ["turn" 120]]]
Can I have some tips as how to flatten that to be [["move" 20] ["turn" 90]]

Maybe the initial value of the history atom was not appropriate
(def history (atom []))
(swap! history conj ["move" 20])
(swap! history conj ["move" 30])
(swap! history conj ["turn" 50])
; [[move 20] [move 30] [turn 50]]
(first #history)
; ["move" 20]
EDIT:
(println history)
; atom[[["move" 20] ["turn" 90] ["turn" 120]]]
; but an atom's value should be accessed using the # mark
(println #history)
; [["move" 20] ["turn" 90] ["turn" 120]]

You don't need to flatten it. You have a vector containing the vector you want as its first and only element. Just use first:
user> (first [[["move" 20] ["turn" 90] ["turn" 120]]])
[["move" 20] ["turn" 90] ["turn" 120]]
The question is why did you get that nested vector in the first place. Can you share a short snippet of code that generates the vector with the extra nesting?

Related

Destructure and process vector of hash-maps in Clojure

I have a vector of hash-maps, like this:
(def my-maps [{:a 1} {:b 2}])
I want to loop over each hash-map, give the key and value a more meaningful name within the loop, then process each hash-map differently depending on its key.
Without further ado, here is my best attempt:
(for [m my-maps]
(let [my-key-name (key m) my-val-name (val m)]
(case my-key-name
:a (println "Found key :a with value " my-val-name)
:b (println "Found key :b with value " my-val-name))))
This approach, however, produces a rather cryptic error:
; Error printing return value (ClassCastException) at clojure.core/key (core.clj:1569).
; class clojure.lang.PersistentArrayMap cannot be cast to class java.util.Map$Entry (clojure.lang.PersistentArrayMap is in unnamed module of loader 'app'; java.util.Map$Entry is in module java.base of loader 'bootstrap')
What am I doing wrong?
You can destructure inside for (or use doseq):
(for [[[k v] & _] [{:a 1} {:b 2}]]
(println "Found key" k "with value" v))
Found key :a with value 1
Found key :b with value 2
=> (nil nil)
For the sake of clarity, here is a more general answer broken down into individual steps:
(let [my-maps [{:a 1} {:b 2 :c 3}]]
(doseq [curr-map my-maps]
(newline)
(println "curr-map=" curr-map)
(let [map-entries (seq curr-map)]
(println "map-entries=" map-entries)
(doseq [curr-me map-entries]
(let [[k v] curr-me]
(println " curr-me=" curr-me " k=" k " v=" v))))))
With result
curr-map= {:a 1}
map-entries= ([:a 1])
curr-me= [:a 1] k= :a v= 1
curr-map= {:b 2, :c 3}
map-entries= ([:b 2] [:c 3])
curr-me= [:b 2] k= :b v= 2
curr-me= [:c 3] k= :c v= 3
A MapEntry object in Clojure can be treated as either a 2-element vector (accessed via first & second) or as a MapEntry accessed via the key and val functions. The destructuring form:
(let [[k v] curr-me]
treats the MapEntry object curr-me as a sequence and pulls out the first 2 elements into k and v. Even though it prints like a vector (eg [:a 1]), it does have the type clojure.lang.MapEntry.
The destructuring syntax & _ in the for expression of the original answer is a "rest args" destructuring. It causes the sequence of all MapEntry objects after the first one to be assigned to the variable _, which is then ignored in the rest of the code.

Clojure: Vector is not immutable

I'm running into a problem where immutability suddenly doesn't hold for my vectors. I was wondering if there was a way to create fresh, immutable vector copies of a given set.
Clojuredocs suggested "aclone" but that is giving me an error stating that there's no such method.
(defn stripSame [word wordList]
(def setVec (into #{} wordList))
(def wordSet word)
(def wordVec (into #{} [wordSet]))
(def diffSet (set/difference setVec wordVec))
(def diffVec (into [] diffSet))
diffVec)
(defn findInsOuts [word passList]
(def wordList (stripSame word passList))
(println word wordList)
(def endLetter (subs word (dec (count word))))
(def startLetter (subs word 0 1))
(println startLetter endLetter)
(def outs (filter (partial starts endLetter) wordList))
(def ins (filter (partial ends startLetter) wordList))
;(println ins outs)
(def indexes [ (count ins) (count outs)])
indexes)
(defn findAll [passList]
(def wordList (into [] passList) ))
(println wordList)
(loop [n 0 indexList []]
(println "In here" (get wordList n) wordList)
(if (< n (count wordList))
(do
(def testList wordList)
(def indexes (findInsOuts (get wordList n) testList))
(println (get wordList n) indexes)
(recur (inc n) (conj indexList [(get wordList n) indexes]))))))
passList is a list of words like so (lol at good) which is then cast into a vector.
So basically findAll calls findInsOuts which goes through every word in the list and sees how many other words start with its last letter but which first removes the search word from the vector before performing some function to prevent duplicates. The problem is that somehow this vector is actually mutable, so the copy of the vector in findAll also has that value permanently stripped.
When I try to create a new vector and then act on that vector the same thing still happens, which implies that they're aliased/sharing the same memory location.
How can I create a fresh vector for use that is actually immutable?
Any help is appreciated
I'm afraid your code is riddled with misunderstandings. For a start, don't use def within defn. Use let instead. This turns your first function into ...
(defn stripSame [word wordList]
(let [setVec (into #{} wordList)
wordSet word
wordVec (into #{} [wordSet])
diffSet (clojure.set/difference setVec wordVec)
diffVec (into [] diffSet)]
diffVec))
For example,
=> (stripSame 2 [1 2 :buckle-my-shoe])
[1 :buckle-my-shoe]
The function can be simplified to ...
(defn stripSame [word wordList]
(vec (disj (set wordList) word)))
... or, using a threading macro, to ...
(defn stripSame [word wordList]
(-> wordList set (disj word) vec))
I don't think the function does what you think it does, because it doesn't always preserve the order of elements in the vector.
If I were you, I'd work my way through some of the community tutorials on this page. There are several good books referred to there too. Once you get to grips with the idioms of the language, you'll find the sort of thing you are trying to do here much clearer and easier.

clojure - (Another one) StackOverflow with loop/recur

I know this is a recurring question (here, here, and more), and I know that the problem is related to creating lazy sequencies, but I can't see why it fails.
The problem: I had written a (not very nice) quicksort algorithm to sort strings that uses loop/recur. But applied to 10000 elements, I get a StackOverflowError:
(defn qsort [list]
(loop [[current & todo :as all] [list] sorted []]
(cond
(nil? current) sorted
(or (nil? (seq current)) (= (count current) 1)) (recur todo (concat sorted current))
:else (let [[pivot & rest] current
pred #(> (compare pivot %) 0)
lt (filter pred rest)
gte (remove pred rest)
work (list* lt [pivot] gte todo)]
(recur work sorted)))))
I used in this way:
(defn tlfnum [] (str/join (repeatedly 10 #(rand-int 10))))
(defn tlfbook [n] (repeatedly n #(tlfnum)))
(time (count (qsort (tlfbook 10000))))
And this is part of the stack trace:
[clojure.lang.LazySeq seq "LazySeq.java" 49]
[clojure.lang.RT seq "RT.java" 521]
[clojure.core$seq__4357 invokeStatic "core.clj" 137]
[clojure.core$concat$fn__4446 invoke "core.clj" 706]
[clojure.lang.LazySeq sval "LazySeq.java" 40]
[clojure.lang.LazySeq seq "LazySeq.java" 49]
[clojure.lang.RT seq "RT.java" 521]
[clojure.core$seq__4357 invokeStatic "core.clj" 137]]}
As far as I know, loop/recur performs tail call optimization, so no stack is used (is, in fact, an iterative process written using recursive syntax).
Reading other answers, and because of the stack trace, I see there's a problem with concat and adding a doall before concat solves the stack overflow problem. But... why?
Here's part of the code for the two-arity version of concat.
(defn concat [x y]
(lazy-seq
(let [s (seq x)]
,,,))
)
Notice that it uses two other functions, lazy-seq, and seq. lazy-seq is a bit like a lambda, it wraps some code without executing it yet. The code inside the lazy-seq block has to result in some kind of sequence value. When you call any sequence operation on the lazy-seq, then it will first evaluate the code ("realize" the lazy seq), and then perform the operation on the result.
(def lz (lazy-seq
(println "Realizing!")
'(1 2 3)))
(first lz)
;; prints "realizing"
;; => 1
Now try this:
(defn lazy-conj [xs x]
(lazy-seq
(println "Realizing" x)
(conj (seq xs) x)))
Notice that it's similar to concat, it calls seq on its first argument, and returns a lazy-seq
(def up-to-hundred
(reduce lazy-conj () (range 100)))
(first up-to-hundred)
;; prints "Realizing 99"
;; prints "Realizing 98"
;; prints "Realizing 97"
;; ...
;; => 99
Even though you asked for only the first element, it still ended up realizing the whole sequence. That's because realizing the outer "layer" results in calling seq on the next "layer", which realizes another lazy-seq, which again calls seq, etc. So it's a chain reaction that realizes everything, and each step consumes a stack frame.
(def up-to-ten-thousand
(reduce lazy-conj () (range 10000)))
(first up-to-ten-thousand)
;;=> java.lang.StackOverflowError
You get the same problem when stacking concat calls. That's why for instance (reduce concat ,,,) is always a smell, instead you can use (apply concat ,,,) or (into () cat ,,,).
Other lazy operators like filter and map can exhibit the exact same problem. If you really have a lot of transformation steps over a sequence consider using transducers instead.
;; without transducers: many intermediate lazy seqs and deep call stacks
(->> my-seq
(map foo)
(filter bar)
(map baz)
,,,)
;; with transducers: seq processed in a single pass
(sequence (comp
(map foo)
(filter bar)
(map baz))
my-seq)
Arne had a good answer (and, in fact, I'd never noticed cat before!). If you want a simpler solution, you can use the glue function from the Tupelo library:
Gluing Together Like Collections
The concat function can sometimes have rather surprising results:
(concat {:a 1} {:b 2} {:c 3} )
;=> ( [:a 1] [:b 2] [:c 3] )
In this example, the user probably meant to merge the 3 maps into one. Instead, the three maps were mysteriously converted into length-2 vectors, which were then nested inside another sequence.
The conj function can also surprise the user:
(conj [1 2] [3 4] )
;=> [1 2 [3 4] ]
Here the user probably wanted to get [1 2 3 4] back, but instead got a nested vector by mistake.
Instead of having to wonder if the items to be combined will be merged, nested, or converted into another data type, we provide the glue function to always combine like collections together into a result collection of the same type:
; Glue together like collections:
(is (= (glue [ 1 2] '(3 4) [ 5 6] ) [ 1 2 3 4 5 6 ] )) ; all sequential (vectors & lists)
(is (= (glue {:a 1} {:b 2} {:c 3} ) {:a 1 :c 3 :b 2} )) ; all maps
(is (= (glue #{1 2} #{3 4} #{6 5} ) #{ 1 2 6 5 3 4 } )) ; all sets
(is (= (glue "I" " like " \a " nap!" ) "I like a nap!" )) ; all text (strings & chars)
; If you want to convert to a sorted set or map, just put an empty one first:
(is (= (glue (sorted-map) {:a 1} {:b 2} {:c 3}) {:a 1 :b 2 :c 3} ))
(is (= (glue (sorted-set) #{1 2} #{3 4} #{6 5}) #{ 1 2 3 4 5 6 } ))
An Exception will be thrown if the collections to be 'glued' are not all of the same type. The allowable input types are:
all sequential: any mix of lists & vectors (vector result)
all maps (sorted or not)
all sets (sorted or not)
all text: any mix of strings & characters (string result)
I put glue into your code instead of concat and still got a StackOverflowError. So, I also replaced the lazy filter and remove with eager versions keep-if and drop-if to get this result:
(defn qsort [list]
(loop [[current & todo :as all] [list] sorted []]
(cond
(nil? current) sorted
(or (nil? (seq current)) (= (count current) 1))
(recur todo (glue sorted current))
:else (let [[pivot & rest] current
pred #(> (compare pivot %) 0)
lt (keep-if pred rest)
gte (drop-if pred rest)
work (list* lt [pivot] gte todo)]
(recur work sorted)))))
(defn tlfnum [] (str/join (repeatedly 10 #(rand-int 10))))
(defn tlfbook [n] (repeatedly n #(tlfnum)))
(def result
(time (count (qsort (tlfbook 10000)))))
-------------------------------------
Clojure 1.8.0 Java 1.8.0_111
-------------------------------------
"Elapsed time: 1377.321118 msecs"
result => 10000

why clojure conj acts different between vector and map

> (conj [0] 1 2 3)
[0 1 2 3]
> (conj {:a "ei"} {:b "bi"})
{:b "bi", :a "ei"}
>
See, when it acts on vector, it puts 1,2,3 at end of it.
Whereas it put :b "bi" in front of :a map k-v pair
Why is this?
thanks
As with many hashed maps implementations, Clojure's hashed maps do not sort their entries, not retain the order in which they were inserted. This allows for better performance.
Note that conj does not have general ordering semantics either (it has ordering semantics for some concrete types, such as vectors).
You don't have to go as far as maps to get inconsistent behaviour from conj:
(conj [1] 2) ; [1 2]
(conj (list 1) 2) ; (2 1)
Hash maps have no defined order. But, for any map,
the seq of entries will always be the same
the vals and keys will be in consistent order.
Thus, for map m,
(= (keys m) (map key m))
(= (vals m) (map val m))
(= m (zipmap (keys m) (vals m)))
Currently, this sequence seems to be independent of insertion order. I tested this on sets by randomly shuffling random integers.

Removing adjacent and equal elements in a collection

Say that I have a function:
(defn get-token [char]
(defn char->number? []
(re-matches #"\d" (str char)))
(defn whitespace? []
(or
(= \space char)
(= \newline char)))
(defn valid-ident-char? []
(re-matches #"[a-zA-Z_$]" (str char)))
(cond
(whitespace?)
nil
(= \' char)
:quote
(= \) char)
:rparen
(= \( char)
:lparen
(char->number?)
:integer
(valid-ident-char?)
:identifier
:else
(throw (Exception. "invalid character"))))
When I run this function on, for instance, the string "(test 1 2)", I get a list of symbols for each character:
'(:lparen :identifier :identifier :identifier nil :integer nil :integer :rparen)
Seeing that this is not entirely what I want, I am trying to write a function that takes a collection and "condenses" the collection to combine adjacent elements that are equal.
A final example might do this:
(defn combine-adjacent [coll]
implementation...)
(->>
"(test 1 2)"
(map get-token)
(combine-adjacent)
(remove nil?))
; => (:lparen :identifier :integer :integer :rparen)
What is the idiomatic Clojure way to achieve this?
Clojure 1.7 will introduce a new function called dedupe to accomplish exactly this:
(dedupe [0 1 1 2 2 3 1 2 3])
;= (0 1 2 3 1 2 3)
If you're prepared to use 1.7.0-alpha2, you could use it today.
The implementation relies on transducers (dedupe produces a transducer when called with no arguments; the unary overload is defined simply as (sequence (dedupe) coll)), so it wouldn't be straightforward to backport.
Not sure how idiomatic it is but one way to do it would be to use partition-by to group elements of the incoming sequence into lists containing subsequences of the same element and then use map to get the first element from each of those lists.
So, in code
(defn combine-adjacent [input]
(->> input (partition-by identity) (map first)))
or
(defn combine-adjacent [input]
(->> (partition-by identity input) (map first))
should work.
There are a couple of tricks for comparing items to the one next door:
first, we can compare it to its tail:
(defn combine-adjacent
[s]
(mapcat #(when (not= % %2) [%]) (rest s) s))
alternatively, we can take the sequence by twos, and drop repeats
(defn combine-adjacent
[s]
(mapcat (fn [[a b]] (if (not= a b) [a]) ())
(partition 2 1[0 1 2 2 2 3 2 3])))
both of these take advantage of the helpful property of concat when combined with map that you can return zero or more elements for the result sequence for each input. The empty list for the false case in the second version is not needed, but may help with clarity.

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