F# recursion with boolean value - recursion

So this is the context. Assuming that I have a function that takes a tuple of 2 experiments and test it against a list of rules. The function should stop whenever the tuple of experiments are correctly verified by a certain rule.
type exp = A | B | Mix of exp * exp | Var of string
type sufficency = exp * exp
type rule = Rule of sufficency * (sufficency list)
let rec findout rules (exp1, exp2) = // return a boolean value
match rules with
| [] -> true
| thisRule::remaining ->
match thisRule with
| (suff, condition) ->
match suff with
| (fstExp, sndExp) ->
let map1 = unify Map.empty exp1 fstExp // I don't mention this function in here, but it is defined in my code
let map2 = unify Map.empty exp2 sndExp
true
findout remaining (exp1, exp2)
The problem is, I have no idea how this could be done with functional programming like this. With imperative programming, it would be easier to loop through the list of rules, rather using recursion to go over the list.
So what should the function return at each stage of the recursion?
I got the warning with that code above
warning FS0020: This expression should have type 'unit', but has type
'bool'. Use 'ignore' to discard the result of the expression, or 'let'
to bind the result to a name.

So the problem is in this part of the code
match thisRule with
| (suff, condition) ->
match suff with
| (fstExp, sndExp) ->
let map1 = unify Map.empty exp1 fstExp // I don't mention this function in here, but it is defined in my code
let map2 = unify Map.empty exp2 sndExp
true
findout remaining (exp1, exp2)
The first match returns true so you get a warning. You probably wanted
match thisRule with
| (suff, condition) ->
match suff with
| (fstExp, sndExp) ->
let map1 = unify Map.empty exp1 fstExp // I don't mention this function in here, but it is defined in my code
let map2 = unify Map.empty exp2 sndExp
true && findout remaining (exp1, exp2)
Where you carry the true through the calculation. However, this would probably all be simpler if you used the various List.* functions.

Related

How to create a cached recursive type?

open System
open System.Collections.Generic
type Node<'a>(expr:'a, symbol:int) =
member x.Expression = expr
member x.Symbol = symbol
override x.GetHashCode() = symbol
override x.Equals(y) =
match y with
| :? Node<'a> as y -> symbol = y.Symbol
| _ -> failwith "Invalid equality for Node."
interface IComparable with
member x.CompareTo(y) =
match y with
| :? Node<'a> as y -> compare symbol y.Symbol
| _ -> failwith "Invalid comparison for Node."
type Ty =
| Int
| String
| Tuple of Ty list
| Rec of Node<Ty>
| Union of Ty list
type NodeDict<'a> = Dictionary<'a,Node<'a>>
let get_nodify_tag =
let mutable i = 0
fun () -> i <- i+1; i
let nodify (dict: NodeDict<_>) x =
match dict.TryGetValue x with
| true, x -> x
| false, _ ->
let x' = Node(x,get_nodify_tag())
dict.[x] <- x'
x'
let d = Dictionary(HashIdentity.Structural)
let nodify_ty x = nodify d x
let rec int_string_stream =
Union
[
Tuple [Int; Rec (nodify_ty (int_string_stream))]
Tuple [String; Rec (nodify_ty (int_string_stream))]
]
In the above example, the int_string_stream gives a type error, but it neatly illustrates what I want to do. Of course, I want both sides to get tagged with the same symbol in nodify_ty. When I tried changing the Rec type to Node<Lazy<Ty>> I've found that it does not compare them correctly and each sides gets a new symbol which is useless to me.
I am working on a language, and the way I've dealt with storing recursive types up to now is by mapping Rec to an int and then substituting that with the related Ty in a dictionary whenever I need it. Currently, I am in the process of cleaning up the language, and would like to have the Rec case be Node<Ty> rather than an int.
At this point though, I am not sure what else could I try here. Could this be done somehow?
I think you will need to add some form of explicit "delay" to the discriminated union that represents your types. Without an explicit delay, you'll always end up fully evaluating the types and so there is no potential for closing the loop.
Something like this seems to work:
type Ty =
| Int
| String
| Tuple of Ty list
| Rec of Node<Ty>
| Union of Ty list
| Delayed of Lazy<Ty>
// (rest is as before)
let rec int_string_stream = Delayed(Lazy.Create(fun () ->
Union
[
Tuple [Int; Rec (nodify_ty (int_string_stream))]
Tuple [String; Rec (nodify_ty (int_string_stream))]
]))
This will mean that when you pattern match on Ty, you'll always need to check for Delayed, evaluate the lazy value and then pattern match again, but that's probably doable!

Map a list of options to list of strings

I have the following function in OCaml:
let get_all_parents lst =
List.map (fun (name,opt) -> opt) lst
That maps my big list with (name, opt) to just a list of opt. An option can contain of either None or Some value which in this case is a string. I want a list of strings with all my values.
I am a beginner learning OCaml.
I don't think filter and map used together is a good solution to this problem. This is because when you apply map to convert your string option to string, you will have the None case to deal with. Even if you know that you won't have any Nones because you filtered them away, the type checker doesn't, and can't help you. If you have non-exhaustive pattern match warnings enabled, you will get them, or you will have to supply some kind of dummy string for the None case. And, you will have to hope you don't introduce errors when refactoring later, or else write test cases or do more code review.
Instead, you need a function filter_map : ('a -> 'b option) -> 'a list -> 'b list. The idea is that this works like map, except filter_map f lst drops each element of lst for which f evaluates to None. If f evaluates to Some v, the result list will have v. You could then use filter_map like so:
filter_map (fun (_, opt) -> opt) lst
You could also write that as
filter_map snd lst
A more general example would be:
filter_map (fun (_, opt) ->
match opt with
| Some s -> Some (s ^ "\n")
| None -> None)
lst
filter_map can be implemented like this:
let filter_map f lst =
let rec loop acc = function
| [] -> List.rev acc
| v::lst' ->
match f v with
| None -> loop acc lst'
| Some v' -> loop (v'::acc) lst'
in
loop [] lst
EDIT For greater completeness, you could also do
let filter_map f lst =
List.fold_left (fun acc v ->
match f v with
| Some v' -> v'::acc
| None -> acc) [] lst
|> List.rev
It's a shame that this kind of function isn't in the standard library. It's present in both Batteries Included and Jane Street Core.
I'm going to expand on #Carsten's answer. He is pointing you the right direction.
It's not clear what question you're asking. For example, I'm not sure why you're telling us about your function get_all_parents. Possibly this function was your attempt to get the answer you want, and that it's not quite working for you. Or maybe you're happy with this function, but you want to do some further processing on its results?
Either way, List.map can't do the whole job because it always returns a list of the same length as its input. But you need a list that can be different lengths, depending on how many None values there are in the big list.
So you need a function that can extract only the parts of a list that you're interested in. As #Carsten says, the key function for this is List.filter.
Some combination of map and filter will definitely do what you want. Or you can just use fold, which has the power of both map and filter. Or you can write your own recursive function that does all the work.
Update
Maybe your problem is in extracting the string from a string option. The "nice" way to do this is to provide a default value to use when the option is None:
let get default xo =
match xo with
| None -> default
| Some x -> x
# get "none" (Some "abc");;
- : string = "abc"
# get "none" None;;
- : string = "none"
#
type opt = Some of string | None
List.fold_left (fun lres -> function
(name,Some value) -> value::lres
| (name,None) -> lres
) [] [("s1",None);("s2",Some "s2bis")]
result:
- : string list = ["s2bis"]

Default recursion on recursive types

Idiomatic F# can nicely represent the classic recursive expression data structure:
type Expression =
| Number of int
| Add of Expression * Expression
| Multiply of Expression * Expression
| Variable of string
together with recursive functions thereon:
let rec simplify_add (exp: Expression): Expression =
match exp with
| Add (x, Number 0) -> x
| Add (Number 0, x) -> x
| _ -> exp
... oops, that doesn't work as written; simplify_add needs to recur into subexpressions. In this toy example that's easy enough to do, only a couple of extra lines of code, but in a real program there would be dozens of expression types; one would prefer to avoid adding dozens of lines of boilerplate to every function that operates on expressions.
Is there any way to express 'by default, recur on subexpressions'? Something like:
let rec simplify_add (exp: Expression): Expression =
match exp with
| Add (x, Number 0) -> x
| Add (Number 0, x) -> x
| _ -> recur simplify_add exp
where recur might perhaps be some sort of higher-order function that uses reflection to look up the type definition or somesuch?
Unfortunately, F# does not give you any recursive function for processing your data type "for free". You could probably generate one using reflection - this would be valid if you have a lot of recursive types, but it might not be worth it in normal situations.
There are various patterns that you can use to hide the repetition though. One that I find particularly nice is based on the ExprShape module from standard F# libraries. The idea is to define an active pattern that gives you a view of your type as either leaf (with no nested sub-expressions) or node (with a list of sub-expressions):
type ShapeInfo = Shape of Expression
// View expression as a node or leaf. The 'Shape' just stores
// the original expression to keep its original structure
let (|Leaf|Node|) e =
match e with
| Number n -> Leaf(Shape e)
| Add(e1, e2) -> Node(Shape e, [e1; e2])
| Multiply(e1, e2) -> Node(Shape e, [e1; e2])
| Variable s -> Leaf(Shape e)
// Reconstruct an expression from shape, using new list
// of sub-expressions in the node case.
let FromLeaf(Shape e) = e
let FromNode(Shape e, args) =
match e, args with
| Add(_, _), [e1; e2] -> Add(e1, e2)
| Multiply(_, _), [e1; e2] -> Multiply(e1, e2)
| _ -> failwith "Wrong format"
This is some boilerplate code that you'd have to write. But the nice thing is that we can now write the recursive simplifyAdd function using just your special cases and two additional patterns for leaf and node:
let rec simplifyAdd exp =
match exp with
// Special cases for this particular function
| Add (x, Number 0) -> x
| Add (Number 0, x) -> x
// This now captures all other recursive/leaf cases
| Node (n, exps) -> FromNode(n, List.map simplifyAdd exps)
| Leaf _ -> exp

F# replacing variables with actual values results in endless loop (recursive function)

I recently started with F# and implemented a very basic recursive function that represents the Sieve of Eratosthenes. I came up with the following, working code:
static member internal SieveOfEratosthenesRecursive sequence accumulator =
match sequence with
| [] -> accumulator
| head::tail -> let rest = tail |> List.filter(fun number -> number % head <> 0L)
let newAccumulator = head::accumulator
Prime.SieveOfEratosthenesRecursive rest newAccumulator
This function is not really memory efficient so I tried to eliminate the variables "rest" and "newAccumulator". I came up with the following code
static member internal SieveOfEratosthenesRecursive sequence accumulator =
match sequence with
| [] -> accumulator
| head::tail -> tail |> List.filter(fun number -> number % head <> 0L)
|> Prime.SieveOfEratosthenesRecursive (head::accumulator)
As far as I understand the tutorials I've read Prime.SieveOfEratosthenesRecursive will be called with the filtered tail as first parameter and a list consisting of head::accumulator as second one. However when I try to run the code with the reduced variable usage, the program gets trappen in an infinite loop. Why is this happening and what did I do wrong?
As far as I understand the tutorials I've read Prime.SieveOfEratosthenesRecursive will be called with the filtered tail as first parameter and a list consisting of head::accumulator as second one.
You have this backwards.
In the first version, you're passing rest then newAccumulator; in the second version, you're effectively passing newAccumulator then rest. I.e., you've transposed the arguments.
Prime.SieveOfEratosthenesRecursive (head::accumulator) is a partial function application wherein you're applying (head::accumulator) as the first argument (sequence). This partial function application yields a unary function (expecting accumulator), to which you are passing (via |>) what is called rest in the first version of your code.
Changing SieveOfEratosthenesRecursive's argument order is the easiest solution, but I would consider something like the following idiomatic as well:
static member internal SieveOfEratosthenesRecursive sequence accumulator =
match sequence with
| [] -> accumulator
| head::tail ->
tail
|> List.filter(fun number -> number % head <> 0L)
|> Prime.SieveOfEratosthenesRecursive <| (head::accumulator)
or
static member internal SieveOfEratosthenesRecursive sequence accumulator =
let inline flipzip a b = b, a
match sequence with
| [] -> accumulator
| head::tail ->
tail
|> List.filter(fun number -> number % head <> 0L)
|> flipzip (head::accumulator)
||> Prime.SieveOfEratosthenesRecursive
FWIW, eliminating rest and newAccumulator as named variables here is not going to impact your memory usage in the slightest.
The last call in your second function is equivalent to:
Prime.SieveOfEratosthenesRecursive newAccumulator rest
where you switch positions of two params. Since newAccumulator grows bigger after each recursive call, you will never reach the base case of empty list.
The rule of thumb is putting the most frequently changing parameter at last:
let rec sieve acc xs =
match xs with
| [] -> acc
| x::xs' -> xs' |> List.filter (fun y -> y % x <> 0L)
|> sieve (x::acc)
The above function could be shortened using function keyword:
let rec sieve acc = function
| [] -> acc
| x::xs' -> xs' |> List.filter (fun y -> y % x <> 0L)
|> sieve (x::acc)
Using pipe (|>) operator only makes the function more readable, it doesn't affect memory usage at all.

OCaml: Pattern matching vs If/else statements

So, I'm totally new to OCaml and am moving pretty slowly in getting my first functions implemented. One thing I'm having trouble understanding is when to use pattern matching abilities like
let foo =
[] -> true
| _ -> false;;
vs using the if else structure like
let foo a =
if a = [] then true else false;;
When should I use each?
I don't think there's a clear cut answer to that question. First, the obvious case of pattern matching is when you need destructing, e.g.:
let rec sum = function
| [] -> 0
| head :: tail -> head + sum tail;;
Another obvious case is when you're defining a recursive function, pattern matching make the edge condition clearer, e.g.:
let rec factorial = function
| 0 -> 1
| n -> n * factorial(n - 1);;
instead of:
let rec factorial = function n ->
if n = 0 then
1
else
n * factorial(n-1);;
That might not be a great example, just use your imagination to figure out more complex edge conditions! ;-)
In term of regular (say C like) languages, I could say that you should use pattern matching instead of switch/case and if in place of the ternary operator. For everything else it's kind of a grey zone but pattern matching is usually preferred in the ML family of languages.
As far as I know the signifincant difference is that the expression at the guards in the match statement is a pattern which means you can do things that allow you to break apart the shape (destruct) the matched expression, as Nicolas showed in his answer. The other implication of this is that code like this:
let s = 1 in
let x = 2 in
match s with
x -> Printf.printf "x does not equal s!!\n" x
| _ -> Printf.printf "x = %d\n" x;
won't do what you expect. This is because x in the match statement does not refer to the x in the let statement above it but it's a name of the pattern. In cases like these you'd need to use if statements.
For me if..then..else is equivalent to match .. with | true -> .. | false -> .., but there's a syntax sugar if you are facing cases with nested pattern matching, using if..else in an interlace way can help you avoiding to use begin...end to separate different level of patterns
match .. with
| true ->
if .. then
match .. with
| true -> ..
| false -> ..
else
...
| false -> ...
is more compact than
match .. with
| true ->
begin
match .. with
| true ->
begin
match .. with
| true -> ..
| false -> ..
end
| false ->
...
end
| false -> ...
Pattern matching allows for deconstruction of compound data types, and in general, the ability to match pattern within a given data structure, rather than using conditionals like the if.. then structure. Pattern matching can also be used for boolean equality cases using the |x when (r == n) type construct. I should also add pattern matching is a lot more efficient than if... then.. constructs, so use it liberally!

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