I am trying to implement a partition predicate in Prolog that splits a list into its two halves, a Prefix and a Suffix, of approximately same lengths.
partition(L,P,S)
Where prefixes and suffixes are defined as such:
prefix(P,L) :- append(P,_,L).
suffix(S,L) :- append(_,S,L).
If L is [], then Prefix and S are [].
If L is [H], then P is [H] and S is [].
If L has two or more elements, this is how the list is partitioned into its prefix and suffix:
Length of L is N and the length of P is div(N,2). The length of S is N - div(N,2).
So for instance:
?- partition([a,b,c,d],X,Y).
X = [a,b]
Y = [c,d]
?- partition([a],X,Y).
X = [a]
Y = [ ]
Here is my code and the error I get:
partition([],[],[]).
partition([H],[H],[]).
partition(L, P, S) :-
length(L, N),
Plen is div(N,2),
Slen is N - div(N,2),
length(Pre, Plen),
length(Suff, Slen),
prefix(Pre, L),
suffix(Suff, L),
P is Pre,
S is Suff.
partition([a,b,c,d],X,Y).
>>> Type error: `[]' expected, found `[a,b]' (a list)
("x" must hold one character)
I don't understand this error message but this is wrong:
P is Pre,
S is Suff.
This is for arithmetic evaluation whereby the Right-Hand-Side is evaluated as an arithmetic expression and unified with the Left-Hand-Side.
You just want to unify the variables:
P = Pre,
S = Suff.
Alternatively, you can use the same same for P and Pre / S and Suff throughout.
If you change is to to = as suggested by David Tonhofer's answer, the whole thing works.
But I would like to add that you are complicating things a bit. You have identified correctly that append/3 can be used to compute list prefixes and suffixes. But for any list to be partitioned and any prefix, the suffix is unique, and is already computed by append/3! And the other way round: If you ask it to compute a suffix, it will also compute the prefix you seek. But then you throw these answers away and try to recompute a matching prefix or suffix. There is no need to do that.
If we make your prefix and suffix predicates a bit more explicit:
list_prefix_theonlypossiblematchingsuffix(List, Prefix, TheOnlyPossibleMatchingSuffix) :-
append(Prefix, TheOnlyPossibleMatchingSuffix, List).
list_suffix_theonlypossiblematchingprefix(List, Suffix, TheOnlyPossibleMatchingPrefix) :-
append(TheOnlyPossibleMatchingPrefix, Suffix, List).
We can see that once we have a given prefix for a list, there really is no more choice for the suffix (and vice versa):
?- list_prefix_theonlypossiblematchingsuffix([a, b, c, d], Prefix, MatchingSuffix).
Prefix = [],
MatchingSuffix = [a, b, c, d] ;
Prefix = [a],
MatchingSuffix = [b, c, d] ;
Prefix = [a, b],
MatchingSuffix = [c, d] ;
Prefix = [a, b, c],
MatchingSuffix = [d] ;
Prefix = [a, b, c, d],
MatchingSuffix = [] ;
false.
So there is no need to try to compute the prefix and suffix separately and to match up their lengths. It's enough to restrict the prefix, as the suffix will follow:
partition(List, Prefix, TheOnlyPossibleMatchingSuffix) :-
length(List, N),
PrefixLength is N div 2,
length(Prefix, PrefixLength),
list_prefix_theonlypossiblematchingsuffix(List, Prefix, TheOnlyPossibleMatchingSuffix).
This works as you want:
?- partition([a, b, c, d], Prefix, Suffix).
Prefix = [a, b],
Suffix = [c, d].
?- partition([a, b, c, d, e], Prefix, Suffix).
Prefix = [a, b],
Suffix = [c, d, e].
Once you have this, it's much clearer to replace the goal involving list_prefix_verylongpredicatename with what is really meant:
partition(List, Prefix, Suffix) :-
length(List, N),
PrefixLength is N div 2,
length(Prefix, PrefixLength),
append(Prefix, Suffix, List).
Coming from other programming languages it may be a bit unusual that a predicate like append/3 computes several things at once that have a deep relationship with each other, i.e., a prefix and the unique matching suffix. But this is one of the things that makes Prolog so expressive and powerful. Get used to it and profit from it!
It seems to me that you're doing a lot of unnecessary work here.
This is all I think you need:
partition(L,P,S) :-
partition(L,L,P,S).
partition(L,[],[],L).
partition(([H|L],[_],[H],L).
partition([H|L],[_,_|L2],[H|P],S) :-
partition(L,L2,P,S).
If I query ?- partition([a],X,Y), write([X,Y]). then I get:
[[a], []]
true.
If I query ?- partition([a,b,c,d,e],X,Y), write([X,Y]). then I get:
[[a, b, c], [d, e]]
true.
Since you've already defined your prefixes and suffixes as
prefix(P,L) :- append(P, _, L). % prefix
suffix(S,L) :- append(_, S, L). % suffix
just smash the two together into one call,
partition(L,P,S) :-
append(P, S, L),
and this would be it, except you have additional conditions about the comparative lengths of the two near-halves, so just add them into the mix:
length( P, N), length( A, N), % same length, fresh list A
(A = [_|S] ; A = S). % S one shorter than P, or same length
And that's that. Testing:
2 ?- partition( [1,2,3], A, B ).
A = [1, 2],
B = [3].
3 ?- partition( L, [1,2], [3] ).
L = [1, 2, 3].
15 ?- partition( L, A, B ).
L = A, A = B, B = [] ;
L = A, A = [_G2477],
B = [] ;
L = [_G2477, _G2483],
A = [_G2477],
B = [_G2483] ;
L = [_G2477, _G2483, _G2492],
A = [_G2477, _G2483],
B = [_G2492] ;
L = [_G2477, _G2483, _G2489, _G2492],
A = [_G2477, _G2483],
B = [_G2489, _G2492]
....
Related
I am trying to write a predicate that will be true if X is a sublist of Y, without taking into account the first term and the last term of Y. For example, query listWithinList([b,c,d],[a,b,c,d,e]) would return True, but query listWithinList([b,c,d,e],[a,b,c,d,e]) would yield False because e, the last element of Y, should not be part of X.
Currently I have
listWithinList(X,Y):-append(_,Y2,Y), append(X,_,Y2).
but I am not sure how to change the code so that it does the same trick but without taking into account the first and last term of Y.
When you write _ in an argument to append, it refers to an arbitrary list. So arbitrary that its length is arbitrary too.
For example:
?- append(_, Suffix, [a, b, c]).
Suffix = [a, b, c] ;
Suffix = [b, c] ;
Suffix = [c] ;
Suffix = [] ;
false.
Here _ can stand for any of the lists [], [a], [a, b], [a, b, c]. But I don't need to tell you this. Prolog can tell you this if you give the anonymous variable _ a proper name instead:
?- append(Prefix, Suffix, [a, b, c]).
Prefix = [],
Suffix = [a, b, c] ;
Prefix = [a],
Suffix = [b, c] ;
Prefix = [a, b],
Suffix = [c] ;
Prefix = [a, b, c],
Suffix = [] ;
false.
In contrast, the term [_] stands not for an abitrary list. It stands for a list that definitely has exactly one element. That element (denoted _) is arbitrary.
For example:
?- append([_], Suffix, [a, b, c]).
Suffix = [b, c].
Or, again, with a proper variable name so we can see the binding:
?- append([X], Suffix, [a, b, c]).
X = a,
Suffix = [b, c].
All this is to say that the definition from the question:
listWithinList(X,Y):-append(_,Y2,Y), append(X,_,Y2).
Is close to being correct. But the two uses of _ don't "remove" one element each. They "remove" an arbitrary number of elements each. So you don't just get the middle of the list:
?- listWithinList(Middle, [a, b, c, d, e]).
Middle = [] ;
Middle = [a] ;
Middle = [a, b] ;
Middle = [a, b, c] ;
Middle = [a, b, c, d] ;
Middle = [a, b, c, d, e] ;
Middle = [] ;
Middle = [b] ;
Middle = [b, c] ;
Middle = [b, c, d] ;
Middle = [b, c, d, e] ;
Middle = [] ;
Middle = [c] ;
Middle = [c, d] ;
Middle = [c, d, e] ;
Middle = [] ;
Middle = [d] ;
Middle = [d, e] ;
Middle = [] ;
Middle = [e] ;
Middle = [] ;
false.
If we want to "remove" lists of exactly one element from the front and the back, we must write [_]:
listWithinList(X, Y) :-
append([_], Y2, Y),
append(X, [_], Y2).
This now behaves like this:
?- listWithinList(Middle, [a, b, c, d, e]).
Middle = [b, c, d] ;
false.
Additionally, note the difference between [_] and [_|_]. The former stands for a list of exactly one element. The latter stands for a list of one or more elements. In this case you don't want to "remove" more than one element, so using [_|_], like one of the other answers suggests, is absolute nonsense.
Finally, Prolog can suggest a further simplification to us:
?- append([X], Xs, Ys).
Ys = [X|Xs].
Appending a one-element list [X] and an arbitrary list Xs gives a list that we can also write as [X | Xs] without using append. So one of the append calls is not needed. I might write this predicate like this:
list_middle(List, Middle) :-
append([_First | Middle], [_Last], List).
And use it like this:
?- list_middle([a, b, c, d, e], Middle).
Middle = [b, c, d] ;
false.
Or like this:
?- list_middle(List, [1, 2, 3]).
List = [_2658, 1, 2, 3, _2664].
Grammars are very intuitive for such tasks. Just describe what we have:
list_within(Xs, Ys) :-
phrase(( [_First], seq(Ys), [_Last] ), Xs).
seq([]) --> [].
seq([E|Es]) --> [E], seq(Es).
That is, first the element _First, then the sequence Ys, and finally the element _Last.
Due to how lists are represented in Prolog, you can easily remove the first element by destructuring it as its head and tail, and unifying the result with tail, as follows:
tail([_|L], L).
On success, the predicates unifies the second parameter with the tail of the first.
To remove the last element, you can say that your input list is the result of appending a prefix to a list of one element (whose value is not important):
butlast(List, Prefix) :-
append(Prefix, [_LastValue], List).
You can combine them both to remove both extremities:
chop(List, Middle):
tail(List, Tail),
butlast(Tail, Middle).
Here is my approach:
First: Create all combinations of the List that are acceptable when the first letter is removed and last letter is removed.
listWithinList(M,L):-
append([_|_],L2,L),
append(S,[_|_],L2),
The first append removes the first element from the list, and the second append removes the last element from the list. The combinations of List are stored in S.
Second: We use the same predicate to check if M is same as any of the combinations in S.
same(L1,L2):-
L1==L2.
Putting the code together:
listWithinList(M,L):-
append([_|_],L2,L),
append(S,[_|_],L2),
( same(M,S)->write(S),
write('This combination is correct.') ).
same(L1,L2):-
L1==L2.
Examples:
?-listWithinList([b,c,d],[a,b,c,d,e]).
[b, c, d]This combination is correct.
1true
false
?-listWithinList([b,c,d,e],[a,b,c,d,e]).
false
?-listWithinList([a,b,c,d,e],[a,b,c,d,e]).
false
I'm new to Prolog and trying to do this question. We have a list
List = [a,a,a,a,b,c,c,a,a,d,e,e,e,e]
I want to pack it into sub-lists of similar elements.
Pack( [a,a,a,a,b,c,c,a,a,d,e,e,e,e], Sublists)
should give
Sublists = [[a,a,a,a],[b],[c,c],[a,a],[d],[e,e,e,e]]
This is what I have tried so far:
pack([],[],[]).
pack([H],[H],[H]).
pack([H,H1|T],Z,X):- H==H1 , append([H],Z,Z1) , pack([H1|T],Z1,X).
pack([H,H1|T],Z,X):- H=\=H1 , append([H],Z,Z1) ,
append(Z1,X,Xs) , pack([H1|T],Z1,Xs).
Below is the error:
Arithmetic: `a/0' is not a function
In:
[4] a=\=b
[3] pack([a,b|...],[a,a],_1608) at line 13
[2] pack([a,a|...],[a],_1688) at line 13
[1] pack([a,a|...],[],_1762) at line 13
Thanks in advance. I'm trying to solve these problems:
P-99: Ninety-Nine Prolog Problems.
You can approach this kind of problem with simple list processing and using SWI Prolog's dif/2 to provide a general solution:
pack([], []). % packing empty is empty
pack([X], [[X]]). % packing a single element
pack([X,X|T], [[X|PH]|PT]):- % rule for packing when next two terms are the same
pack([X|T], [PH|PT]).
pack([X,Y|T], [[X]|PT]):- % rule for different term
dif(X, Y),
pack([Y|T], PT).
2 ?- pack([a,a,a,a,b,c,c,a,a,d,e,e], L).
L = [[a, a, a, a], [b], [c, c], [a, a], [d], [e, e]] ;
false.
3 ?- pack(L, [[a,a,a], [b,b], [c]]).
L = [a, a, a, b, b, c] ;
false.
4 ?-
Note that lurker's solution still has some performance issues. See the ; false for each solution? This is an indication that Prolog still retains some memory (called a choice point - actually there may be even several such choice points). For many cases however, no such choice point is needed. Here is a solution that overcomes that problem (The name group in place of pack is quite common in the context of Haskell)
group([], []).
group([E|Es], [[E|Gs]|Gss]) :-
igroup(Es, E, Gs, Gss).
igroup([], _, [], []).
igroup([E|Es], F, Gs1, Gss1) :-
( E\=F
-> Gs1=[], Gss1=[[E|Gs2]|Gss2]
; E==F
-> Gs1=[E|Gs2], Gss1=Gss2
; E=F,
Gs1=[E|Gs2], Gss1=Gss2
; dif(E, F),
Gs1=[], Gss1=[[E|Gs2]|Gss2]
),
igroup(Es, E, Gs2, Gss2).
Note how the testing for the equality of E and F is split into four cases:
First E \= F which means that both are definitely different.
Then E == F which means that both are definitely identical.
Then E = F which is the general case of equality, and
dif(E, F) which is the case of general inequality
For the last two cases there is no -> because both may be true.
Since it is quite cumbersome to maintain so many cases, there is library(reif)
for
SICStus and
SWI which permits to write the same more compactly:
igroup([], _, [], []).
igroup([E|Es], F, Gs1, Gss1) :-
if_(E = F
, ( Gs1 = [E|Gs2], Gss1 = Gss2 )
, ( Gs1 = [], Gss1 = [[E|Gs2]| Gss2] )),
igroup(Es, E, Gs2, Gss2).
The error you got is because =\=/2 is true if expr1 is evaluates to a number not equal to expr2 . Instead you can use \=\2 which evaluates \+term1=term2. ==/2 evaluates to term1 equivalent to term2, =:=/ is true if expr1 is a number which is equal to expr2. One more mistake I found in your code is you're not clearing the Intermediate List. You have to flush the values in it after you have added the similar elements list to your Sublists list. I have used cut ! to reduce backtracking. Instead, if you write mutually exclusive predicates, it's better.
I have edited your code:
pack1([],[],[]).
pack1([H],L,[Z]):- append([H],L,Z),!.
pack1([H,H1|T],Z,X):- H == H1 , append([H],Z,Z1) , pack1([H1|T],Z1,X),!.
pack1([H,H1|T],Z,[Z1|Zs]):- H\=H1 ,append([H],Z,Z1) ,pack1([H1|T],[],Zs),!.
Output:
?-pack1([a,a,a,a,b,c,c,a,a,d,e,e,e,e],[],Z).
Z=[[a, a, a, a], [b], [c, c], [a, a], [d], [e, e, e, e]]
?-pack1([a,a,a,a,b,c,1,c,a,a,d,e,e,e,e],[],Z).
Z= [[a, a, a, a], [b], [c], [1], [c], [a, a], [d], [e, e, e, e]]
?-pack1([],[],Z).
Z= []
Hope this helps.
without using dif/2
my_pack([],[[]]).
my_pack([X], [[X]]).
my_pack([X,X|L], [F|R]) :- my_pack([X|L], [F1|R]), append([X], F1, F).
my_pack([X|L], [F|R]) :- my_pack(L, R), append([X], [], F).
I have the following problem.
I'm given a listOfLists, a value (row,col) and I need to get the list inside a list that contains that certain value, up to my value's index inside that list.
For example
?- find_list([[(1,2),(1,3),(1,4)], [(2,2),(2,3),(2,4)]], (1,3), List2).
List2 = [(1,2),(1,3)].
My problem is that if I use member/2 I will only get true or false for if my value is inside listOfList or not, and not the list that I will need to be working with.
How can I get that list that has my value inside it?
Does it matter that the values are two-dimensional coordinates? Is there an ordering on them that you must respect, or is it simply the ordering of the elements in the list? I will assume the latter.
If you want to split a list at some point, the standard append/3 predicate is usually the way to go. For example, assume we want to cut the list [a, b, c, d, e] into a prefix containing the elements before c and a suffix containing the elements after c. Here is how that is done:
?- append(Prefix, [c | Suffix], [a, b, c, d, e]).
Prefix = [a, b],
Suffix = [d, e] ;
false.
Here c is excluded from the prefix, but that's easy to fix:
?- append(Prefix, [c | Suffix], [a, b, c, d, e]), append(Prefix, [c], UpToAndIncludingC).
Prefix = [a, b],
Suffix = [d, e],
UpToAndIncludingC = [a, b, c] ;
false.
We can give this predicate a nice name:
list_pivot_prefix(List, Pivot, Prefix) :-
append(Prefix0, [Pivot | _Suffix], List),
append(Prefix0, [Pivot], Prefix).
And your find_list/3 predicate then simply finds all the lists in the given list of lists for which this relation holds:
find_list(Lists, Element, Prefix) :-
member(List, Lists),
list_pivot_prefix(List, Element, Prefix).
Here is your test case:
?- find_list([[(1,2),(1,3),(1,4)],[(2,2),(2,3),(2,4)]],(1,3),List2).
List2 = [ (1, 2), (1, 3)] ;
false.
I'm new in Prolog.
I have a problem about predicate prefix but a little bit different.
I want to get a prefix of a list but until an element
The list can have repeat elements.
An example:
prefix(Element, List, Prefix)
prefix(c, [a,b,c,d,e,f], [a, b])
The element is not included.
What I have so far is this
prefix(X, [X|T], []).
prefix(X, [Y|T], [Y|Z]):-
prefix(X, T, Z).
But it does not work.
L = [a,b,c] ? prefix(b, L, Prefix).
no
?-
Thanks
With dif/2 you can explicitly state that for any member X preceding Element, X \== Element:
prefix(Element, [Element|_], []).
prefix(Element, [Head|List], [Head|Prefix]) :-
dif(Element, Head),
prefix(Element, List, Prefix).
or equally, because I wanted to use append/3 in the first iteration of my answer:
prefix(Element, List, Prefix) :-
append(Prefix, [Element|_Suffix], List),
maplist(dif(Element), Prefix).
For the suffix it is basically the same:
suffix(Element, List, Suffix) :-
append(_Prefix, [Element|Suffix], List),
maplist(dif(Element), Suffix).
If you don't want to use maplist(dif(Element), List):
all_dif(_, []).
all_dif(X, [H|T]) :- dif(X, H), all_dif(X, T).
Here is a solution using Definite Clause Grammars dcg and the non-terminal all_seq//2:
prefix(X, Xs, Ys) :-
phrase( ( all_seq(dif(X), Ys), [X], ... ), Xs).
... --> [] | [_], ... .
So the grammar (within phrase/2) reads:
There is
1. an initial sequence Ys with all elements different to X, followed by 2. X, followed by 3. anything.
There is still a downside, which is often the case when using DCGs: The implementation is not as determinate as it could be and thus leaves superfluous choicepoints around.
prefix(X,[X|T],[]).
prefix(X,[Y|T],Z) :- prefix(X,T,M) , Z = [Y|M].
output:
?- L = [a,b,c,d,e,f] , prefix(d,L,G). L = [a, b, c, d, e, f], G = [a,
b, c] .
?- L = [a,b,c,d,e,f] , prefix(e,L,G). L = [a, b, c, d, e, f], G = [a,
b, c, d] .
EDIT #1
the original code is working , use (,) instead of (?) as following.
prefix(X,[X|T],[]).
prefix(X,[Y|T],[Y|Z]) :- prefix(X,T,Z).
output:
?- prefix(d , [a,b,c,d,e] , G). G = [a, b, c]
?- L = [a,b,c] , prefix(b, L, Prefix).
L = [a, b, c],
Prefix = [a] .
EDIT #2
as user false mentioned in comment, I can confirm that you are right, but in my solution, I assume that the list contains unique elements:
prefix(d,[d,d],[d]) succeeds - it should fail ,
So i have this code which copies everything from a list to another one.
How should I modify it in order to copy, lets say the first two character.
$copy(L,R) :-
copy2(L,R).
copy2([X],[X]).
copy2([H|T1],[H|T2]) :-
copy2(T1,T2).
example of what i want it to be: ?- copy([a,b,c,d,e,f],X,2). --> X = [a,b]
You can copy lists just with unification:
?- [a,b,c,d,e] = List.
List = [a, b, c, d, e].
?- [a,b,c,d,e] = [V,W,X,Y,Z].
V = a,
W = b,
X = c,
Y = d,
Z = e.
?- [a,b,c,d,e] = [V,W|Rest].
V = a,
W = b,
Rest = [c, d, e].
A predicate like the one you describe, copying the first N elements of a list, can be defined thus:
first_n(List, N, Xs) :-
length(Xs, N),
append(Xs _, List).
Which works like so:
?- first_n([a,b,c,d,e], 2, X).
X = [a, b].
There are a bunch of different ways to write a similar predicate. The way I have defined first_n/3, it will fail if N is larger than the length of List (this was pointed to out by #false in the comments). One could instead write an analog of the common function take, which will return List in its entirety in the event that N is greater than List's length:
take_n(N, List, Taken) :-
( length(List, M),
N > M
->
Taken = List
;
length(Taken, N),
append(Taken, _, List)
).
This answer was corrected (several times) under the guidance of #false's helpful criticism.