I use vscode, with extensions of "OCaml and Reason IDE"
Here is my result in utop:
utop # 1. = 1. ;;
Line 1, characters 0-2:
Error: This expression has type float but an expression was expected of type
int
And also for String:
utop # "Me" = "Me";;
Line 1, characters 0-4:
Error: This expression has type string but an expression was expected of type
int
Same for anything but int:
utop # 2 = 2 ;;
- : bool = true
">" "<" also have the same symptom. I don't know what actually happens. Can anyone help me out ? Thanks a lot!
You are probably using JaneStreet Base library. Maybe you imported it like that:
open Base;;
Base tries to limit exceptions to functions that have explicit _exn suffix, so it shadows the built-in polymorphic equality (=) which can raise an exception on some inputs (for example, if you compare structures containing functions).
You can get polymorphic equality back as follows:
let (=) = Poly.(=);;
Or you can use it with a local import: Poly.(x = y).
There are pros and cons to polymorphic comparison.
The consensus seems to be that using monomorphic comparison (for example, String.equal, etc) is a more robust choice, even though it is less convenient.
Related
I recently updated from OCaml 4.03 to OCaml 4.13 for my project. One change is that I am getting a type error when checking for equality between non-int types. For example, for floats I get this:
Error: This expression has type float but an expression was expected of type int
I can solve this by explicitly using Float.(f0 = f1). But I get the same problem with custom types. E.g.:
utop # type e = X | Y
utop # let a = X;;
val a : e = X
utop # let b = Y;;
utop # X = Y;;
Error: This expression has type e but an expression was expected of type int
What is the correct way of handling this scenario? Stdlib.(a = b) works but feels cumbersome since a polymorphic equality operator is so commonly used.
This is not an inherent behavior of OCaml. It comes from Jane Street Base (and presumably other modules from Jane Street), which override some of the built-in polymorphic functions.
The idea is that there are risks involved with the built-in polymorphic comparisons that can be surprising if you aren't careful.
To get the usual OCaml polymorphic comparison operators you can use the Polymorphic_compare module. Here is a link to the documentation of Jane Street Base (if that's what you're using): Base at Jane Street
I'm taking a look to this programming language "Ocaml" and I have some troubles because I read the official ocaml documentation but I don't uderstand how to use :
";" and ";;" and "in" specially inside the definition of functions.
This is my code :
let abs_val value : int -> int =
let abs_ret = ref 0 ;
if value >= 0
then abs_ret := value
else abs_ret := -value ;
let return : int = abs_ret
;;
print_int abs_val -12
Compiled with "ocamlc" it said :
File "first_program.ml", line 7, characters 2-4:
7 | ;;
^^
Error: Syntax error
And it sounds so weird for me because official ocaml's doc says that when function definition ends I must use ";;".
I noticed that after the definition of abs_val VisualStudio Code ,when I go on a newline, put automatically the cursor to 2 spaces on the right, not at the beginning of the line.
I'm new in ocaml so I don't know if this is common or not but for me sounds like if something is missing, and probably it is :)
P.S. : I know that an abs function already exists but I'm doing this to learn.
Update :
let abs_val value =
let abs_ret = ref 0 in
if value >= 0
then abs_ret := value
else abs_ret := -value in
let return : int = abs_ret;
;;
print_int abs_val -12
Am I closer right?
Sometimes it happens the syntax error is not here but above. Did you closed your previous function with ;; ? Also, what is this return ? Use the functional paradigm of the language. You use variables and references and force the type checking. I'm not sure how do you want to use this code but in a general way, try to let OCaml determine the type of your functions rather than telling the compiler what is the signature. Plus, your code shouldn't be using that much references. For instance the following :
let abs_val value =
if value < 0 then
-value
else
value
Will work perfectly and not mess up things with reference. If you wish to use references, I suggest you learn more about the functional paradigm of OCaml before going deeper into its imperative possibilities.
Your syntax error is a result of having let with no matching in.
This is a very common error when learning OCaml syntax. There are two separate uses of let in OCaml. At the top level of a module, you use let to define a symbol (a function or a value) that is one of the elements of the module. So in the following:
module M = struct
let f x = x * 2
end
The let defines a function named M.f.
Similarly your code uses let this way to define abs_val.
In other cases (not at the top level of a module), let is used only as part of the let ... in expression that looks like this:
let v = exp1 in exp2
This essentially defines a local variable v with the value exp1 that can be used in the body of exp2.
All your other uses of let (except the initial definition of abs_val) are of this second kind. However, none of them have in, so they are all syntactically incorrect.
You need to fix up these problems before you can make progress with this function. You can fix the first one, for example, by changing the first semicolon (;) to in.
As #SDAChess points out, you have a second problem with the return value of your function. There is no special return keyword in OCaml that's used to return the value of a function. A function in OCaml is just a set of nested function calls, and the value of the function is the value returned by the outermost call.
For the next code I'm getting an error:
fun epoly(L:real list, x:real)=
= if L = [] then 0.0 else (epoly(tl(L:real list), x:real));;
Error:
stdIn:42.1-42.57 Error: operator and operand don't agree [equality type required]
operator domain: ''Z * ''Z
operand: real list * 'Y list
in expression:
L = nil
Since you're not actually asking a question, it is a little unclear what your intent is. Presumably this is attempted code that doesn't work and the accompanying error message, and the implicit question is "Why doesn't this code work? What am I doing wrong, and what can I do to improve it?" But really that's guesswork, and those are lazy questions, too.
Here's how your post could look like if my assumptions above are correct and you want positive feedback in the future:
I am trying to write a function that evaluates a polynomial with real coefficients L for the variable x.
It looks like:
fun epoly (L : real list, x : real) =
if L = [] then 0.0 else epoly(tl L, x)
Unfortunately I am getting a type error that I don't understand:
stdIn:1.35-1.91 Error: operator and operand don't agree [equality type required]
operator domain: ''Z * ''Z
operand: real list * 'Y list
in expression:
L = nil
What does this error mean, and if this is not the right way to evaluate a polynomial, then what would another way to accomplish the same thing look like?
The take-aways:
Write what your problem is, don't let others assume what your problem is. Making a question easily understood makes people want to answer your question, and describing your problem in words tells what you think is the problem, so that people don't try and answer the wrong question. In this case, your question could have been "Under what version of the Standard ML specification were reals removed as an eqtype?" and a sufficient answer would have been '97. But would you have been happy about that answer?
Once you know how to ask the right question, you can also better google around (e.g. search for: evaluate polynomial "standard ml"|sml) and find that there exists code from which you can let yourself inspire: here, here, here.
Format your code nicely and make sure it works. Use StackOverflow's Markdown to format your code nicely. The code that you posted contains artifacts from the interactive REPL (an extra =), so anyone who copy-pastes it into a REPL will get an error, will have to figure out where it occurred, fix it, and then start to think about what could be the problem, since you didn't say. A good rule is to test that the code you posted works by copy-pasting it once you've asked the question. One can easily forget to include a non-standard function.
An answer, assuming my rendition of your "question" somewhat lines up with your intent:
When you do if L = [] ... then you're using equality for lists of reals, which in turn relies on equality for reals, but reals can't be compared for equality. See the Q&A "Why can't I compare reals in Standard ML?" You can test if a list of reals is empty without comparing reals by doing e.g.:
fun epoly (L, x) =
if null L then 0.0 else epoly (tl L, x)
This is because the standard library function null uses pattern matching on lists but does not address the list's elements, whereas = assumes that elements may have to be compared. Even though that never happens in practice in the example L = [], this is still an error in the type system.
If you were comparing reals for equality, consider using an epsilon test. Besides that, consider using pattern matching instead of hd and tl because those functions can fail and crash because they're partial:
fun epoly ([], x) = 0.0
| epoly (c::cs, x) = epoly (cs, x)
All this function does is throw away its second argument x, traverse its first argument, c::cs, and do nothing with each coefficient c. Presumably, in order to evaluate a polynomial, you must do something to coefficient c and x before doing the same thing recursively on the remaining coefficients cs and x, and then somehow compose those.
Im learning Erlang
suppose I have two lists
[{a,a,a,b,c},{d,d,a,a,b},{a,b,c,d,e}]
[{{a,a,a,a,a},10},{{a,a,a,a},6},{{a,a,a},4}]
after Patten Match, expected result {a,a,a,b,c} because it can match {{a,a,a},4}
I tried lists:keysearch and lists:member, but cannot get expected result
any suggestion?
thanks
Matching is not consumptive. Your mental model of how matching works is confusing set operations (like set subtraction and intersection) with comparison and assignment. Your concept of set operations might also benefit from some review.
Erlang's matching is only for assignment and assertion (a sort of comparison). If we match an unbound variable (never used before) against any value, the variable will be bound (assigned) that value:
Foo = {a,b,c}.
Now Foo and {a,b,c} can be used interchangeably. This is pure symbolic assignment like in math class, not a "variable" in the sense of other languages where variables are "storage boxes for values".
If we use the = operator against any value and this now bound symbol Foo, we are doing a check comparison (an assertion) not an assignment. Foo can't mean anything other than {a,b,c} in the current context, so trying to assign it any different value causes an exception, but simply stating that {a,b,c} is {a.b.c} is correct and still yields {a,b,c} (and since Foo is now a symbol for {a,b,c} it can appear on either side and still the statement is correct).
Doing
{a,b,c} = {a,b,c}.
or
{a,b,c} = Foo.
or
Foo = {a,b,c}.
returns {a,b,c}, and does not raise an exception because all we did here was assert that {a,b,c} is indeed {a,b,c}.
If I want just the first value assigned, I can match another way:
{Bar,_,_} = {a,b,c}.
Now Bar represents a, and the _ values are ignored (completely skipped). The original {a,b,c} has not been changed. This is also true if we do:
{_,Baz,_} = Foo.
Now Baz represents b, and Foo still represents {a,b,c}. And that's about it. When it comes to lists, like [{a,b,c}, {1,2,3}] we can still do matching, but because of the nature of lists we will check a piece at a time (try this in the interpreter):
Spam = [{a,b,c}, {1,2,3}].
[Boo | _] = [{a,b,c}, {1,2,3}].
Now Boo represents {a,b,c}, and Spam still represents its original list.
That's about all there is to matching. The magical thing about Erlang's pattern matching is not how it works, its how many places provide natural opportunities for pattern matching, and how this winds up naturally solving a huge number of problems that require procedural checks or direct assignment operations in other languages (cond, function parameters, =, message reception, etc.).
Set and list operations are not the same thing as pattern matching in Erlang. I suggest going through some basic learning material first, like some of the many good beginner tutorials and Learn You Some Erlang.
I want to have user-defined type in Ocaml which represents strings which starts with English letter and afterwards can have letters or digits. Is it possible to define such custom type?
Jeffrey Scofield is right: there is no way in OCaml to define a type that would be the subset of strings verifying a given condition. You might however simulate that to some extent with a module and abstract or private data type, as in:
module Ident : sig
type t = private string
val create: string -> t
val (^): t -> t -> t
(* declare, and define below other functions as needed *)
end = struct
type t = string
let create s = (* do some check *) s
let (^) s1 s2 = create (s1 ^ s2)
end;;
Of course, the create function should check that the first char of s is a letter and the other ones letters or digits and raise an exception if this is not the case, but this is left a an exercise. This way, you know that any s of type Ident.t respects the conditions checked in create: by making the type synonym private in the signature, you ensure that you must go through one of the functions of Ident to create such value. Conversely (s:>string) is recognized as a string, hence you can still use all built-in functions over it (but you'll get back string, not Ident.t).
Note however that there is particular issue with string: they are mutable (although that is bound to change in the upcoming 4.02 version), so that you can alter an element of Ident.t afterwards:
let foo = "x0";;
let bar = Ident.create foo;;
foo.[0] <- '5';;
bar;;
will produce
- : Ident.t = "50"
If you restrict yourself to never modify a string in place (again this will be the default in the next OCaml's version), this cannot happen.
It's a little hard to answer, but I think the most straightforward answer is no. You want the type to be constrained by values, and this isn't something that's possible in OCaml. You need a language with dependent types for that.
You can define an OCaml type that represents such strings, but its values wouldn't also be strings. You couldn't use strings like "a15" as values of the type, or use the built-in ^ operator on them, etc. A value might look like S(Aa, [B1; B5]) (say). This is far too cumbersome to be useful.