Multiplying Lists through Folding - ocaml

Question

So I am currently trying to figure out how to write a function where it takes 2 lists of equal lengths and multiplies the same position of both lists through folding, and returns the result as a new List.
eg) let prodList [1; 2; 3] [4; 5; 6] ;;
==> (through folding) ==> [1*4; 2*5; 3*6]
==> result = [4; 10; 18]
I feel like I need to use List.combine, since it will put the values that need to be multiplied into tuples. After that, I can't figure out how to break apart the tuple in a way that allows me to multiply the values. Here is what I have so far:
let prodLists l1 l2 =
let f a x = (List.hd(x)) :: a in
let base = [] in
let args = List.rev (List.combine l1 l2) in
List.fold_left f base args
Am I on the right track?

Answer 1

You can use fold_left2 which folds two lists of the same length. The documentation can give you more details (https://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/libref/List.html):
val fold_left2 : ('a -> 'b -> 'c -> 'a) -> 'a -> 'b list -> 'c list -> 'a
List.fold_left2 f a [b1; ...; bn] [c1; ...; cn] is f (... (f (f a b1 c1) b2 c2) ...) bn cn. Raise Invalid_argument if the two lists are determined to have different lengths.
Another way is to fold the output of combine as you have suggested, I would recommend you to try it by yourself before looking at the solution bellow.
Solution:
let prod_lists l s =
List.rev (List.fold_left2 (fun acc a b -> (a * b) :: acc) [] l s);;
let prod_lists' l s =
List.fold_left (fun acc (a, b) -> (a * b) :: acc) [] (List.rev (List.combine l s));;

Answer 2

First let me note using fold to implement this operation seems a bit forced, since you have to traverse both lists at the same time. Fold however combines the elements of a single list. Nonetheless here is an implementation.
let e [] = []
let f x hxs (y::ys) = (x*y) :: hxs ys
let prodList xs ys = List.fold_right f xs e ys
Looks a bit complicated, so let me explain.
Universal Property of fold right
First you should be aware of the following property of fold_right.
h xs = fold_right f xs e
if and only if
h [] = e
h (x::xs) = f x (h xs)
This means that if we write the multiplication of lists in the recursive form below, then we can use the e and f to write it using fold as above. Note though we are operating two lists so h takes two arguments.
Base case - empty lists
Multiplying two empty lists returns an empty list.
h [] [] = []
How to write this in the form above? Just abstract over the second argument.
h [] = fun [] -> []
So,
e = fun [] -> []`
Or equivalently,
e [] = []
Recursive case - non-empty lists
h (x::xs) (y::ys) = x*y :: h xs ys
Or, using just one argument,
h (x::xs) = fun -> (y::ys) -> x*y :: h xs ys
Now we need to rewrite this expression in the form h (x::xs) = f x (h xs). It may seem complicated but we just need to abstract over x and h xs.
h (x::xs) = (fun x hxs -> fun (y::ys) -> x*y :: hxs ys) x (h xs)
so we have that f is defined by,
f = fun x hxs -> fun (y::ys) -> x*y :: hxs ys
or equivalently,
f x hxs (y::ys) = x*y :: hxs ys
Solution as a fold right
Having determined both e and f we just plug then into fold according to the first equation of the property above. And we get,
h xs = List.fold_right f xs e
or equivalently,
h xs ys = List.fold_right f xs e ys
Understanding the implementation
Note that the type of List.fold_right f xs e is int list -> int list, so the fold is building a function on lists, that given some ys will multiply it with the given parameter xs.
For an empty xs you will expect an empty ys and return an empty result so,
e [] = fun [] -> []
As for the recursive case, the function f in a fold_right must implement a solution for x::xs from a solution for xs. So f takes an x of type int and a function hxs of type int list -> int list which implements the multiplication for the tail, and it must implement multiplication for x::xs.
f x hxs = fun (y::ys) -> x*y :: hxs ys
So f constructs a function that multiplies x with y, and then applies to ys the already constructed hxs which multiplies xs to a list.

Answer 3

You mostly have the right idea; you'll want to combine (zip in other languages) the two lists and then map over each tuple:
let prod_lists l1 l2 =
List.combine l1 l2
|> List.map (fun (a, b) -> a * b)
The key is that you can pattern match on that tuple using (a, b).
You can also fold over the combined list, then rev the result, if you don't want to use map.