Trouble in Making an isPrime Function - ocaml

This is a homework. OCaml seems to be made by a psychopath.
let prime : int -> bool
= fun n ->
if n > 2 then
let a = n - 1 in
let rec divisor n a =
if a > 1 && n mod a = 0 then false
else if a = 2 && n mod a <> 0 then true
else divisor n a-1 ;;
else if n = 2 then true
else if n = 1 then false
I am not good at coding and I know that my isPrime algorithm is wrong.
But I wonder where in my code is the mistake that produces the syntax error.
Also is there any way to define the isPrime function in a recursive form?
Example:
let rec prime n = ~

You'll get better responses from experts if you don't gratuitously insult their language :-) But I'm an easygoing guy, so I'll take a stab at your syntax error.
There are quite a few problems in this code. Here are 3 that I see right off:
The symbol ;; is used to tell the interpreter that you've entered a full expression that you want it to evaluate. It's definitely out of place in the middle of a function declaration.
Your second let doesn't have an associated in. Every let must have an in after it. The only exception is for defining values at the top level of a module (like your prime function).
The expression divisor n a-1 is parsed as (divisor n a) - 1. You want parentheses like this: divisor a (n - 1).

Related

OCaml: simple assignment to represent a list of ints

Hello I am learning the OCaml language and working on an assignment.
infinite precision natural numbers can be represented as lists of ints between 0 and 9
Write a function that takes an integer and represents it with a list of integers between 0 and 9 where the head
of the list holds the least significant digit and the very last element of the list represents the most significant digit.
If the input is negative return None. We provide you with some use cases:
For example:
toDec 1234 = Some [4; 3; 2; 1]
toDec 0 = Some []
toDec -1234 = None
I have written below code for it.
let rec toDec i =
(
if i < 10 then i::[]
else toDec ((i mod 10)::acc) (i/10) in toDec [] i;
);;
I am getting syntax error on line 4. Since I am new to this language, not able to get what's wrong. Can somebody please help on this.
The in keyword must go with a let. You could use a local function aux, as follows:
let toDec i =
let rec aux acc i =
if i < 10 then i::[]
else aux ((i mod 10)::acc) (i/10)
in
aux [] i
This doesn't do what you want but syntax and types are valid and I'm sure you can fix the rest.
Vicky, you forgot to define acc and also forgot to put else if statement.
Update your code as below,
let rec toDec ?acc:(acc=[]) i =
if i < 0 then None
else if i = 0 then Some acc
else toDec ~acc:((i mod 10)::acc) (i / 10)

Psum not accumulating (Polymorphic Higher order function) without forcing a type

New to OCaml and Functional Programming as a whole so I was having some problems with keeping the type ambiguous. I'm trying to make a function which takes in a symbol accum(which looks like (+) or (-.) or (*) etc.) and a function f. My current implementation is below and if let's say I passed in (** f (x) = 3x^2 + 5x + 6 **) but I always get '6' instead of '276' because in the else part I'm not summing adding the results of the previous rounds so I just get the final value of '6'.
I get type errors because of the + so when I throw floats in it breaks. How can I overcome this (let partial accept floats or ints but actually accumulate the answer)?
let rec powerSum(sign )(f):'a =
fun x ->
if x = 0 then
f (x)
else if x < 0 then
raise(Failure "Error arg isn't '+'")
else
powerSum sign f (x-1);
Hint: you should use accum at some point.

Tail Recursion Error: Expression has type int but an expression was expected of type unit

I just started programming with the OCaml functional programming language for one of my classes at school. One of our problems was to write whats known as a "Russian Peasant Algorithm" but using tail recursion instead of normal recursion. I think I've almost got it, but I keep running into a silly error that I can't seem to pinpoint stating; "This expression has type int but an expression was expected of type
unit" over the line "aux x (base*base) (power/2)". I'm really not sure how to go about fixing this as I'm new to the syntax of the language. Any ideas?
I believe this to be caused by a conditional with no branch; however I have this implemented so I'm quite confused as to why its not working.
let even n = (n mod 2) = 0 ;;
let odd n = (n mod 2) = 1;;
let exp_program (base, power) =
let rec func x base power =
if base = 0 then 0
else if power = 0 then x
else if power = 1 then x*base
else if (odd power) then
func (x*base) (base*base) ((power-1)/2)
else if (even power) then
func x (base*base) (power/2)
in
func 1 base power ;;
The goal of this function is to call exp_program (2, 3) for example and have it produce the base^power. In this case it would result in 8
You are missing the else clause.
Solution: Remove the last else if and replace with else.
let exp_program (base, power) =
let rec func x base power =
if base = 0 then 0
else if power = 0 then x
else if power = 1 then x*base
else if (odd power) then
func (x*base) (base*base) ((power-1)/2)
else
func x (base*base) (power/2)
in
func 1 base power ;;
The construct
if <boolean> then <expression>
comes with an implicit
else ()
The last if in your if ... else if ... else if ... else if ladder is such a construct and therefore has the implicit else (). The type inference kind of works backwards so the implicit return of () is seen first and unit is infered as return type of the if. The then branch though has type int so you get the error you described.
The simplest way to fix this is to replace the last else if with just else. This also saves time since you know the power to be even since it isn't odd.

One simple 'if' statement in Julia increases the run-time of my prime sieve by a factor of 15 – why?

I've been experimenting with various prime sieves in Julia with a view to finding the fastest. This is my simplest, if not my fastest, and it runs in around 5-6 ms on my 1.80 GHz processor for n = 1 million. However, when I add a simple 'if' statement to take care of the cases where n <= 1 or s (the start number) > n, the run-time increases by a factor of 15 to around 80-90 ms.
using BenchmarkTools
function get_primes_1(n::Int64, s::Int64=2)::Vector{Int64}
#=if n <= 1 || s > n
return []
end=#
sieve = fill(true, n)
for i = 3:2:isqrt(n) + 1
if sieve[i]
for j = i ^ 2:i:n
sieve[j]= false
end
end
end
pl = [i for i in s - s % 2 + 1:2:n if sieve[i]]
return s == 2 ? unshift!(pl, 2) : pl
end
#btime get_primes_1(1_000_000)
Output with the 'if' statement commented out, as above, is:
5.752 ms (25 allocations: 2.95 MiB)
Output with the 'if' statement included is:
86.496 ms (2121646 allocations: 35.55 MiB)
I'm probably embarrassingly ignorant or being terminally stupid, but if someone could point out what I'm doing wrong it would be very much appreciated.
The problem of this function is with Julia compiler having problems with type inference when closures appear in your function. In this case the closure is a comprehension and the problem is that if statement makes sieve to be only conditionally defined.
You can see this by moving sieve up:
function get_primes_1(n::Int64, s::Int64=2)::Vector{Int64}
sieve = fill(true, n)
if n <= 1 || s > n
return Int[]
end
for i = 3:2:isqrt(n) + 1
if sieve[i]
for j = i ^ 2:i:n
sieve[j]= false
end
end
end
pl = [i for i in s - s % 2 + 1:2:n if sieve[i]]
return s == 2 ? unshift!(pl, 2) : pl
end
However, this makes sieve to be created also when n<1 which you want to avoid I guess :).
You can solve this problem by wrapping sieve in let block like this:
function get_primes_1(n::Int64, s::Int64=2)::Vector{Int64}
if n <= 1 || s > n
return Int[]
end
sieve = fill(true, n)
for i = 3:2:isqrt(n) + 1
if sieve[i]
for j = i ^ 2:i:n
sieve[j]= false
end
end
end
let sieve = sieve
pl = [i for i in s - s % 2 + 1:2:n if sieve[i]]
return s == 2 ? unshift!(pl, 2) : pl
end
end
or avoiding an inner closure for example like this:
function get_primes_1(n::Int64, s::Int64=2)::Vector{Int64}
if n <= 1 || s > n
return Int[]
end
sieve = fill(true, n)
for i = 3:2:isqrt(n) + 1
if sieve[i]
for j = i ^ 2:i:n
sieve[j]= false
end
end
end
pl = Int[]
for i in s - s %2 +1:2:n
sieve[i] && push!(pl, i)
end
s == 2 ? unshift!(pl, 2) : pl
end
Now you might ask how can you detect such problems and make sure that some solution solves them? The answer is to use #code_warntype on a function. In your original function you will notice that sieve is Core.Box which is an indication of the problem.
See https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/15276 for details. In general this is in my perception the most important issue with performance of Julia code which is easy to miss. Hopefully in the future the compiler will be smarter with this.
Edit: My suggestion actually doesn't seem to help. I missed your output annotation, so the return type appears to be correctly inferred after all. I am stumped, for the moment.
Original answer:
The problem isn't that there is an if statement, but that you introduce a type instability inside that if statement. You can read about type instabilities in the performance section of the Julia manual here.
An empty array defined like this: [], has a different type than a vector of integers:
> typeof([1,2,3])
Array{Int64,1}
> typeof([])
Array{Any,1}
The compiler cannot predict what the output type of the function will be, and therefore produces defensive, slow code.
Try to change
return []
to
return Int[]

OCaml: retain value of variable with control statements

I'm very new to OCaml / functional programming, and I'm confused about the implementation of some things that are relatively simple other languages I know. I could use any and all help.
Chiefly: in a program I'm working on, I either increment or decrement a variable based on a certain parameter. Here's something representative of what I have:
let tot = ref 0 in
for i = 0 to s do
if test_num > 0 then
tot := !tot + other_num
else
tot := !tot - other_num
done;;
This is obviously not the way to go about it, because even if the else statement is never taken, the code acts as if it is, each and every time, presumably because it's closer to the bottom of the program? I know OCaml has pretty sophisticated pattern matching, but within this level of coed I need access to a handful of lists I've already created, and, as far as I understand, I can't access those lists from a top-level function without passing them all as parameters.
I know I'm going about this the wrong way, but I have no idea how to do this idiomatically.
Suggestions? Thanks.
edit
Here's a more concise example:
let ex_list = [1; -2; 3; -4] in
let max_mem = ref 0 in
let mem = ref 0 in
let () =
for i = 0 to 3 do
let transition = List.nth ex_list i in
if transition > 0 then (
mem := (!mem + 10);
) else
mem := (!mem - 1);
if (!mem > !max_mem) then (max_mem := !mem);
done;
print_int !max_mem; print_string "\n";
in !mem;
At the end, when I print max_mem, I get 19, though this value should be (0 + 10 - 1 + 10 - 1 = 18). Am I doing the math wrong, or does the problem come from somewhere else?
Your code looks fine to me. It doesn't make a lot of sense as actual code, but I think you're just trying to show a general layout. It's also written in imperative style, which I usually try to avoid if possible.
The if in OCaml acts just like it does in other languages, there's no special thing about being near the bottom of the program. (More precisely, it acts like the ? : ternary operator from C and related languages; i.e., it's an expression.)
Your code doesn't return a useful value; it always returns () (the quintessentially uninteresting value known as "unit").
If we replace your free variables (ones not defined in this bit of code) by constants, and change the code to return a value, we can run it:
# let s = 8 in
let other_num = 7 in
let test_num = 3 in
let tot = ref 0 in
let () =
for i = 0 to s do
if test_num > 0 then
tot := !tot + other_num
else
tot := !tot - other_num
done
in
!tot;;
- : int = 63
#
If you're trying to learn to write in a functional style (i.e., without mutable variables), you would write this loop as a recursive function and make tot a parameter:
# let s = 8 in
let other_num = 7 in
let test_num = 3 in
let rec loop n tot =
if n > s then
tot
else
let tot' =
if test_num > 0 then tot + other_num else tot - other_num
in
loop (n + 1) tot'
in
loop 0 0;;
- : int = 63
It would probably be easier to help if you gave a (edited to add: small :-) self-contained problem that you're trying to solve.
The other parts of your question aren't clear enough to give any advice on. One thing that I might point out is that it's completely idiomatic to use pattern matching when processing lists.
Also, there's nothing wrong with passing things as parameters. That's why the language is called "functional" -- your code consists of functions, which have parameters.
Update
I like to write let () = expr1 in expr2 instead of expr1; expr2. It's just a habit I got into, sorry if it's confusing. The essence is that you're evaluating the first expression just for its side effects (it has type unit), and then returning the value of the second expression.
If you don't have something after the for, the code will evaluate to (), as I said. Since the purpose of the code seems to be to compute the value of !tot, this is what I returned. At the very least, this lets you see the calculated value in the OCaml top level.
tot' is just another variable. If you calculate a new value straightforwardly from a variable named var, it's conventional to name the new value var'. It reads as "var prime".
Update 2
Your example code works OK, but it has the problem that it uses List.nth to traverse a list, which is a slow (quadratic) operation. In fact your code is naturally considered a fold. Here's how you might write it in a functional style:
# let ex_list = [1; -2; 3; -4] in
let process (tot, maxtot) transition =
let tot' = if transition > 0 then tot + 10 else tot - 1 in
(tot', max maxtot tot')
in
List.fold_left process (0, 0) ex_list;;
- : int * int = (18, 19)
#
In addition to Jeffrey's answer, let me second that this is not how you would usually write such code in Ocaml, since it is a very low-level imperative approach. A more functional version would look like this:
let high ex_list =
let deltas = List.map (fun x -> if x > 0 then 10 else -1) ex_list in
snd (List.fold_left (fun (n, hi) d -> (n+d, max (n+d) hi)) (0, 0) deltas)
let test = high [1; -2; 3; -4]