Applying Fold function in F# - list

let list_min_fold = List.fold (fun acc -> List.min acc ) 0 lst
printfn"Using regular List.fold function:\n The minimum is: %A\n"
(list_min_fold)
When I execute my code this error displays:
error FS0001: The type '('a -> 'b)' does not support the 'comparison' constraint. For example, it does not support the 'System.IComparable' interface
Why? Please help :(

Are you trying to find the smallest number in a list? If so, you need to use the min function (which takes just two arguments) rather than List.min (which takes a list of arguments):
To keep the code the most similar to your example, you can write (note also that starting with 0 is not going to work, so I used System.Int32.MaxValue instead):
let lst = [4;3;1;2;5;]
let list_min_fold = List.fold (fun acc -> min acc) System.Int32.MaxValue lst
It is also worth noting that the function you pass to fold takes two arguments - the state acc and the current value:
let list_min_fold = List.fold (fun acc v -> min acc v) System.Int32.MaxValue lst
But thanks to partial function application you can omit one of them (as you did), or both of them:
let list_min_fold = List.fold min System.Int32.MaxValue lst

as always Tomas answer is spot on so I have but a small remark:
as you probably saw it makes no sense to try to find the minimum of an empty list (so the function probably should be of type 'a option and when you have an non-empty list it's very easy to use List.reduce (which is basically just a fold for binary operations and min is a great candidate for such an operation):
let list_min xs =
match xs with
| [] -> None
| _ -> List.reduce min xs
|> Some
this way you get:
> list_min [2;1;5;3];;
val it : int option = Some 1
> list_min [2;1;5;3;0];;
val it : int option = Some 0
> list_min ([] : int list);;
val it : int option = None
ok it's a fair point that the question was about fold - so if it has to be exactly List.fold you can of course do (as TheInnerLight remarked):
let list_min xs =
match xs with
| [] -> None
| (x::xs) -> List.fold min x xs
|> Some

Related

Ocaml Type error: This expression has type 'a * 'b but an expression was expected of type 'c list

I'm required to output a pair of lists and I'm not understanding why the pair I'm returning is not of the correct type.
let rec split l = match l with
| [] -> []
| [y] -> [y]
| x :: xs ->
let rec helper l1 acc = match l1 with
| [] -> []
| x :: xs ->
if ((List.length xs) = ((List.length l) / 2)) then
(xs, (x :: acc))
else helper xs (x :: acc)
in helper l []
(Please take the time to copy/paste and format your code on SO rather than providing a link to an image. It makes it much easier to help, and more useful in the future.)
The first case of the match in your helper function doesn't return a pair. All the cases of a match need to return the same type (of course).
Note that the cases of your outermost match are also of different types (if you assume that helper returns a pair).

Implementing Haskell's `take` function using `foldl`

Implementing Haskell's take and drop functions using foldl.
Any suggestions on how to implement take and drop functions using foldl ??
take x ls = foldl ???
drop x ls = foldl ???
i've tried these but it's showing errors:
myFunc :: Int -> [a] -> [a]
myFunc n list = foldl func [] list
where
func x y | (length y) > n = x : y
| otherwise = y
ERROR PRODUCED :
*** Expression : foldl func [] list
*** Term : func
*** Type : a -> [a] -> [a]
*** Does not match : [a] -> [a] -> [a]
*** Because : unification would give infinite type
Can't be done.
Left fold necessarily diverges on infinite lists, but take n does not. This is so because left fold is tail recursive, so it must scan through the whole input list before it can start the processing.
With the right fold, it's
ntake :: Int -> [a] -> [a]
ntake 0 _ = []
ntake n xs = foldr g z xs 0
where
g x r i | i>=n = []
| otherwise = x : r (i+1)
z _ = []
ndrop :: Int -> [a] -> [a]
ndrop 0 xs = xs
ndrop n xs = foldr g z xs 0 xs
where
g x r i xs#(_:t) | i>=n = xs
| otherwise = r (i+1) t
z _ _ = []
ndrop implements a paramorphism nicely and faithfully, up to the order of arguments to the reducer function g, giving it access to both the current element x and the current list node xs (such that xs == (x:t)) as well as the recursive result r. A catamorphism's reducer has access only to x and r.
Folds usually encode catamorphisms, but this shows that right fold can be used to code up a paramorphism just as well. It's universal that way. I think it is beautiful.
As for the type error, to fix it just switch the arguments to your func:
func y x | ..... = .......
The accumulator in the left fold comes as the first argument to the reducer function.
If you really want it done with the left fold, and if you're really sure the lists are finite, two options:
ltake n xs = post $ foldl' g (0,id) xs
where
g (i,f) x | i < n = (i+1, f . (x:))
| otherwise = (i,f)
post (_,f) = f []
rltake n xs = foldl' g id xs r n
where
g acc x = acc . f x
f x r i | i > 0 = x : r (i-1)
| otherwise = []
r _ = []
The first counts from the left straight up, potentially stopping assembling the prefix in the middle of the full list traversal that it does carry to the end nevertheless, being a left fold.
The second also traverses the list in full turning it into a right fold which then gets to work counting down from the left again, being able to actually stop working as soon as the prefix is assembled.
Implementing drop this way is bound to be (?) even clunkier. Could be a nice exercise.
I note that you never specified the fold had to be over the supplied list. So, one approach that meets the letter of your question, though probably not the spirit, is:
sillytake :: Int -> [a] -> [a]
sillytake n xs = foldl go (const []) [1..n] xs
where go f _ (x:xs) = x : f xs
go _ _ [] = []
sillydrop :: Int -> [a] -> [a]
sillydrop n xs = foldl go id [1..n] xs
where go f _ (_:xs) = f xs
go _ _ [] = []
These each use left folds, but over the list of numbers [1..n] -- the numbers themselves are ignored, and the list is just used for its length to build a custom take n or drop n function for the given n. This function is then applied to the original supplied list xs.
These versions work fine on infinite lists:
> sillytake 5 $ sillydrop 5 $ [1..]
[6,7,8,9,10]
Will Ness showed a nice way to implement take with foldr. The least repulsive way to implement drop with foldr is this:
drop n0 xs0 = foldr go stop xs0 n0
where
stop _ = []
go x r n
| n <= 0 = x : r 0
| otherwise = r (n - 1)
Take the efficiency loss and rebuild the whole list if you have no choice! Better to drive a nail in with a screwdriver than drive a screw in with a hammer.
Both ways are horrible. But this one helps you understand how folds can be used to structure functions and what their limits are.
Folds just aren't the right tools for implementing drop; a paramorphism is the right tool.
You are not too far. Here are a pair of fixes.
First, note that func is passed the accumulator first (i.e. a list of a, in your case) and then the list element (an a). So, you need to swap the order of the arguments of func.
Then, if we want to mimic take, we need to add x when the length y is less than n, not greater!
So we get
myFunc :: Int -> [a] -> [a]
myFunc n list = foldl func [] list
where
func y x | (length y) < n = x : y
| otherwise = y
Test:
> myFunc 5 [1..10]
[5,4,3,2,1]
As you can see, this is reversing the string. This is because we add x at the front (x:y) instead of at the back (y++[x]). Or, alternatively, one could use reverse (foldl ....) to fix the order at the end.
Also, since foldl always scans the whole input list, myFunc 3 [1..1000000000] will take a lot of time, and myFunc 3 [1..] will fail to terminate. Using foldr would be much better.
drop is more tricky to do. I don't think you can easily do that without some post-processing like myFunc n xs = fst (foldl ...) or making foldl return a function which you immediately call (which is also a kind of post-processing).

Operations on sublists

I am currently wondering on an approach to split a list in sub-lists according to a given criteria. Because of the didactic purpose of this work, I do not use built-in functions.
IE, the following program should, given a list, return a list of lists, where each sub-list does not have duplicates and is in ascending order:
increment [4;4;10;20;5;30;6;10] = [[4;10;20];[5;30];[6;10]]
increment [5;6;4;3;2;1] = [[5;6];[4];[3];[2];[1]]
My best attempt so far is based on this chunk of code I produced:
let rec increment li [lo] =
match li with
|[] -> [lo]
|[x] -> [x]::[lo]
|x::y::xs -> if x = y then
increment (y::xs) [lo]
elif x < y then
x::(increment (y::xs) [lo])
else
(x::(increment xs [lo]))::[lo]
Unfortunately, I fail in creating the list of lists. The principle is correct. It is based on the function I built, that correctly isolates an ascending list if present:
let rec incrementAux li =
match li with
|[] -> []
|[x] -> [x]
|x::y::xs -> if x = y then
incrementAux (y::xs)
elif x < y then
x::(incrementAux (y::xs))
else
x::(incrementAux [])
Any suggestion would be highly appreciated!
If you want to do this without using the built-in functions on the List module (purely as a learning exercise), then you just need to understand map and fold so you can implement them yourself. I would start with this wikipedia article. Conveniently, you can easily implement rev in terms of fold, so that shouldn't be a problem. Once you understand what each function does, you can implement them yourself like so:
let rec fold f state = function
| [] -> state
| head::tail -> fold f (f state head) tail
let map f list =
[for item in list -> f item]
let rev list =
fold (fun acc cur -> cur::acc) [] list
Then, you can just substitute your own functions for the built-in functions in Szer's solution:
let input = [4;4;10;20;5;30;6;10]
let output = [[4;10;20];[5;30];[6;10]]
let increment =
fold (fun (last::rest as total) x ->
match last with
| [] -> [x] :: rest
| h::_ as last ->
if x > h then (x::last)::rest
else if x = h then total
else [x]::total) [[]]
>> map rev
>> rev
let testOutput = increment input
testOutput = output
Note, this implementation of fold is different from how F# List does it. This is based on the simple Haskell example in the wikipedia article. The functionality is the same, but the implementation is quite different, as F# actually uses a mutable accumulator and a for-loop.
You could do it without recursion. List.fold with a little bit of memory could help:
let input = [4;4;10;20;5;30;6;10]
let output = [[4;10;20];[5;30];[6;10]]
let increment =
List.fold (fun (last::rest as total) x ->
match last with
| [] -> [x] :: rest
| h::_ as last ->
if x > h then (x::last)::rest
else if x = h then total
else [x]::total) [[]]
>> List.map List.rev
>> List.rev
let testOutput = increment input
testOutput = output // true

Removing consecutive duplicates from a list without recursion

I'm supposed to remove consecutive duplicates from an int list without using recursion and using only List.fold, map, filter, fold_left, fold_right.
I almost got it, but the problem with my code is that it checks if each element equals the 2nd element, and not the next element.
For example if let z = int list [3;1;4;5;5;1;1] my code will return [3;4;5] and not [3;1;4;5;1]. I'm not sure how to change it so filter uses a dynamically changing list parameter and not simply the original one (so it doesn't compare each element to the second element (1 in this case) each time):
let dupe (ls: int list) : int list =
List.filter (fun x -> if List.length ls = 0 then true else if x = List.hd (List.tl xs) then false else true) ls
The type of List.filter is this:
# List.filter;;
- : ('a -> bool) -> 'a list -> 'a list = <fun>
Notably, the filter function can see only one element of the list at a time. You need to see two consecutive elements to decide what to do, so I'd say List.filter won't do the job.
You're going to have to use map or one of the folds, I'd say. You can figure out which one(s) will work, with similar reasoning.
(I assume this is the sort of reasoning the assignment is supposed to illustrate. So I'm going to leave it there.)
Without rec
let remove = function
[] -> []
| x::tl ->
let (_,lxRes)=
List.fold_left (
fun (xPrec,lxRes) xCour ->
if xPrec=xCour then
(xCour,lxRes)
else
(xCour,lxRes#[xCour])
) (x+1,[]) (x::tl)
in
lxRes
Test:
# remove [3;1;4;5;5;1;1];;
- : int list = [3; 1; 4; 5; 1]
# remove [1;1];;
- : int list = [1]
# remove [1;1;1;1;2;2;3;4;5;5];;
- : int list = [1; 2; 3; 4; 5]
With rec (just for information)
let rec remove =
function
| [] -> []
| x::[] -> x::[]
| x::y::tl ->
if x=y then remove (y::tl)
else x::remove (y::tl)
Using just List.fold_left can be a little bit more concise than the previous answer. Of course, this will build up the list in reverse order, so we need to reverse the result.
let remove lst =
List.(
lst
|> fold_left
(fun acc x ->
match acc with
| [] -> [x]
| hd::_ when x = hd -> acc
| _ -> x::acc)
[]
|> rev
)
Of course, if you're not allowed to use List.rev we can reimplement it easily using List.fold_left, List.cons and Fun.flip.
let rev lst =
List.fold_left (Fun.flip List.cons) [] lst

Ocaml list of ints to list of int lists (Opposite of flattening)

With a list of integers such as:
[1;2;3;4;5;6;7;8;9]
How can I create a list of list of ints from the above, with all new lists the same specified length?
For example, I need to go from:
[1;2;3;4;5;6;7;8;9] to [[1;2;3];[4;5;6];[7;8;9]]
with the number to split being 3?
Thanks for your time.
So what you actually want is a function of type
val split : int list -> int -> int list list
that takes a list of integers and a sub-list-size. How about one that is even more general?
val split : 'a list -> int -> 'a list list
Here comes the implementation:
let split xs size =
let (_, r, rs) =
(* fold over the list, keeping track of how many elements are still
missing in the current list (csize), the current list (ys) and
the result list (zss) *)
List.fold_left (fun (csize, ys, zss) elt ->
(* if target size is 0, add the current list to the target list and
start a new empty current list of target-size size *)
if csize = 0 then (size - 1, [elt], zss # [ys])
(* otherwise decrement the target size and append the current element
elt to the current list ys *)
else (csize - 1, ys # [elt], zss))
(* start the accumulator with target-size=size, an empty current list and
an empty target-list *)
(size, [], []) xs
in
(* add the "left-overs" to the back of the target-list *)
rs # [r]
Please let me know if you get extra points for this! ;)
The code you give is a way to remove a given number of elements from the front of a list. One way to proceed might be to leave this function as it is (maybe clean it up a little) and use an outer function to process the whole list. For this to work easily, your function might also want to return the remainder of the list (so the outer function can easily tell what still needs to be segmented).
It seems, though, that you want to solve the problem with a single function. If so, the main thing I see that's missing is an accumulator for the pieces you've already snipped off. And you also can't quit when you reach your count, you have to remember the piece you just snipped off, and then process the rest of the list the same way.
If I were solving this myself, I'd try to generalize the problem so that the recursive call could help out in all cases. Something that might work is to allow the first piece to be shorter than the rest. That way you can write it as a single function, with no accumulators
(just recursive calls).
I would probably do it this way:
let split lst n =
let rec parti n acc xs =
match xs with
| [] -> (List.rev acc, [])
| _::_ when n = 0 -> (List.rev acc, xs)
| x::xs -> parti (pred n) (x::acc) xs
in let rec concat acc = function
| [] -> List.rev acc
| xs -> let (part, rest) = parti n [] xs in concat (part::acc) rest
in concat [] lst
Note that we are being lenient if n doesn't divide List.length lst evenly.
Example:
split [1;2;3;4;5] 2 gives [[1;2];[3;4];[5]]
Final note: the code is very verbose because the OCaml standard lib is very bare bones :/ With a different lib I'm sure this could be made much more concise.
let rec split n xs =
let rec take k xs ys = match k, xs with
| 0, _ -> List.rev ys :: split n xs
| _, [] -> if ys = [] then [] else [ys]
| _, x::xs' -> take (k - 1) xs' (x::ys)
in take n xs []