Imposing restrictions on function args in clojure - clojure

I often find myself doing things like this:
(defn f1 [coll]
(if (not= (count coll) 2)
(throw (IllegalArgumentException. "coll must have length 2.")))
(if (odd? (first coll))
(throw (IllegalArgumentException. "first elem must be even.")))
(if (even? (second coll))
(throw (IllegalArgumentException. "second elem must be odd.")))
(apply * coll))
(defn f2 [coll]
(if (not= (count coll) 2)
(throw (IllegalArgumentException. "coll must have length 2.")))
(if (odd? (first coll))
(throw (IllegalArgumentException. "first elem must be even.")))
(if (even? (second coll))
(throw (IllegalArgumentException. "second elem must be odd.")))
(apply + coll))
(defn f3 [coll]
(if (not= (count coll) 2)
(throw (IllegalArgumentException. "coll must have length 2.")))
(if (odd? (first coll))
(throw (IllegalArgumentException. "first elem must be even.")))
(if (even? (second coll))
(throw (IllegalArgumentException. "second elem must be odd.")))
(apply / coll))
In this trivial example I can factor the common part out:
(defn qc [coll]
(if (not= (count coll) 2)
(throw (IllegalArgumentException. "coll must have length 2.")))
(if (odd? (first coll))
(throw (IllegalArgumentException. "first elem must be even.")))
(if (even? (second coll))
(throw (IllegalArgumentException. "second elem must be odd."))))
(defn f1 [coll]
(qc coll)
(apply + coll))
(defn f2 [coll]
(qc coll)
(apply - coll))
(defn f3 [coll]
(qc coll)
(apply / coll))
But in real world applications this can quickly get tedious. What if the qc step of these function are all slightly different? What if I want to impose certain type restrictions?
I suppose this is one of the drawbacks of dynamic typing, but perhaps there is a way to make things easier in clojure?

the Function form has built in pre and post conditions:
user> (defn f1 [coll]
{:pre [(= (count coll) 2)
(odd? (first coll))
(even? (second coll))]}
(apply * coll))
#'user/f1
user> (f1 [1])
AssertionError Assert failed: (= (count coll) 2) user/f1 (form-init2783181480380820413.clj:1)
user> (f1 [2 2])
AssertionError Assert failed: (odd? (first coll)) user/f1 (form-init2783181480380820413.clj:1)
user> (f1 [1 2])
2
These don't print the nice messages, though it prints the expression that failed, so you can write that clearly enough to get the message across.

Related

How to fix recursive search through list

I'm currently trying to learn Clojure. But I am having trouble creating a function that recursively searches through each element of the list and returns the number of "a"'s present in the list.
I have already figured out how to do it iteratively, but I am having trouble doing it recursively. I have tried changing "seq" with "empty?" but that hasn't worked either.
(defn recursive-a [& lst]
(if (seq lst)
(if (= (first lst) "a")
(+ 1 (recursive-a (pop (lst))))
(+ 0 (recursive-a (pop (lst)))))
0))
Welcome to stack overflow community.
You code is fine, except that you made a few minor mistakes.
Firstly, there is one extra pair of braces around your lst parameter that you forward to recursive function. In LISP languages, braces mean evaluation of function. So, first you should remove those.
Second thing is the & parameter syntactic sugar. You do not want to use that until you are certain how it affects your code.
With these changes, the code is as follows:
(defn recursive-a [lst]
(if (seq lst)
(if (= (first lst) "a")
(+ 1 (recursive-a (pop lst)))
(+ 0 (recursive-a (pop lst))))
0))
(recursive-a (list "a" "b" "c"))
You can run it in a web environment: https://repl.it/languages/clojure
Welcome to Stack Overflow.
By invoking recursive-a explicitly the original implementation consumes stack with each recursion. If a sufficiently large list is provided as input this function will eventually exhaust the stack and crash. There are a several ways to work around this.
One of the classic Lisp-y methods for handling situations such as this is to provide a second implementation of the function which passes the running count as an input argument to the "inner" function:
(defn recursive-a-inner [cnt lst]
(cond
(seq lst) (cond
(= (first lst) "a") (recur (inc cnt) (rest lst))
:else (recur cnt (rest lst)))
:else cnt))
(defn recursive-a [& lst]
(recursive-a-inner 0 lst))
By doing this the "inner" version allows the recursion to be pushed into tail position so that Clojure's recur keyword can be used. It's not quite as clean an implementation as the original but it has the advantage that it won't blow up the stack.
Another method for handling this is to use Clojure's loop-ing, which allows recursion within the body of a function. The result is much the same as the "inner" function above:
(defn recursive-a [& lp]
(loop [cnt 0
lst lp]
(cond
(seq lst) (cond
(= (first lst) "a") (recur (inc cnt) (rest lst))
:else (recur cnt (rest lst)))
:else cnt)))
And if we drop the requirement for explicit recursion we can make this a bit simpler:
(defn not-recursive-a [& lst]
(apply + (map #(if (= % "a") 1 0) lst)))
Best of luck.
In the spirit of learning:
You can use & or not. Both are fine. The difference is how you would then call your function, and you would have to remember to use apply when recurring.
Also, simply use first and rest. They are both safe and will work on both nil and empty lists, returning nil and empty list respectively:
(first []) ;; -> nil
(first nil) ;; -> nil
(rest []) ;; -> ()
(rest nil) ;; -> ()
So here is how I would re-work your idea:
;; With '&'
(defn count-a [& lst]
(if-let [a (first lst)]
(+ (if (= a "a") 1 0)
(apply count-a (rest lst))) ;; use 'apply' here
0))
;; call with variable args, *not* a list
(count-a "a" "b" "a" "c")
;; Without '&'
(defn count-a [lst]
(if-let [a (first lst)]
(+ (if (= a "a") 1 0)
(count-a (rest lst)))
0))
;; call with a single arg: a vector (could be a list or other )
(count-a ["a" "b" "a" "c"])
However, these are not safe, because they don't use tail-recursion, and so if your list is large, you will blow your stack!
So, we use recur. But if you don't want to define an additional "helper" function, you can instead use loop as the "recur" target:
;; With '&'
(defn count-a [& lst]
(loop [c 0 lst lst] ;; 'recur' will loop back to this point
(if-let [a (first lst)]
(recur (if (= a "a") (inc c) c) (rest lst))
c)))
(count-a "a" "b" "a" "c")
;; Without '&'
(defn count-a [lst]
(loop [c 0 lst lst]
(if-let [a (first lst)]
(recur (if (= a "a") (inc c) c) (rest lst))
c)))
(count-a ["a" "b" "a" "c"])
All that being said, this is the one I also would use:
;; With '&'
(defn count-a [& lst]
(count (filter #(= % "a") lst)))
(count-a "a" "b" "a" "c")
;; Without '&'
(defn count-a [lst]
(count (filter #(= % "a") lst)))
(count-a ["a" "b" "a" "c"])

How can I improve my solution to the Hackerrank Maximum Element challenge to avoid timeouts?

I am trying to complete the Hackerrank Maximum Element challenge found here: https://www.hackerrank.com/challenges/maximum-element/problem
My solution produces the correct output, but times out on the final test cases beginning with #17.
Initially, I used a list and loop/recur to get my answer:
(defn get-query []
(map #(Integer/parseInt %) (clojure.string/split (read-line) #" ")))
(defn stack-stepper [query stack]
(condp = (first query)
1 (conj stack (second query))
2 (rest stack)
3 (do (println (apply max stack)) stack)))
(loop [stack '()
queries-left (Integer/parseInt (read-line))]
(if (> queries-left 0)
(recur (stack-stepper (get-query) stack) (dec queries-left))))
After some research and feedback from other channels, I tried a vector instead of a list, and reduce instead of loop/recur, but the results were the same.
(defn get-query []
(map #(Integer/parseInt %) (clojure.string/split (read-line) #" ")))
(defn get-queries []
(loop [queries []
queries-left (Integer/parseInt (read-line))]
(if (= queries-left 0)
queries
(recur (conj queries (get-query)) (dec queries-left)))))
(defn stack-stepper [stack query]
(condp = (first query)
1 (conj stack (second query))
2 (pop stack)
3 (do (println (apply max stack)) stack)))
(reduce stack-stepper [] (get-queries))
I am still new to FP and Clojure and I would really like to understand what I am missing. I greatly appreciate your time and help!
HackerRank problems are often very demanding from a performance point of view.
The obvious thing to try first is using a transient vector so see if that helps. I tried this:
(let [in (clojure.string/split (slurp *in*) #"\s")
tests (first in)
input-data (map #(Integer/parseInt %) (rest in))]
(loop [v (transient [])
d input-data]
(when (seq d)
(condp = (first d)
1 (recur (conj! v (second d)) (drop 2 d))
2 (recur (pop! v) (rest d))
3 (let [pv (persistent! v)] (println (apply max pv)) (recur (transient pv) (rest d)))))))
If failed at the same point as your solution. Clearly they're looking for something cleverer than that.
The obvious bottleneck is the calculation of the max value on the current stack, which gets re-calculated each time. We can instead save the previous max value on the stack, and recover it as the current max value when we pop the stack:
(defn peek! [tvec] (get tvec (dec (count tvec))))
(let [in (clojure.string/split (slurp *in*) #"\s")
tests (first in)
input-data (map #(Integer/parseInt %) (rest in))]
(loop [v (transient [])
m 0
d input-data]
(when (seq d)
(condp = (first d)
1 (let [snd (second d)
max-now (max m snd)]
(recur (conj! v {:val snd :max-prev m}) max-now (drop 2 d)))
2 (let [popped (peek! v)
max (if popped (:max-prev popped) 0)]
(recur (pop! v) max (rest d)))
3 (do
(println m)
(recur v m (rest d)))))))
Which puts me at rank 1 on the leaderboard :)

Clojure - Using recursion to find the number of elements in a list

I have written a function that uses recursion to find the number of elements in a list and it works successfully however, I don't particularly like the way I've written it. Now I've written it one way I can't seem to think of a different way of doing it.
My code is below:
(def length
(fn [n]
(loop [i n total 0]
(cond (= 0 i) total
:t (recur (rest i)(inc total))))))
To me it seems like it is over complicated, can anyone think of another way this can be written for comparison?
Any help greatly appreciated.
Here is a naive recursive version:
(defn my-count [coll]
(if (empty? coll)
0
(inc (my-count (rest coll)))))
Bear in mind there's not going to be any tail call optimization going on here so for long lists the stack will overflow.
Here is a version using reduce:
(defn my-count [coll]
(reduce (fn [acc x] (inc acc)) 0 coll))
Here is code showing some different solutions. Normally, you should use the built-in function count.
(def data [:one :two :three])
(defn count-loop [data]
(loop [cnt 0
remaining data]
(if (empty? remaining)
cnt
(recur (inc cnt) (rest remaining)))))
(defn count-recursive [remaining]
(if (empty? remaining)
0
(inc (count-recursive (rest remaining)))))
(defn count-imperative [data]
(let [cnt (atom 0)]
(doseq [elem data]
(swap! cnt inc))
#cnt))
(deftest t-count
(is (= 3 (count data)))
(is (= 3 (count-loop data)))
(is (= 3 (count-recursive data)))
(is (= 3 (count-imperative data))))
Here's one that is tail-call optimized, and doesn't rely on loop. Basically the same as Alan Thompson's first one, but inner functions are the best things. (And feel more idiomatic to me.) :-)
(defn my-count [sq]
(letfn [(inner-count [c s]
(if (empty? s)
c
(recur (inc c) (rest s))))]
(inner-count 0 sq)))
Just for completeness, here is another twist
(defn my-count
([data]
(my-count data 0))
([data counter]
(if (empty? data)
counter
(recur (rest data) (inc counter)))))

Checking odd parity in clojure

I have the following functions that check for odd parity in sequence
(defn countOf[a-seq elem]
(loop [number 0 currentSeq a-seq]
(cond (empty? currentSeq) number
(= (first currentSeq) elem) (recur (inc number) (rest currentSeq))
:else (recur number (rest currentSeq))
)
)
)
(defn filteredSeq[a-seq elemToRemove]
(remove (set (vector (first a-seq))) a-seq)
)
(defn parity [a-seq]
(loop [resultset [] currentSeq a-seq]
(cond (empty? currentSeq) (set resultset)
(odd? (countOf currentSeq (first currentSeq))) (recur (concat resultset (vector(first currentSeq))) (filteredSeq currentSeq (first currentSeq)))
:else (recur resultset (filteredSeq currentSeq (first currentSeq)))
)
)
)
for example (parity [1 1 1 2 2 3]) -> (1 3) that is it picks odd number of elements from a sequence.
Is there a better way to achieve this?
How can this be done with reduce function of clojure
First, I decided to make more idiomatic versions of your code, so I could really see what it was doing:
;; idiomatic naming
;; no need to rewrite count and filter for this code
;; putting item and collection in idiomatic argument order
(defn count-of [elem a-seq]
(count (filter #(= elem %) a-seq)))
;; idiomatic naming
;; putting item and collection in idiomatic argument order
;; actually used the elem-to-remove argument
(defn filtered-seq [elem-to-remove a-seq]
(remove #(= elem-to-remove %) a-seq))
;; idiomatic naming
;; if you want a set, use a set from the beginning
;; destructuring rather than repeated usage of first
;; use rest to recur when the first item is guaranteed to be dropped
(defn idiomatic-parity [a-seq]
(loop [result-set #{}
[elem & others :as current-seq] a-seq]
(cond (empty? current-seq)
result-set
(odd? (count-of elem current-seq))
(recur (conj result-set elem) (filtered-seq elem others))
:else
(recur result-set (filtered-seq elem others)))))
Next, as requested, a version that uses reduce to accumulate the result:
;; mapcat allows us to return 0 or more results for each input
(defn reducing-parity [a-seq]
(set
(mapcat
(fn [[k v]]
(when (odd? v) [k]))
(reduce (fn [result item]
(update-in result [item] (fnil inc 0)))
{}
a-seq))))
But, reading over this, I notice that the reduce is just frequencies, a built in clojure function. And my mapcat was really just a hand-rolled keep, another built in.
(defn most-idiomatic-parity [a-seq]
(set
(keep
(fn [[k v]]
(when (odd? v) k))
(frequencies a-seq))))
In Clojure we can refine our code, and as we recognize places where our logic replicates the built in functionality, we can simplify the code and make it more clear. Also, there is a good chance the built in is better optimized than our own work-alikes.
Is there a better way to achieve this?
(defn parity [coll]
(->> coll
frequencies
(filter (fn [[_ v]] (odd? v)))
(map first)
set))
For example,
(parity [1 1 1 2 1 2 1 3])
;#{1 3}
How can this be done with reduce function of clojure.
We can use reduce to rewrite frequencies:
(defn frequencies [coll]
(reduce
(fn [acc x] (assoc acc x (inc (get acc x 0))))
{}
coll))
... and again to implement parity in terms of it:
(defn parity [coll]
(let [freqs (frequencies coll)]
(reduce (fn [s [k v]] (if (odd? v) (conj s k) s)) #{} freqs)))

Clojure IndexOutOfBoundsException

((fn [coll] (letfn [(add-item [acc coll idx]
(conj acc (nth coll idx)))
(add-group [acc coll]
(conj acc (create-group coll)))
(decrease-coll [coll acc]
(drop (count (last acc)) coll))
(not-group-member? [idx coll]
(not= (first coll) (nth coll idx)))
(out-of-bounds? [idx coll]
(or (empty? coll) (> idx (count coll))))
(create-group [coll] (loop [idx 0
coll coll
acc []]
(if (or (out-of-bounds? idx coll)
(not-group-member? idx coll))
acc
(recur (inc idx) coll (add-item acc coll idx)))))
(process-coll [coll] (loop [coll coll
acc []]
(if (empty? coll)
acc
(recur (decrease-coll coll acc)
(add-group acc coll)))))]
(process-coll coll))) [1 1 2 1 1 1])
When I try to run this I receive
java.lang.IndexOutOfBoundsException: null
RT.java:795 clojure.lang.RT.nthFrom
RT.java:764 clojure.lang.RT.nth
/clojure/scratch-work-4clojure.clj:13 user/eval10378[fn]
/clojure/scratch-work-4clojure.clj:22 user/eval10378[fn]
/clojure/scratch-work-4clojure.clj:7 user/eval10378[fn]
/clojure/scratch-work-4clojure.clj:30 user/eval10378[fn]
/clojure/scratch-work-4clojure.clj:31 user/eval10378[fn]
/clojure/scratch-work-4clojure.clj:3 user/eval10378
I've been trying to debug this for some time now. I broke it into several functions to try to track down what's causing the error but haven't been able to determine it yet. Any help on what's causing this and how to debug such errors in Clojure in the future would be appreciated.
Your out-of-bounds? check is wrong. You want >= instead of >. Indexes go from 0 to n-1.