Pattern matching in utop is more strict? - ocaml

For example, there is a function that testing if a list is monotonically increasing, the source code and testing cases is:
open Printf
let rec mon_inc (numbers : int list) : bool =
match numbers with
| [] -> true
| _ :: [] -> true
| hdn :: tln -> (hdn <= (List.hd tln)) && mon_inc(tln)
let a = [1;2;5;5;8]
let b = [1;2;5;4;8]
let c = [8]
let d = []
let e = [7;8]
let () =
printf "The answer of [1;2;5;5;8]: %B\n" (mon_inc a)
let () =
printf "The answer of [1;2;5;4;8]: %B\n" (mon_inc b)
let () =
printf "The answer of [8]: %B\n" (mon_inc c)
let () =
printf "The answer of []: %B\n" (mon_inc d)
let () =
printf "The answer of [7;8]: %B\n" (mon_inc e)
Compile and run the code:
$ corebuild inc.native
$ ./inc.native
The answer of [1;2;5;5;8]: true
The answer of [1;2;5;4;8]: false
The answer of [8]: true
The answer of []: true
The answer of [7;8]: true
However, when I want to use this function in utop, it shows:
utop # #use "inc.ml";;
File "inc.ml", line 7, characters 29-40:
Error: This expression has type int option
but an expression was expected of type int

This is probably due to your toplevel opening Core, which provides a List.hd that returns an option. In this particular case you can resolve the issue by changing how you match to remove the List.hd entirely:
let rec mon_inc = function
| []
| _::[] -> true
| x::y::rest -> x <= y && mon_inc rest

This is because you have opened Core.Std module in a top-level.
Core.Std is an overlay over a OCaml's standard library with a different interface. For example, in a standard library function List.hd returns a value of type 'a and raises an exception if list is empty. In Janestreet's version function List.hd has a different type - it returns 'a option, it evaluates to None if the list is empty, and to Some value if it is not. Consider adding
open Core.Std
to the top of inc.ml.

Related

Ocaml : Function with 'a option error

I have this simple function which drives me crazy:
it should be a function of this type :
myfunction : (int * int list) list -> int -> int
For each tuples of the first argument :
When the second argument matches the first element of the tuple then the function return the last element of the list in the tuple.
If no matches it should return -1.
let rec myfunction alist anum =
let last_e l =
let len = List.length l in
List.nth l (len - 1) in
match alist with
| [] -> -1
| (n , ln) :: q -> if n = anum then last_e ln
else myfunction q anum
But my function does not work and I have this error message in utop:
Error: This expression has type 'a option but an expression was expected of type int
I don't know where the "option" type comes from.
This can happen if you are using some OCaml toplevel (e.g. utop) and you have these lines in your .ocamlinit file
#require "core.top" ;;
open Core.Std ;;
This enables the Core libraries, where List.nth has type:
μ> List.nth;;
- : 'a list -> int -> 'a option = <fun>
instead of standard OCaml's List.nth : 'a list -> int -> 'a.
So, when you fire up your toplevel and say:
μ> #use "myfunction.ml";;
you get the same error you cited in the question.
By the way, if you'd like to keep using Core, there is a List.last function.

OCaml Hashtbl/0.t and Hashtbl/-1.t

I am quite new to OCaml, so I am not sure what the following error message means (specifically the /0 and the /-1):
Error: This expression has type (string, string) Hashtbl/0.t
but an expression was expected of type ('a, 'b) Hashtbl/-1.t
I am passing a Hashtbl.t into Hashtbl.find and this error shows up. I am unclear as to how the /0 and /-1 came in, and what they actually mean.
Here's a minimal working example to demonstrate my issue:
open Core_kernel.Std
let file_to_hashtbl filename =
let sexp_to_hashtbl_str = Sexplib.Conv.hashtbl_of_sexp
string_of_sexp string_of_sexp
in In_channel.with_file
filename ~f:(fun ch -> (Sexp.input_sexp ch |> sexp_to_hashtbl_str))
let ht = file_to_hashtbl "test"
let t1_val = match Hashtbl.find ht "t1" with
| Some v -> v
| None -> assert false
let () = print_endline t1_val
Let's show you an example :
If I write
type t = A;;
let x = A;;
type t = B;;
let y = B;;
x = y;;
Error: This expression has type t/1561 but an expression was expected of type
t/1558
This is because in the interpreter you can declare multiple types with the same name and associate values to these types. But here, as you can see, x and y are not of the same type but both the types are named t so the interpreter tries to tell you the types are both named t but are not the same.
[Compilation]
If I wanted to compile this, I would have to declare
typea.ml
type t = A
let x = A
typeb.ml
type t = B
let y = B
main.ml
open Typea
open Typeb
x = y
If I compile this I will have
Error: This expression has type Typeb.t
but an expression was expected of type Typea.t
What lesson should you learn from this ? Stop interpreting, compile !
Now that I managed to compile your file, I got an error too but much more explicit :
Error: This expression has type (string, string) Hashtbl.t
but an expression was expected of type
('a, 'b) Core_kernel.Std.Hashtbl.t =
('a, 'b) Core_kernel.Core_hashtbl.t
[Explanation and correction]
Since I'm too nice, here is your file corrected :
let file_to_hashtbl filename =
(* open the namespace only where needed *)
let open Core_kernel.Std in
let sexp_to_hashtbl_str = Sexplib.Conv.hashtbl_of_sexp
string_of_sexp string_of_sexp
in In_channel.with_file
filename ~f:(fun ch -> (Sexp.input_sexp ch |> sexp_to_hashtbl_str));;
let ht = file_to_hashtbl "test"
let t1_val =
try
Hashtbl.find ht "t1"
with Not_found -> assert false
let () = print_endline t1_val
Your error was that you opened Core_kernel.Std as a global namespace so when you wrote Hashtbl.find it looked first in Core_kernel.Std and not in the standard library.
What I did is open Core_kernel.Std in the function that needs it, not in the whole file (so it's a local namespace) (a good habit to take).
So, as you can see, the problem was that you had two definition of the type Hashtbl.t (one in Core_kernel.Std and one in the standard library) and OCaml ain't no fool, boy, he knows when you're wrong but he is hard to understand since he only speak for those who can hear. :-D
P.S. : You had an error in your Hashtbl.find because it doesn't return an option but the found value or raise a Not_found exception if no value was found. I corrected it too. ;-)
Apparently, it is just a matter of missing semi-columns, the foloowing code compiles :
open Core_kernel.Std;;
let file_to_hashtbl filename =
let sexp_to_hashtbl_str = Sexplib.Conv.hashtbl_of_sexp
string_of_sexp string_of_sexp
in In_channel.with_file
filename ~f:(fun ch -> (Sexp.input_sexp ch |> sexp_to_hashtbl_str));;
let ht = file_to_hashtbl "test"
let t1_val = match Hashtbl.find ht "t1" with
| Some v -> v
| None -> assert false
let () = print_endline t1_val
But, I do not know how to interpret the error message neither.

Java GuardTypes analogy for OCaml

How do you do, Stackoverflow!
In Java practice there are some issues concerning partially defined functions. Sometimes it's convinient to separate an error handling from the calculation itself. We may utilize an approach called "Guard types" or "Guard decorators".
Consider the simple synthetic example: to guard the null reference. This can be done with the aid of the next class
public class NonNull<T> {
public take() {
return null != this.ref ? this.ref : throw new ExcptionOfMine("message");
}
public NotNull(T ref_) {
this.ref = ref_;
}
private T ref;
}
The question is:
Is there a way to implement the same "Guard type" in OCaml without touching its object model? I believe for the OCaml as the functional programming language to possess enough abstraction methods without objec-oriented technics.
You can use an abstract type to get the same effect. OCaml has no problem with null pointers. So say instead you want to represent a nonempty list in the same way as above. I.e., you want to be able to create values that are empty, but only complain when the person tries to access the value.
module G :
sig type 'a t
val make : 'a list -> 'a t
val take : 'a t -> 'a list
end =
struct
type 'a t = 'a list
let make x = x
let take x = if x = [] then raise (Invalid_argument "take") else x
end
Here's how it looks when you use the module:
$ ocaml
OCaml version 4.02.1
# #use "m.ml";;
module G :
sig type 'a t val make : 'a list -> 'a t val take : 'a t -> 'a list end
# let x = G.make [4];;
val x : int G.t = <abstr>
# G.take x;;
- : int list = [4]
# let y = G.make [];;
val y : '_a G.t = <abstr>
# G.take y;;
Exception: Invalid_argument "take".
There's a concept of Optional types, on which you can effectively pattern match. Example:
let optional = Some 20
let value =
match optional with
| Some v -> v
| None -> 0
You can use simple closures
let guard_list v =
fun () ->
if v = [] then failwith "Empty list"
else v
let () =
let a = guard_list [1;2;3] in
let b = guard_list [] in
print_int (List.length (a ())); (* prints 3 *)
print_int (List.length (b ())) (* throws Failure "Empty list" *)
or lazy values
let guard_string v = lazy begin
if v = "" then failwith "Empty string"
else v
end
let () =
let a = guard_string "Foo" in
let b = guard_string "" in
print_endline (Lazy.force a); (* prints "Foo" *)
print_endline (Lazy.force b) (* throws Failure "Empty string" *)

prompt user to build a string list

I would like to build a string list by prompting the user for input. My end goal is to be able to parse a string list against a simple hash table using a simple routine.
`let list_find tbl ls =
List.iter (fun x ->
let mbr = if Hashtbl.mem tbl x then "aok" else "not found"
in
Printf.printf "%s %s\n" x mbr) ls ;;`
Building a string list is accomplished with the cons operator ::, but somehow I am not able to get the prompt to generate a string list. A simpe list function returns anything that is put into it as a list:
`let build_strlist x =
let rec aux x = match x with
| [] -> []
| hd :: tl -> hd :: aux tl
in
aux x ;;`
Thus far, I have been able to set the prompt, but building the string list did not go so well. I am inclined to think I should be using Buffer or Scanning.in_channel. This is what I have thus far:
`#load "unix.cma" ;;
let prompt () = Unix.isatty Unix.stdin && Unix.isatty Unix.stdout ;;
let build_strlist () =
let rec loop () =
let eof = ref false in
try
while not !eof do
if prompt () then print_endline "enter input ";
let line = read_line () in
if line = "-1" then eof := true
else
let rec build x = match x with
| [] -> []
| hd :: tl -> hd :: build tl
in
Printf.printf "you've entered %s\n" (List.iter (build line));
done
with End_of_file -> ()
in
loop () ;;`
I am getting an error the keyword "line" has the type string, but an expression was expected of type 'a list. Should I be building the string list using Buffer.create buf and then Buffer.add_string buf prepending [ followed by quotes " another " and a semicolon? This seems to be an overkill. Maybe I should just return a string list and ignore any attempts to "peek at what we have"? Printing will be done after checking the hash table.
I would like to have a prompt routine so that I can use ocaml for scripting and user interaction. I found some ideas on-line which allowed me to write the skeleton above.
I would probably break down the problem in several steps:
get the list of strings
process it (in your example, simply print it back)
1st step can be achieved with a recursive function as follow:
let build_strlist' () =
let rec loop l =
if prompt () then (
print_string "enter input: ";
match read_line () with
"-1" -> l
| s -> loop (s::l)
) else l
in loop [];;
See how that function loops on itself and build up the list l as it goes. As you mentioned in your comment, I dropped the imperative part of your code to keep the functional recursion only. You could have achieved the same by keeping instead the imperative part and leaving out the recursion, but recursion feels more natural to me, and if written correctly, leads to mostly the same machine code.
Once you have the list, simply apply a List.iter to it with the ad hoc printing function as you did in your original function.

OCaml error: wrong type of expression in constructor

I have a function save that take standard input, which is used individually like this:
./try < input.txt (* save function is in try file *)
input.txt
2
3
10 29 23
22 14 9
and now i put the function into another file called path.ml which is a part of my interpreter. Now I have a problem in defining the type of Save function and this is because save function has type in_channel, but when i write
type term = Save of in_channel
ocamlc complain about the parameter in the command function.
How can i fix this error? This is the reason why in my last question posted on stackoverflow, I asked for the way to express a variable that accept any type. I understand the answers but actually it doesn't help much in make the code running.
This is my code:
(* Data types *)
open Printf
type term = Print_line_in_file of int*string
| Print of string
| Save of in_channel (* error here *)
;;
let input_line_opt ic =
try Some (input_line ic)
with End_of_file -> None
let nth_line n filename =
let ic = open_in filename in
let rec aux i =
match input_line_opt ic with
| Some line ->
if i = n then begin
close_in ic;
(line)
end else aux (succ i)
| None ->
close_in ic;
failwith "end of file reached"
in
aux 1
(* get all lines *)
let k = ref 1
let first = ref ""
let second = ref ""
let sequence = ref []
let append_item lst a = lst # [a]
let save () =
try
while true do
let line = input_line stdin in
if k = ref 1
then
begin
first := line;
incr k;
end else
if k = ref 2
then
begin
second := line;
incr k;
end else
begin
sequence := append_item !sequence line;
incr k;
end
done;
None
with
End_of_file -> None;;
let rec command term = match term with
| Print (n) -> print_endline n
| Print_line_in_file (n, f) -> print_endline (nth_line n f)
| Save () -> save ()
;;
EDIT
Error in code:
Save of in_channel:
Error: This pattern matches values of type unit
but a pattern was expected which matches values of type in_channel
Save of unit:
Error: This expression has type 'a option
but an expression was expected of type unit
There are many errors in this code, so it's hard to know where to start.
One problem is this: your save function has type unit -> 'a option. So it's not the same type as the other branches of your final match. The fix is straightforward: save should return (), not None. In OCaml these are completely different things.
The immediate problem seems to be that you have Save () in your match, but have declared Save as taking an input channel. Your current code doesn't have any way to pass the input channel to the save function, but if it did, you would want something more like this in your match:
| Save ch -> save ch
Errors like this suggest (to me) that you're not so familiar with OCaml's type system. It would probably save you a lot of trouble if you went through a tutorial of some kind before writing much more code. You can find tutorials at http://ocaml.org.