Scheme zip function with possible uneven lists - list

Question

I know this question has been asked before, and my solution is the same as many of the answers but I have a special test case that won't work correctly with the common solution to this problem.
The solution that I have found for the zip problem like many others is
(define (zip l1 l2)(map list l1 l2))
. . .which works great with given arguments such as
(zip '(a b c) '(1 2 3)) => ((a 1) (b 2) (c 3))
but I also want the zip function to work for cases where my arguments do not match length like
(zip '(a b c) '(1)) => ((a 1) (b ()) (c ()))
I have not found a solution to this problem and not really sure how to approach it where each list can be any length.

Answer 1

First, a simple iterative version that works for 2 lists only:
(define (zip lst1 lst2 (placeholder '()))
(define (my-car lst)
(if (empty? lst) placeholder (car lst)))
(define (my-cdr lst)
(if (empty? lst) lst (cdr lst)))
(let loop ((lst1 lst1) (lst2 lst2) (res '()))
(if (and (empty? lst1) (empty? lst2))
(reverse res)
(loop (my-cdr lst1) (my-cdr lst2)
(cons (list (my-car lst1) (my-car lst2)) res)))))
such as
(zip '(a b c) '(1 2 3))
=> '((a 1) (b 2) (c 3))
(zip '(a b c) '(1))
=> '((a 1) (b ()) (c ()))
From this, you can generalise to n lists, but to avoid keyword parameters you have to put the placeholder parameter first:
(define (zip placeholder . lsts)
(define (my-car lst)
(if (empty? lst) placeholder (car lst)))
(define (my-cdr lst)
(if (empty? lst) lst (cdr lst)))
(let loop ((lsts lsts) (res '()))
(if (andmap empty? lsts)
(reverse res)
(loop (map my-cdr lsts)
(cons (apply list (map my-car lsts)) res)))))
such as
(zip '() '(a b c) '(1 2 3))
==> '((a 1) (b 2) (c 3))
(zip '() '(a b c) '(1))
==> '((a 1) (b ()) (c ()))
(zip '() '(a b c) '(1) '(x y))
=> '((a 1 x) (b () y) (c () ()))
I believe that andmap is the only Racket-specific function here, which probably has some Scheme or SRFI equivalent depending on your implementation.
EDIT
Since the solution is based on creating lists of equal length, instead of duplicating the zip algorithm, you can also first add the placeholders to the lists before doing the classic map-list stuff:
(define (zip placeholder . lsts)
(let* ((max-len (apply max (map length lsts))) ; the length of the longest lists
(equal-length-lists ; adjusts all lists to the same length,
(map ; filling with placeholder
(lambda (lst) (append lst (make-list (- max-len (length lst)) placeholder)))
lsts)))
(apply map list equal-length-lists))) ; classical zip

Answer 2

It's not semantically correct to have (zip '(a b c) '(1)) => ((a 1) (b ()) (c ())) (unless you're specifically using () as a placeholder value); it's more sensible to have ((a 1) (b) (c)). Here's an implementation that achieves that:
(define (zip-with-uneven . lists)
(define (advance lst)
(if (null? lst)
lst
(cdr lst)))
(define (firsts lists)
(let loop ((lists lists)
(result '()))
(cond ((null? lists) (reverse result))
((null? (car lists)) (loop (cdr lists) result))
(else (loop (cdr lists) (cons (caar lists) result))))))
(let loop ((lists lists)
(results '()))
(if (andmap null? lists)
(reverse results)
(loop (map advance lists)
(cons (firsts lists) results)))))
andmap is from Racket. If you're not using Racket, you can use every from SRFI 1 instead.
If you really want to use a placeholder, here's a (Racket-specific) version that supports placeholders. The default placeholder is (void), which I presume is never a valid value you'd want to put in your result list.
(define (zip-with-uneven #:placeholder (ph (void)) . lists)
(define (advance lst)
(if (null? lst)
lst
(cdr lst)))
(define (cons-with-placeholder a d)
(if (void? a)
d
(cons a d)))
(define (firsts lists)
(let loop ((lists lists)
(result '()))
(cond ((null? lists) (reverse result))
((null? (car lists))
(loop (cdr lists) (cons-with-placeholder ph result)))
(else (loop (cdr lists) (cons (caar lists) result))))))
(let loop ((lists lists)
(results '()))
(if (andmap null? lists)
(reverse results)
(loop (map advance lists)
(cons (firsts lists) results)))))