Find unique elements in a list in OCaml - list

I am working on a project with OCaml and there are some problems regarding to arrays that I am not sure with. I am not allowed to use the List module, so please give me some idea or suggestion with my works.
First, I already implemented a function 'a list -> 'a list called uniq that return a list of the uniq elements in an array, for example uniq [5;6;5;4] => [6;5;4]
Here is my implementation:
let rec uniq x =
let rec uniq_help l n =
match l with
[] -> []
| h :: t -> uniq_help t, n if (n = h) else (h :: (uniq_help(t, n)))
match x with
[] -> []
| h::t -> uniq_help t, h
;;
I mot sure this is a correct implementation, can someone give me some suggestion or correctness?

You functions are syntactically incorrect for various reasons:
uniq_help takes two elements so you have to invoke it using uniq_help t n, not uniq_help(t, n) and the like.
an if/else expression should have the form of if cond then expr1 else expr2.
to use uniq_help locally in uniq, you need an in keyword.
After fixing syntax errors, your function looks like:
let rec uniq x =
let rec uniq_help l n =
match l with
| [] -> []
| h :: t -> if n = h then uniq_help t n else h::(uniq_help t n) in
match x with
| [] -> []
| h::t -> uniq_help t h
However, to be sure that each element is unique in the list, you have to check uniqueness for all of its elements. One quick fix could be:
let rec uniq x =
(* uniq_help is the same as above *)
match x with
| [] -> []
| h::t -> h::(uniq_help (uniq t) h)

Related

Tail call optimization with a function returning a tuple

I have a simple function that splits a list at an index:
let rec split_at ls i =
match i with
| 0 -> ([], ls)
| _ ->
match ls with
| [] -> raise Not_found
| h::t ->
match split_at t (i - 1) with
| (left, right) -> ((h :: left), right)
Is there a way to get the OCaml compiler to optimize this function to use constant stack space?
I have tried using #tail_mod_cons but it doesn't work. I understand that the call is not really in tail position, but it feels like it should be optimizable.
Firstly, let's clean up your function by pattern matching on a tuple of i and ls and using a local let binding rather than that last match expression.
let rec split_at ls i =
match i, ls with
| 0, _ -> ([], ls)
| _, [] -> raise Not_found
| _, h::t ->
let (left, right) = split_at t (i - 1) in
(h::left, right)
As Jeffrey says, the cons (::) is not in tail call position, so tail_mod_cons does nothing for you. If we try to use it, we'll get a warning to that effect:
Lines 1-7, characters 33-20:
Warning 71 [unused-tmc-attribute]: This function is marked #tail_mod_cons
but is never applied in TMC position.
As also hinted, though, it's trivial to let your brain modify this for tail-recursion using an accumulator.
let split_at lst n =
let rec aux lst n first_part =
match n, lst with
| 0, _ -> (List.rev first_part, lst)
| _, [] -> raise Not_found
| _, h::t -> aux t (n - 1) (h::first_part)
in
aux lst n []
The function split_at can be written in a partial tail_mod_cons way if we split the construction of the new prefix from the part of the function returning the suffix using a reference:
let[#tail_mod_cons] rec split_at r ls i =
match i with
| 0 -> r := ls; []
| _ ->
match ls with
| [] -> raise Not_found
| h::t ->
h:: (split_at[#tailcall]) r t (i - 1)
let split_at ls i =
let r = ref [] in
let l = split_at r ls i in
l, !r
The way I understand it, "tail mod cons" works by passing an incomplete constructor into which the called function should place its answer. So to make the optimization work you have to be able to put your problem into a form for which this is a solution.
Maybe it would work if you split the problem into two parts. The first part duplicates the first n elements of the list. The second part returns all but the first n elements of the list.
The second part is trivial to implement tail recursively. And it seems like you should be able to duplicate a list using "tail mod cons".

Delete elements between two occurrences in list

I have to make a function that take a list and return the list but without the elements betweens the occurences.
For example: [1; 2; 3; 4; 2; 7; 14; 21; 7; 5] -> [1; 2; 7; 5]
I imagined that to make this I will take the head of the list, and then see
if there is another occurrence in the tail, so I browse the list and when I found the occurrence, I delete everything between them and I keep just one of them.
First I tried something like this:
let rec remove list = match list with
| [] -> []
| h::t -> if(List.mem h t) then
(*Here I would like to go through the list element by element to
find the occurence and then delete everything between*)
else
remove t
So for the part I don't succeed to do, I made a function which allows to slice a list between two given points, just like so:
let slice list i k =
let rec take n = function
| [] -> []
| h :: t -> if n = 0 then [] else h :: take (n-1) t
in
let rec drop n = function
| [] -> []
| h :: t as l -> if n = 0 then l else drop (n-1) t
in
take (k - i + 1) (drop i list);;
(*Use: slice ["a";"b";"c";"d";"e";"f";"g";"h";"i";"j"] 2 3;;*)
I also have this function that allows me to get the index of points in the list:
let index_of e l =
let rec index_rec i = function
| [] -> raise Not_found
| hd::tl -> if hd = e then i else index_rec (i+1) tl
in
index_rec 0 l ;;
(*Use: index_of 5 [1;2;3;4;5;6] -> return 4*)
But I don't really know how to combine them to get what I expect.
here is what I made :
let rec remove liste =
let rec aux l el = match l with
| [] -> raise Not_found
| x :: xs -> if el = x then try aux xs el with Not_found -> xs
else aux xs el in
match liste with
| [] -> []
| x :: xs -> try let r = x :: aux xs x in remove r with Not_found -> x :: remove xs;;
my aux function return the list which follow the last occurence of el in l. If you have any question or if you need more explanation just ask me in comment
A version that uses an option type to tell if an element appears further on in the list:
let rec find_tail ?(eq = (=)) lst elem =
match lst with
| x :: _ when eq x elem -> Some lst
| _ :: xs -> find_tail ~eq xs elem
| [] -> None
let rec remove ?(eq = (=)) lst =
match lst with
| [x] -> [x]
| x :: xs -> begin
match find_tail ~eq xs x with
| Some tail -> x :: remove ~eq (List.tl tail)
| None -> x :: remove ~eq xs
end
| [] -> []
Also lets you specify a comparison function (Defaulting to =).

F# : need help reversing order of ilist

I must use the following data type:
type ilist = E | L of int * ilist
I can't seem to find much help on working with lists outside of the standard type online ( [1;2;3] )
I am to write a function that takes a lists and reverses the order
for example: reverse (L(1, L(2, L(3, E)))) would output (L(3, L(2, L(1, E))))
So far here is my code:
let rec reverse l =
match l with
| E -> failwith "Empty List"
| L(h, E) -> h
| L(h, t) -> // append tail and recursive call with rest of list?
let list = reverse (L(1, L(2, L(3, E))))
printfn "reversed list: %A" list
Thanks for any help!
What you are lacking is a convenient way to append an int to an ilist:
let rec append x l =
match l with
| E -> L (x,E)
| L (h,t) -> L (h,append x t)
printfn "%A" (append 4 list)
Now use this function in your last match case to append h to the reversed t:
let rec reverse l =
match l with
| E -> E
| L (h,t) -> append h (reverse t)
Note that it's probably better to just return an empty list when the input list is empty (| E -> E), because failwith is something very ugly you should only use in the rarest cases.
Also note that your second match case | L(h, E) -> h is wrong, because it returns an int instead of an ilist. But it is not needed anyway, so just remove it. The singleton list L (h,E) will be matched with | L (h,t) -> ... instead, which in turn recursively matches t with | E -> E.
Here is a working example: https://repl.it/repls/PhonyAdventurousNet

Unknown Type Error in OCaml

I'm attempting to create a new list of all the unique items from another list. My in_list function works properly and returns a value saying whether or not the value is found in the seen_list, but I can't for the life of me get this to compile.
let uniq x = match in_list x seen_list with
| true -> seen_list
| false -> seen_list#[x]
| _ -> seen_list
;;
List.iter uniq check_list;;
The problem is some sort of type error. Here it is:
Error: This expression has type int -> int list
but an expression was expected of type int -> unit
Type int list is not compatible with type unit
In essence you want to take the result returned by uniq and pass it as the list for the next call of uniq. To do this, you need to use a fold, or write your own recursion. The purpose of List.iter is just to call an imperative function for each element of a list. It doesn't combine the answers in any way. That's why you're getting a type error—your function isn't imperative. I.e., it doesn't return unit.
Perhaps this is what you want:
let rec uniq_list lst =
match lst with
| [] -> []
| x :: xs ->
let r = uniq_list xs in
if in_list x r then r else x :: r
Or, using List.fold_right (equivalent to the recursive function above):
let uniq_list lst =
List.fold_right
(fun x r -> if in_list x r then r else x :: r)
lst
[]
Or using List.fold_left which is tail-recursive:
let uniq_list lst =
List.fold_left
(fun r x -> if in_list x r then r else x :: r)
[]
lst
By the way, your in_list is equivalent to the standard library function List.mem.

What is wrong with this OCAML function?

Here is my original code.
let rec reverse l =
match l with
| [] -> []
| (h::t) -> (reverse t) :: h
The cons :: operator takes an element as left-hand argument and a list as right-hand argument. Here, you do the opposite which does not work.
The right way to add an element at the element at the end of a list is to use list concatenation:
let rec reverse l =
match l with
| [] -> []
| h :: t -> (reverse t) # [h]
That code is not optimal though, and you may want to make it tail recursive.