I am trying to "simulate" a pass by value result function with the following code but there seems to be a syntax error. I've been looking through sml tutorials but I'm having a hard time figuring out why this doesn't work
1 val x = ref 0;
2 fun p(y': int ref)=
3 let
4 val y = !y'
5 in
6 let
7 y = 1
8 in
9 let x := 0
10 in
11 y' := y
12 end
13 end
14 end
15 p(x)
In the let <decs> in <exp>, <decs> needs to be one or more declarations.
In your case, on line 7 you do y = 1 - note, this is not an assigment, but a comparison. That is, in C++ it would be equivalent to doing y == 1. You cannot assign to non-ref variables. (And in general, you want to avoid ref variables as much as possible.)
You could do val y = 1 in its place, in which case you create a new value by the name of y, which shadows over the old y (but does not change it; you create a new value).
Likewise, on line 9, you do x := 0, which is not a declaration, but an expression, which assigns the value 0 to the reference value x, and then returns unit.
In addition, you can do multiple declarations in your let statements, so you don't need the nesting you do.
Finally, you write p(x) on the toplevel. You can only write expressions on the toplevel, if the declaration preceding ends with a semicolon; otherwise it believes it to be a part of the declaration. That is
val a = 5
6
is interpreted to be
val a = 5 6
In short, you could rewrite it to this:
val x = ref 0;
fun p(y': int ref)=
let
val y = !y' (* this line might as well be deleted. *)
val y = 1
in
x := 0;
y' := y
end;
p(x)
Or, the shorter version, since the SML has good type inference:
val x = ref 0;
fun p y' = (x := 0; y' := 1);
p x
I will say this, though; if you come from a language like C++ or similar, it may be tempting to use 'a refs a lot, but you will often find, that minimizing the use of them often leads to cleaner code in SML. (And other functional languages.)
let y = 1 ... is wrong. So is let x := 0. Inside let ... in, you need either val or fun declarations.
It seems you have some misunderstandings of SML. let is used to declare new local variables in a scope. It is strange for you to try to declare a variable named y in an inner scope that shadows the y that you declared in the let in the immediately outer scope. You either meant one of two things:
Change the value of the "y" variable defined in the outer scope. This is impossible. You cannot change the value of a variable in ML
You want to declared a new, unrelated variable that is also named "y", and hide the previous "y" within this scope; in this case, you would use let var y = 1 in ...
Also, it is strange that you have let x := 0. x := 0 is a valid expression in itself. It changes the value contained in the reference pointed to by x. You don't need a let. Since x := 0 is only evaluated for side effects, and returns type unit (i.e. nothing useful), you might familiarize yourself with the ; operator, with which you can use to string together a bunch of side-effect "statements" which evaluate to the result of the last one: x := 0; y' := y
Related
New to OCaml and Functional Programming as a whole so I was having some problems with keeping the type ambiguous. I'm trying to make a function which takes in a symbol accum(which looks like (+) or (-.) or (*) etc.) and a function f. My current implementation is below and if let's say I passed in (** f (x) = 3x^2 + 5x + 6 **) but I always get '6' instead of '276' because in the else part I'm not summing adding the results of the previous rounds so I just get the final value of '6'.
I get type errors because of the + so when I throw floats in it breaks. How can I overcome this (let partial accept floats or ints but actually accumulate the answer)?
let rec powerSum(sign )(f):'a =
fun x ->
if x = 0 then
f (x)
else if x < 0 then
raise(Failure "Error arg isn't '+'")
else
powerSum sign f (x-1);
Hint: you should use accum at some point.
Having trouble writing a power function inStandard Ml. Im trying to write a function called exp of type int -> int -> int.
The application exp b e, for non-negative e, should return b^e.
For example, exp 3 2 should return 9. exp must be implemented with the function compound provided below. exp should not directly calls itself. Here is the compound function, it takes in a value n, a function, and a value x. All it does is it applies the function to the value x n number of times.
fun compound 0 f x = x
| compound n f x = compound (n-1) f (f x);
Im having trouble figuring out how to write this function without recursion, and with the restraint of having to use a function that only can use a function with one parameter. Anyone have any ideas of where to start with this?
This is what I have:
fun exp b 0 = 1
| exp b e = (compound e (fn x => x*x) b)
I know that this doesn't work, since if i put in 2^5 it will do:
2*2, 4*4, 16*16 etc.
You are extremely close. Your definition of exp compounds fn x => x*x which (as you noticed) is not what you want, because it is repeatedly squaring the input. Instead, you want to do repeated multiplication by the base. That is, fn x => b*x.
Next, you can actually remove the special case of e = 0 by relying upon the fact that compound "does the right thing" when asked to apply a function 0 times.
fun exp b e = compound e (fn x => b*x) 1
You could just do this instead I believe
fun exp 0 0 = 1
| exp b 0 = 1
| exp b e = (compound (e - 1) (fn x => b * x ) b);
this may not be exactly 100% proper code. I sort of just now read a bit of Standard ML documentation and took some code and reworked it for your example but the general idea is the same for most programming languages.
fun foo (num, power) =
let
val counter = ref power
val total = 1
in
while !counter > 0 do (
total := !total * num
counter := !counter - 1
)
end;
To be more clear with some pseudo-code:
input x, pow
total = 1
loop from 1 to pow
total = total * x
end loop
return total
This doesn't handle negative exponents but it should get you started.
It basically is a simple algorithm of what exponents truly are: repeated multiplication.
2^4 = 1*2*2*2*2 //The 1 is implicit
2^0 = 1
I'm very new to OCaml / functional programming, and I'm confused about the implementation of some things that are relatively simple other languages I know. I could use any and all help.
Chiefly: in a program I'm working on, I either increment or decrement a variable based on a certain parameter. Here's something representative of what I have:
let tot = ref 0 in
for i = 0 to s do
if test_num > 0 then
tot := !tot + other_num
else
tot := !tot - other_num
done;;
This is obviously not the way to go about it, because even if the else statement is never taken, the code acts as if it is, each and every time, presumably because it's closer to the bottom of the program? I know OCaml has pretty sophisticated pattern matching, but within this level of coed I need access to a handful of lists I've already created, and, as far as I understand, I can't access those lists from a top-level function without passing them all as parameters.
I know I'm going about this the wrong way, but I have no idea how to do this idiomatically.
Suggestions? Thanks.
edit
Here's a more concise example:
let ex_list = [1; -2; 3; -4] in
let max_mem = ref 0 in
let mem = ref 0 in
let () =
for i = 0 to 3 do
let transition = List.nth ex_list i in
if transition > 0 then (
mem := (!mem + 10);
) else
mem := (!mem - 1);
if (!mem > !max_mem) then (max_mem := !mem);
done;
print_int !max_mem; print_string "\n";
in !mem;
At the end, when I print max_mem, I get 19, though this value should be (0 + 10 - 1 + 10 - 1 = 18). Am I doing the math wrong, or does the problem come from somewhere else?
Your code looks fine to me. It doesn't make a lot of sense as actual code, but I think you're just trying to show a general layout. It's also written in imperative style, which I usually try to avoid if possible.
The if in OCaml acts just like it does in other languages, there's no special thing about being near the bottom of the program. (More precisely, it acts like the ? : ternary operator from C and related languages; i.e., it's an expression.)
Your code doesn't return a useful value; it always returns () (the quintessentially uninteresting value known as "unit").
If we replace your free variables (ones not defined in this bit of code) by constants, and change the code to return a value, we can run it:
# let s = 8 in
let other_num = 7 in
let test_num = 3 in
let tot = ref 0 in
let () =
for i = 0 to s do
if test_num > 0 then
tot := !tot + other_num
else
tot := !tot - other_num
done
in
!tot;;
- : int = 63
#
If you're trying to learn to write in a functional style (i.e., without mutable variables), you would write this loop as a recursive function and make tot a parameter:
# let s = 8 in
let other_num = 7 in
let test_num = 3 in
let rec loop n tot =
if n > s then
tot
else
let tot' =
if test_num > 0 then tot + other_num else tot - other_num
in
loop (n + 1) tot'
in
loop 0 0;;
- : int = 63
It would probably be easier to help if you gave a (edited to add: small :-) self-contained problem that you're trying to solve.
The other parts of your question aren't clear enough to give any advice on. One thing that I might point out is that it's completely idiomatic to use pattern matching when processing lists.
Also, there's nothing wrong with passing things as parameters. That's why the language is called "functional" -- your code consists of functions, which have parameters.
Update
I like to write let () = expr1 in expr2 instead of expr1; expr2. It's just a habit I got into, sorry if it's confusing. The essence is that you're evaluating the first expression just for its side effects (it has type unit), and then returning the value of the second expression.
If you don't have something after the for, the code will evaluate to (), as I said. Since the purpose of the code seems to be to compute the value of !tot, this is what I returned. At the very least, this lets you see the calculated value in the OCaml top level.
tot' is just another variable. If you calculate a new value straightforwardly from a variable named var, it's conventional to name the new value var'. It reads as "var prime".
Update 2
Your example code works OK, but it has the problem that it uses List.nth to traverse a list, which is a slow (quadratic) operation. In fact your code is naturally considered a fold. Here's how you might write it in a functional style:
# let ex_list = [1; -2; 3; -4] in
let process (tot, maxtot) transition =
let tot' = if transition > 0 then tot + 10 else tot - 1 in
(tot', max maxtot tot')
in
List.fold_left process (0, 0) ex_list;;
- : int * int = (18, 19)
#
In addition to Jeffrey's answer, let me second that this is not how you would usually write such code in Ocaml, since it is a very low-level imperative approach. A more functional version would look like this:
let high ex_list =
let deltas = List.map (fun x -> if x > 0 then 10 else -1) ex_list in
snd (List.fold_left (fun (n, hi) d -> (n+d, max (n+d) hi)) (0, 0) deltas)
let test = high [1; -2; 3; -4]
I have a problem with AMPL modelling. Can you help me how to define a binary variable u that suppose to be equall to 0 when another variable x is also equall to 0 and 1 when x is different than 0?
I was trying to use logical expressions but solver that I am working with (cplex and minos) doesn't allow it.
My idea was:
subject to:
u || x != u && x
Take M a 'big' constant such as x < M holds, and assume x is an integer (or x >= 1 if x is continuous). You can use the two constraints:
u <= x (if x=0, then u=0)
x <= M*u (if x>0, then u=1)
with u a binary variable.
If now x is continuous and not necessarily greater than 1, you will have to adapt the constraints above (for example, the first constraint here would not be verified with x=0.3 and u=1).
The general idea is that you can (in many cases) replace those logical constraints with inequalities, using the fact that if a and b are boolean variables, then the statement "a implies b" can be written as b>=a (if a=1, then b=1).
This may be a very newbie question, but I didn't find the answer.
I need to store, for example a list and later replace it with another, under the same pointer.
It can be done via references:
let fact n =
let result = ref 1 in (* initialize an int ref *)
for i = 2 to n do
result := i * !result (* reassign an int ref *)
done;
!result
You do not see references very often because you can do the same thing using immutable values inside recursion or high-order functions:
let fact n =
let rec loop i acc =
if i > n then acc
else loop (i+1) (i*acc) in
loop 2 1
Side-effect free solutions are preferred since they are easier to reason about and easier to ensure correctness.