Parsing a string to an enum in F# - enums

I am trying to do the following (which doesn't compile):
let Parse<'T> value =
Enum.Parse(typedefof<'T>, value) :?> 'T
In short I would like to pass an enum type, and a string and get back an enum value.
An example usage would be:
type MyEnums =
| Green = 0,
| Blue = 1
and then:
let r = Parse<MyEnums> "Green"
what would be the syntax? I haven't used generics yet in F#, so this is what I came up with from reading the docs.
bonus question would be if there is a way to parse enums in a case insensitive way (besides turning everything to lowercase for example)

This does compile for me (also without true, did you open System?):
let Parse<'T> value =
System.Enum.Parse(typedefof<'T>, value, true) :?> 'T
and works case-insensitive for
type MyEnums =
| Green = 0
| Blue = 1
Parse<MyEnums> "Green" // Green
Parse<MyEnums> "blue" // Blue

I came up with this in a hurry, which I believe has the advantage of not accepting other types than enums. Haven't had time to google for a better way, if there is one. Also, the underlying type must be int, and I haven't had time to see if there's something to be done with that either.
type MyEnum = | A = 1 | B = 2
let parseEnum<'T when 'T : (new : unit -> 'T) and 'T : struct and 'T :> ValueType and 'T : enum<int>> v =
match Enum.TryParse<'T> v with
| true, v -> Some v
| false, _ -> None
let x = parseEnum<MyEnum> "B"
match x with
| Some x -> printfn "%A" x
| None -> printfn "Sorry"
// let z = parseEnum<int> "1" // won't compile

Related

F# function to sort Excel "variants" in Excel-Dna

When trying to sort a 1d array of variants (here by "variant" I mean all the Excel types, eg bool, double (and date), string, various errors...) with the following function :
[<ExcelFunction(Category="test", Description="sort variants.")>]
let sort_variant ([<ExcelArgument(Description= "Array to sort.")>] arr : obj[]): obj[] =
arr
|> Array.sort
I get the following error : Error FS0001 The type 'obj' does not support the 'comparison' constraint. For example, it does not support the 'System.IComparable' interface, probably meaning that there is no generic ordering function available on all obj types.
But Excel has a natural ordering function, which I'd like to emulate (at least ballpark). Eg double (and dates) < string < bool < error...
My question : What is the idiomatic way to sort an array of "variants" in F# / Excel-Dna? (I am after a function which takes an obj[] and return an obj[], nothing else, not a macro...)
My (temporary?) solution :
I created a “discriminated union” type
type XLVariant = D of double | S of string | B of bool | NIL of string
(not really sure whether NIL is necessary but it did not hurt. Also in my real life code I added a DT of DateTime instance as I need to distinguish dates from doubles).
let toXLVariant (x : obj) : XLVariant =
match x with
| :? double as d -> D d
| :? string as s -> S s
| :? bool as b -> B b
| _ -> NIL "unknown match"
let ofXLVariant (x : XLVariant) : obj =
match x with
| D d -> box d
| S s -> box s
| B b -> box b
| NIL _ -> box ExcelError.ExcelErrorRef
[<ExcelFunction(Category="test", Description="sort variants.")>]
let sort_variant ([<ExcelArgument(Description= "Array to sort.")>] arr : obj[]): obj[] =
arr
|> Array.map toXLVariant
|> Array.sort
|> Array.map ofXLVariant
(for the sake of simplicity, I missed the Errors types, but the idea is the same)
This seems a bit more explicit to me, since it just sticks to the CLR type system:
// Compare objects in the way Excel would
let xlCompare (v1 : obj) (v2 : obj) =
match (v1, v2) with
| (:? double as d1), (:? double as d2) -> d1.CompareTo(d2)
| (:? double), _ -> -1
| _, (:? double) -> 1
| (:? string as s1), (:? string as s2) -> s1.CompareTo(s2)
| (:? string), _ -> -1
| _, (:? string) -> 1
| (:? bool as b1), (:? bool as b2) -> b1.CompareTo(b2)
| (:? bool), _ -> -1
| _, (:? bool) -> 1
| _ -> 2
[<ExcelFunction(Category="test", Description="sort variants.")>]
let sort_variant ([<ExcelArgument(Description= "Array to sort.")>] arr : obj[]): obj[] =
Array.sortWith xlCompare arr

Compute NFA transitions in parallel

I have this piece of code written in F#:
type NondeterministicFiniteAutomaton = {
initialState: string
finalStates: string List
transitions: Map<string * char, string List>
}
let private nextState (symbol:char) (state:string) (transitions:Map<string * char, string List>) =
transitions |> Map.tryFind (state, symbol)
let rec private haltState (input:string) (index:int) (state:string) (transitions:Map<string * char, string List>) =
match index with
| x when x = input.Length -> state
| _ ->
match nextState input.[index] state transitions with
| x when x.IsNone -> null
| x -> haltState input (index+1) x.Value transitions
In the last line, x.Value will return a list of states that my automaton can enter, say ["s1"; "s2"; "s3"]. For each state in this list, I want to call haltState in parallel, thus calculating each possible path in parallel.
How can I call them in parallel?
How can I "join" them when they are done?
I'd recommend first writing the complete sequential version. Then you can see if adding parallelism makes sense for the computations you'll be doing.
As for joining the results, this is something you'll need to do even in the sequential version. Your haltState function returns a single string, but if this is a NFA, then it may end in multiple different states. So you could change it to return a sequence of possible results:
let rec private haltState (input:string) (index:int) (state:string) (transitions:Map<string * char, string List>) =
match index with
| x when x = input.Length -> Seq.singleton x
| _ ->
match nextState input.[index] state transitions with
| None -> Seq.empty
| Some states ->
states |> Seq.collect (fun state ->
haltState input (index+1) state transitions)
This returns a sequence and it joins the sequences generated for multiple possible states using Seq.collect. Note that I also used more idiomatic pattern matching on option values.
You could parallelize this using Array.Parallel.map, but I doubt this will make the processing faster - the overhead is probably going to be larger.
let rec private haltState (input:string) (index:int) (state:string) (transitions:Map<string * char, string List>) =
match index with
| x when x = input.Length -> [| state |]
| _ ->
match nextState input.[index] state transitions with
| None -> [| |]
| Some states ->
states
|> Array.ofSeq
|> Array.Parallel.collect (fun state -> haltState input (index+1) state transitions)

How to abstract non-linear list iteration schemes into a re-usable algorithm?

On the odd chance, that someone has a brilliant idea...
I am not sure if there is a good way to generalize that.
EDIT: I think it might be nice to explain exactly what the inputs and outputs are. The code below is only how I approached the solution.
Inputs: data, recipe
data: set of string, string list here also called "set of named lists"
recipe: list of commands
Command Print (literal|list reference)
Adds the literal to the output or if it is a list reference, it adds the head of the referenced list to the output.
Command While (list reference)
when referenced list not empty --> next command
when referenced list empty --> skip entries in recipe list past the matching Wend.
Command Wend (list reference)
replace referenced list with tail (reference list)
when referenced list is empty, next command
when referenced list is not empty, next command is the matching while above.
Outputs: string list
The best answer is the implementation of that which is shortest and which allows to re-use that algorithm in new contexts.
This is not just a programming problem for the fun of it, btw. It is basically what happens if you try to implement data driven text templating.
The code below is my attempt to solve this problem.
The first code snippet is a non-generalized solution.
The second code snippet is an attempt to isolate the algorithm.
If you play with the code, simply paste the second snippet below the first snippet and both versions are working.
The whole topic is about understanding better how to separate the iteration algorithm from the rest of the code and then to simply apply it, in contrast of having all the other code within.
Would it not be great, if there was a way to abstract the way the statements are being processed and the looping of the while/wend, such,
that it can be reused in my main code, just as I keep re-using other "iteration schemes", such as List.map?
The commonalities between my main code and this study are:
An evolving "environment" which is threaded through all steps of the computation.
Collections, which need to be iterated in a well-formed nested manner. (Malformed would be: while x while y wend x wend y)
A series of "execution steps" form the body of each of those "while wend" loops.
Done in a "pure" manner. As you will note, nothing is mutable in the study. Want to keep it like that.
Each "While" introduces a new scope (as for binding values), which is discarded again, once the while loop is done.
So, I am looking for something like:
run: CommandClassifier -> commandExecutor -> Command list -> EnvType -> EnvType
where
CommandClassifier could be a function of the form Command -> NORMAL|LOOP_START|LOOP_END
and commandexecutor: Command -> EnvType -> EnvType
Of course, nesting of those while-blocks would not be limited to 2 (just tried to keep the testProgram() small).
SideNote: the "commands list" is an AST from a preceding parser run, but that should not really matter.
type MiniLanguage =
| Print of string
| While of string
| Wend of string
let testProgram =
[ Print("Hello, I am your Mini Language program")
While("names")
Print("<names>")
While("pets")
Print("<pets>")
Wend("pets")
Print("Done with pets.")
Wend("names")
Print("Done with names.")
]
type MiniEnvironment = { Bindings : Map<string,string>; Collections : Map<string, string list> }
let init collections =
{ Bindings = Map.empty; Collections = Map.ofList collections}
let bind n v env =
let newBindings =
env.Bindings
|> Map.remove n
|> Map.add n v
{ env with Bindings = newBindings; }
let unbind n env =
{ env with Bindings = Map.remove n env.Bindings; }
let bindingValue n env =
if env.Bindings.ContainsKey n then
Some(env.Bindings.Item n)
else
None
let consumeFirstFromCollection n env =
if env.Collections.ContainsKey n then
let coll = env.Collections.Item n
match coll with
| [] -> env |> unbind n
| _ ->
let first = coll.Head
let newCollections =
env.Collections
|> Map.remove n
|> Map.add n coll.Tail
{ env with Collections = newCollections }
|> bind n first
else failwith ("Unknown collection: " + n)
// All do functions take env - the execution environment - as last argument.
// All do functions return (a new) env as single return parameter.
let rec doPrint (s : string) env =
if s.StartsWith("<") && s.EndsWith(">") then
match bindingValue (s.Substring (1, s.Length - 2 )) env with
| Some(v) -> v
| _ -> s
else s
|> printfn "%s"
env
let rec skipPastWend name code =
match code with
| (Wend(cl) :: rest) when cl = name -> rest
| [] -> failwith "No Wend found!"
| (_ :: rest) -> skipPastWend name rest
let rec doWhileX name code env =
match code with
| (Print(s) :: rest) -> env |> (doPrint s) |> doWhileX name rest
| (While(cn) :: rest) -> env |> doWhile cn rest |> ignore; env |> doWhileX name (skipPastWend cn rest)
| (Wend(cn) :: rest) when cn = name -> env
| [] -> failwith ("While without Wend for: " + name)
| _ -> failwith ("nested while refering to same collection!")
and doWhile name code env =
let e0 = env |> consumeFirstFromCollection name
match bindingValue name e0 with
| Some(s) ->
e0 |> doWhileX name code |> doWhile name code
| None -> env
let rec run (program : MiniLanguage list) env =
match program with
| (Print(s) :: rest) -> env |> (doPrint s) |> run rest
| (While(cn) :: rest) ->
env
|> doWhile cn rest |> ignore
env |> run (skipPastWend cn program)
| (Wend(cn) :: rest) -> failwith "wend found in run()"
| [] -> env
let test() =
init [ "names", ["name1"; "name2"; "name3"; ]; "pets", ["pet1"; "pet2"] ]
|> run testProgram
|> printfn "%A"
(*
Running test() yields:
Hello, I am your Mini Language program
name1
pet1
pet2
Done with pets.
name2
pet1
pet2
Done with pets.
name3
pet1
pet2
Done with pets.
Done with names.
{Bindings = map [];
Collections =
map [("names", ["name1"; "name2"; "name3"]); ("pets", ["pet1"; "pet2"])];}
*)
Here my first version of isolating the algorithm. The number of callbacks is not entirely pretty. Can anyone come up with something simpler?
// The only function I had to "modify" to work with new "generalized" algorithm.
let consumeFirstFromCollection1 n env =
if env.Collections.ContainsKey n then
let coll = env.Collections.Item n
match coll with
| [] -> (env |> unbind n , false)
| _ ->
let first = coll.Head
let newCollections =
env.Collections
|> Map.remove n
|> Map.add n coll.Tail
({ env with Collections = newCollections }
|> bind n first , true)
else failwith ("Unknown collection: " + n)
type NamedList<'n,'t when 'n : comparison> = 'n * List<'t>
type Action<'a,'c> = 'c -> 'a -> 'a
type LoopPreparer<'a,'c> = 'c -> 'a -> 'a * bool
type CommandType = | RUN | BEGIN | END
type CommandClassifier<'c> = 'c -> CommandType
type Skipper<'c> = 'c -> List<'c> -> List<'c>
type InterpreterContext<'a,'c> =
{ classifier : CommandClassifier<'c>
executor : Action<'a,'c>
skipper : Skipper<'c>
prepareLoop : LoopPreparer<'a,'c>
isMatchingEnd : 'c -> 'c -> bool
}
let interpret (context : InterpreterContext<'a,'c>) (program : 'c list) (env : 'a) : 'a =
let rec loop front (code : 'c list) e =
let e0,hasData = e |> context.prepareLoop front
if hasData
then
e0
|> loop1 front (code)
|> loop front (code)
else e
and loop1 front code e =
match code with
| x :: more when (context.classifier x) = RUN ->
//printfn "RUN %A" x
e |> context.executor x |> loop1 front more
| x :: more when (context.classifier x) = BEGIN ->
//printfn "BEGIN %A" x
e |> loop x more |> ignore
e |> loop1 front (context.skipper x more)
| x :: more when (((context.classifier x) = END) && (context.isMatchingEnd front x)) -> /// && (context.isMatchingEnd front x)
//printfn "END %A" x
e
| [] -> failwith "No END."
| _ -> failwith "TODO: Not sure which case this is. But it is not a legal one!"
let rec interpr code e =
match code with
| [] -> e
| (first :: rest) ->
match context.classifier first with
| RUN -> env |> context.executor first |> interpr rest
| BEGIN ->
e |> loop first rest |> ignore
e |> interpr (context.skipper first rest)
| END -> failwith "END without BEGIN."
interpr program env
let test1() =
let context : InterpreterContext<MiniEnvironment,MiniLanguage> =
{ classifier = fun c-> match c with | MiniLanguage.Print(_) -> RUN | MiniLanguage.While(_) -> BEGIN | MiniLanguage.Wend(_) -> END;
executor = fun c env -> match c with | Print(s) -> doPrint s env | _ -> failwith "Not a known command.";
skipper = fun c cl -> match c with | While(n) -> skipPastWend n cl | _ -> failwith "first arg of skipper SHALL be While!"
prepareLoop = fun c env -> match c with | While(n) -> (consumeFirstFromCollection1 n env) | _ -> failwith "first arg of skipper SHALL be While!"
isMatchingEnd = fun cwhile cx -> match cwhile,cx with | (While(n),Wend(p)) when n = p -> true | _ -> false
}
init [ "names", ["name1"; "name2"; "name3"; ]; "pets", ["pet1"; "pet2"] ]
|> interpret context testProgram
|> printfn "%A"

performance of static member constraint functions

I'm trying to learn static member constraints in F#. From reading Tomas Petricek's blog post, I understand that writing an inline function that "uses only operations that are themselves written using static member constraints" will make my function work correctly for all numeric types that satisfy those constraints. This question indicates that inline works somewhat similarly to c++ templates, so I wasn't expecting any performance difference between these two functions:
let MultiplyTyped (A : double[,]) (B : double[,]) =
let rA, cA = (Array2D.length1 A) - 1, (Array2D.length2 A) - 1
let cB = (Array2D.length2 B) - 1
let C = Array2D.zeroCreate<double> (Array2D.length1 A) (Array2D.length2 B)
for i = 0 to rA do
for k = 0 to cA do
for j = 0 to cB do
C.[i,j] <- C.[i,j] + A.[i,k] * B.[k,j]
C
let inline MultiplyGeneric (A : 'T[,]) (B : 'T[,]) =
let rA, cA = Array2D.length1 A - 1, Array2D.length2 A - 1
let cB = Array2D.length2 B - 1
let C = Array2D.zeroCreate<'T> (Array2D.length1 A) (Array2D.length2 B)
for i = 0 to rA do
for k = 0 to cA do
for j = 0 to cB do
C.[i,j] <- C.[i,j] + A.[i,k] * B.[k,j]
C
Nevertheless, to multiply two 1024 x 1024 matrixes, MultiplyTyped completes in an average of 2550 ms on my machine, whereas MultiplyGeneric takes about 5150 ms. I originally thought that zeroCreate was at fault in the generic version, but changing that line to the one below didn't make a difference.
let C = Array2D.init<'T> (Array2D.length1 A) (Array2D.length2 B) (fun i j -> LanguagePrimitives.GenericZero)
Is there something I'm missing here to make MultiplyGeneric perform the same as MultiplyTyped? Or is this expected?
edit: I should mention that this is VS2010, F# 2.0, Win7 64bit, release build. Platform target is x64 (to test larger matrices) - this makes a difference: x86 produces similar results for the two functions.
Bonus question: the type inferred for MultiplyGeneric is the following:
val inline MultiplyGeneric :
^T [,] -> ^T [,] -> ^T [,]
when ( ^T or ^a) : (static member ( + ) : ^T * ^a -> ^T) and
^T : (static member ( * ) : ^T * ^T -> ^a)
Where does the ^a type come from?
edit 2: here's my testing code:
let r = new System.Random()
let A = Array2D.init 1024 1024 (fun i j -> r.NextDouble())
let B = Array2D.init 1024 1024 (fun i j -> r.NextDouble())
let test f =
let sw = System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch.StartNew()
f() |> ignore
sw.Stop()
printfn "%A" sw.ElapsedMilliseconds
for i = 1 to 5 do
test (fun () -> MultiplyTyped A B)
for i = 1 to 5 do
test (fun () -> MultiplyGeneric A B)
Good question. I'll answer the easy part first: the ^a is just part of the natural generalization process. Imagine you had a type like this:
type T = | T with
static member (+)(T, i:int) = T
static member (*)(T, T) = 0
Then you can still use your MultiplyGeneric function with arrays of this type: multiplying elements of A and B will give you ints, but that's okay because you can still add them to elements of C and get back values of type T to store back into C.
As to your performance question, I'm afraid I don't have a great explanation. Your basic understanding is right - using MultiplyGeneric with double[,] arguments should be equivalent to using MultiplyTyped. If you use ildasm to look at the IL the compiler generates for the following F# code:
let arr = Array2D.zeroCreate 1024 1024
let f1 = MultiplyTyped arr
let f2 = MultiplyGeneric arr
let timer = System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch()
timer.Start()
f1 arr |> ignore
printfn "%A" timer.Elapsed
timer.Restart()
f2 arr |> ignore
printfn "%A" timer.Elapsed
then you can see that the compiler really does generate identical code for each of them, putting the inlined code for MultipyGeneric into an internal static function. The only difference that I see in the generated code is in the names of locals, and when running from the command line I get roughly equal elapsed times. However, running from FSI I see a difference similar to what you've reported.
It's not clear to me why this would be. As I see it there are two possibilities:
FSI's code generation may be doing something slightly different than the static compiler
The CLR's JIT compiler may be treat code generated at runtime slightly differently from compiled code. For instance, as I mentioned my code above using MultiplyGeneric actually results in an internal method that contains the inlined body. Perhaps the CLR's JIT handles the difference between public and internal methods differently when they are generated at runtime than when they are in statically compiled code.
I'd like to see your benchmarks. I don't get the same results (VS 2012 F# 3.0 Win 7 64-bit).
let m = Array2D.init 1024 1024 (fun i j -> float i * float j)
let test f =
let sw = System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch.StartNew()
f() |> ignore
sw.Stop()
printfn "%A" sw.Elapsed
test (fun () -> MultiplyTyped m m)
> 00:00:09.6013188
test (fun () -> MultiplyGeneric m m)
> 00:00:09.1686885
Decompiling with Reflector, the functions look identical.
Regarding your last question, the least restrictive constraint is inferred. In this line
C.[i,j] <- C.[i,j] + A.[i,k] * B.[k,j]
because the result type of A.[i,k] * B.[k,j] is unspecified, and is passed immediately to (+), an extra type could be involved. If you want to tighten the constraint you can replace that line with
let temp : 'T = A.[i,k] * B.[k,j]
C.[i,j] <- C.[i,j] + temp
That will change the signature to
val inline MultiplyGeneric :
A: ^T [,] -> B: ^T [,] -> ^T [,]
when ^T : (static member ( * ) : ^T * ^T -> ^T) and
^T : (static member ( + ) : ^T * ^T -> ^T)
EDIT
Using your test, here's the output:
//MultiplyTyped
00:00:09.9904615
00:00:09.5489653
00:00:10.0562346
00:00:09.7023183
00:00:09.5123992
//MultiplyGeneric
00:00:09.1320273
00:00:08.8195283
00:00:08.8523408
00:00:09.2496603
00:00:09.2950196
Here's the same test on ideone (with a few minor changes to stay within the time limit: 512x512 matrix and one test iteration). It runs F# 2.0 and produced similar results.

How should I modify my Queue class to allow users to create empty queues of unspecified type in F#?

I have created an immutable Queue in F# as follows:
type Queue<'a>(f : 'a list, r : 'a list) =
let check = function
| [], r -> Queue(List.rev r, [])
| f, r -> Queue(f, r)
member this.hd =
match f with
| [] -> failwith "empty"
| hd :: tl -> hd
member this.tl =
match f, r with
| [], _ -> failwith "empty"
| hd::f, r -> check(f, r)
member this.add(x) = check(f, x::r)
static member empty : Queue<'a> = Queue([], [])
I want to create an instance of an empty Queue, however I get a value-restriction exception:
> let test = Queue.empty;;
let test = Queue.empty;;
----^^^^
C:\Documents and Settings\juliet\Local Settings\Temp\stdin(5,5): error FS0030:
Value restriction. The value 'test' has been inferred to have generic type
val test : Queue<'_a>
Either define 'test' as a simple data term, make it a function with explicit
arguments or, if you do not intend for it to be generic, add a type annotation.
Basically, I want the same kind of functionality seen in the Set module which allows me to write:
> let test = Set.empty;;
val test : Set<'a>
How can I modify my Queue class to allow users to create empty queues?
You need to use GeneralizableValueAttribute, a la:
type Queue<'a>(f : 'a list, r : 'a list) = // '
let check = function
| [], r -> Queue(List.rev r, [])
| f, r -> Queue(f, r)
member this.hd =
match f with
| [] -> failwith "empty"
| hd :: tl -> hd
member this.tl =
match f, r with
| [], _ -> failwith "empty"
| hd::f, r -> check(f, r)
member this.add(x) = check(f, x::r)
module Queue =
[<GeneralizableValue>]
let empty<'T> : Queue<'T> = Queue<'T>([], []) // '
let test = Queue.empty
let x = test.add(1) // x is Queue<int>
let y = test.add("two") // y is Queue<string>
You can read a little more about it in the language spec.

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