Random function in Racket - random

Hello I have this function that makes randomly: a, b, c or d.
(define random-abcd
(let ([n (random 4)])
(cond [(equal? n 0) 'A]
[(equal? n 1) 'B]
[(equal? n 2) 'C]
[else 'D])))
That means I have 4 possible random outputs. But I would like to build a recusrsive function that gives an output between a number I give as parameter.
For example:
random-my 3 -> gives and output between: a b or c
random-my 5 -> gives and output between: a b c d or e
Thank you!

You could pass a number n and you can do (random n) to get a random number r in the range [0,n>. Now The char number for #\a is 97 so if you do (integer->char (+ 97 r)) you get #\a for 0, #\b for 1, ...
You can get a string with (list->string (list #\a)) ; ===> "a".
You can get a symbol with (string->symbol "a") ; ==> a
I leave it to you to put it all together, however it's not recursive.

Try:
(list-ref '(a b c d e f) (random 6))

fun problem. one way i can think of to do this is to use a vector (since it's zero-indexed and random-access) and given a number, choose a random number smaller than that value. once you have the number, then use that as the index into the vector to get the character in the vector at that index. in essence, you're just randomly indexing into 'slices' of the vector and slice size is determined by input argument.

Recursive fn to produce a random list of n letters till nth letter:
(define (f n (ol '()))
(if (= n (length ol))
ol
(f n (cons (string (integer->char (+ 97 (random n)))) ol))))
Testing:
(f 5)
Output:
'("b" "d" "b" "e" "e") ; list will have random letters;

Related

SICP Exercise 2.5 - How to represent negative numbers?

I'm currently reading the SICP, and working on Exercise 2.5 :
Exercise 2.5. Show that we can represent pairs of nonnegative integers using only numbers and arithmetic operations if we represent the pair a and b as the integer that is the product 2a3b. Give the corresponding definitions of the procedures cons, car, and cdr.
And I've found a code:
(define (my-cons a b)
(* (expt 2 a) (expt 3 b)))
(define (my-car x)
(define (car-iter x count)
(if (= 0 (remainder x 2))
(car-iter (/ x 2) (+ 1 count))
count))
(car-iter x 0))
(define (my-cdr x)
(define (cdr-iter x count)
(if (= 0 (remainder x 3))
(cdr-iter (/ x 3) (+ 1 count))
count))
(cdr-iter x 0))
My question is : What if the requirement of "Nonnegative integers" needs to be changed to "Accept both negative and nonnegative integers" ?
Example :
> (define x (my-cons 2 -5))
> (my-car x)
2
> (my-cdr x)
-5
How to modify the code? I can't figure it out.
Thank you. May you have a great day.
As amalloy said in a comment this is really a maths problem. This encoding works because of the fundamental theorem of arithmetic, which is that any positive natural number has a unique prime factorisation: every positive natural can be represented uniquely as the product of a number of primes raised to powers, where in particular 1 is the product of no primes.
So you could encode the sign of the integers using one or more additional prime factors (you only need one, in fact, as you can for instance write the thing as 2^a3^b5^s where s is an integer in [0,3] which encodes the signs of both elements).
An alternative way is simply to use the existing representation but to map the integers to the naturals. This is nice because it's a practical demonstration that there are no more integers than naturals. Such a map might be:
if i >= 0 then 2i.
otherswise -2i - 1.
It's easy to see that this is a one-to-one correspondence, and also that 0 maps to 0 (which makes 0 a nice value for nil).
Here are these maps, written (sorry) in typed Racket as I'm trying to work out if I can use it.
(define (Z->N (i : Integer)) : Natural
;; map an integer to a natural
(if (>= i 0)
(* i 2)
(- (* (- i) 2) 1)))
(define (N->Z (n : Natural)) : Integer
;; map the naturals into the integers
(let-values ([(q r) (quotient/remainder n 2)])
(if (zero? r)
q
(- (- q) 1))))
Now there is another problem with the implementation you have: it will happily handle numbers which are not of the form 2^a3^b, for instance anything which has other prime factors. The way to deal with that is to check that numbers are of that form when extracting the powers: in practice this means checking the number is of the form 2^a*3^b*1.
So the code below does this, as well as encoding integers as above. This again is in typed Racket (sorry, again), and it also makes use of multiple values and probably some other things which only exist in Racket.
(define (defactor (n : Natural) (p : Natural)) : (Values Natural Natural)
;; Given n and a factor p, return m where p does not divide m,
;; and j, the number of factors of p removed (so n = m*p^j)
(let df-loop ([m : Natural n]
[j : Natural 0])
(let-values ([(q r) (quotient/remainder m p)])
(if (zero? r)
(df-loop q (+ j 1))
(values m j)))))
(define (kar&kdr (k : Positive-Integer)) : (Values Integer Integer)
;; Given something which should be a kons, return its kar & kdr.
;; If it is not a kons signal an error
(let*-values ([(k2 encoded-kar) (defactor k 2)]
[(k23 encoded-kdr) (defactor k2 3)])
(unless (= k23 1)
(error 'kar&kdr "not a cons"))
(values (N->Z encoded-kar) (N->Z encoded-kdr))))
(define (kons (the-kar : Integer) (the-kdr : Integer)) : Positive-Integer
(* (expt 2 (Z->N the-kar))
(expt 3 (Z->N the-kdr))))
(define (kar (the-kons : Positive-Integer)) : Integer
(let-values ([(the-kar the-kdr) (kar&kdr the-kons)])
the-kar))
(define (kdr (the-kons : Positive-Integer)) : Integer
(let-values ([(the-kar the-kdr) (kar&kdr the-kons)])
the-kdr))
We can go a little further and define a representation of the empty list, which will be 0 and a way of making lists:
;;; since 2^a3^b is never zero, 0 is a good candidate for the empty
;;; list: 'kill' is a pun on 'nil'.
;;;
(define kill : Zero 0)
;;; And now we can write some predicates and a version of list.
;;; (kist 1 2 3) takes a very, very long time.
;;;
(define (kill? (x : Natural)) : Boolean
(zero? x))
(define (kons? (x : Natural)) : Boolean
(not (kill? x)))
(define (kist . (l : Integer *)) : Natural
(let kist/spread ((lt l))
(if (null? lt)
kill
(kons (first lt) (kist/spread (rest lt))))))
And now
> (define d (kons 123 -456))
> d
- : Integer [more precisely: Nonnegative-Integer]
51385665200410193914365219310409629004573395973849642473134969706165383608831740620563388986738635202925909198851954060195023302783671526117732269828652603388431987979605951272414330987611274752111186624164906143978901704325355283206259678088536996807776750955110998323447711166379786727609752016045005681785186498933895920793982869940159108073471074955985333560653268614500306816876936016985137986665262182684386364851688838680773491949813254691225004097103180392486216812280763694296818736638062547181764608
> (kar d)
- : Integer
123
> (kdr d)
- : Integer
-456
> (kdr (+ d 1))
kar&kdr: not a cons [,bt for context]
If you try to compute, say (kist 1 2 3) it will take a very, very long time.

Finding primes up to a certain number in Racket

I'm learning Racket (with the HtDP course) and it's my first shot at a program in a functional language.
I've tried to design a function that finds all primes under a certain input n using (what I think is) a functional approach to the problem, but the program can get really slow (86 seconds for 100.000, while my Python, C and C++ quickly-written solutions take just a couple of seconds).
The following is the code:
;; Natural Natural -> Boolean
;; Helper function to avoid writing the handful (= 0 (modulo na nb))
(define (divisible na nb) (= 0 (modulo na nb)))
;; Natural ListOfNatural -> Boolean
;; n is the number to check, lop is ALL the prime numbers less than n
(define (is-prime? n lop)
(cond [(empty? lop) true]
[(divisible n (first lop)) false]
[ else (is-prime? n (rest lop))]))
;; Natural -> ListOfNatural
(define (find-primes n)
(if (= n 2)
(list 2)
(local [(define LOP (find-primes (sub1 n)))]
(if (is-prime? n LOP)
(append LOP (list n))
LOP))))
(time (find-primes 100000))
I'm using the divisible function instead of just plowing the rest in because I really like to have separated functions when they could be of use in another part of the program. I also should probably define is-prime? inside of find-primes, since no one will ever call is-prime? on a number while also giving all the prime numbers less than that number.
Any pointers on how to improve this?
Here are some ideas for improving the performance, the procedure now returns in under two seconds for n = 100000.
(define (is-prime? n lop)
(define sqrtn (sqrt n))
(if (not (or (= (modulo n 6) 1) (= (modulo n 6) 5)))
false
(let loop ([lop lop])
(cond [(or (empty? lop) (< sqrtn (first lop))) true]
[(zero? (modulo n (first lop))) false]
[else (loop (rest lop))]))))
(define (find-primes n)
(cond [(<= n 1) '()]
[(= n 2) '(2)]
[(= n 3) '(2 3)]
[else
(let loop ([lop '(2 3)] [i 5])
(cond [(> i n) lop]
[(is-prime? i lop) (loop (append lop (list i)) (+ i 2))]
[else (loop lop (+ i 2))]))]))
Some of the optimizations are language-related, others are algorithmic:
The recursion was converted to be in tail position. In this way, the recursive call is the last thing we do at each step, with nothing else to do after it - and the compiler can optimize it to be as efficient as a loop in other programming languages.
The loop in find-primes was modified for only iterating over odd numbers. Note that we go from 3 to n instead of going from n to 2.
divisible was inlined and (sqrt n) is calculated only once.
is-prime? only checks up until sqrt(n), it makes no sense to look for primes after that. This is the most important optimization, instead of being O(n) the algorithm is now O(sqrt(n)).
Following #law-of-fives's advice, is-prime? now skips the check when n is not congruent to 1 or 5 modulo 6.
Also, normally I'd recommend to build the list using cons instead of append, but in this case we need the prime numbers list to be constructed in ascending order for the most important optimization in is-prime? to work.
Here's Óscar López's code, tweaked to build the list in the top-down manner:
(define (is-prime? n lop)
(define sqrtn (sqrt n))
(let loop ([lop lop])
(cond [(or (empty? lop) (< sqrtn (mcar lop))) true]
[(zero? (modulo n (mcar lop))) false]
[else (loop (mcdr lop))])))
(define (find-primes n)
(let* ([a (mcons 3 '())]
[b (mcons 2 a)])
(let loop ([p a] [i 5] [d 2] ; d = diff +2 +4 +2 ...
[c 2]) ; c = count of primes found
(cond [(> i n) c]
[(is-prime? i (mcdr a))
(set-mcdr! p (mcons i '()))
(loop (mcdr p) (+ i d) (- 6 d) (+ c 1))]
[else (loop p (+ i d) (- 6 d) c )]))))
Runs at about ~n1.25..1.32, empirically; compared to the original's ~n1.8..1.9, in the measured range, inside DrRacket (append is the culprit of that bad behaviour). The "under two seconds" for 100K turns into under 0.05 seconds; two seconds gets you well above 1M (one million):
; (time (length (find-primes 100000))) ; with cons times in milliseconds
; 10K 156 ; 20K 437 ; 40K 1607 ; 80K 5241 ; 100K 7753 .... n^1.8-1.9-1.7 OP's
; 10K 62 ; 20K 109 ; 40K 421 ; 80K 1217 ; 100K 2293 .... n^1.8-1.9 Óscar's
; mcons:
(time (find-primes 2000000))
; 100K 47 ; 200K 172 ; 1M 1186 ; 2M 2839 ; 3M 4851 ; 4M 7036 .... n^1.25-1.32 this
; 9592 17984 78498 148933 216816 283146
It's still just a trial division though... :) The sieve of Eratosthenes will be much faster yet.
edit: As for set-cdr!, it is easy to emulate any lazy algorithm with it... Otherwise, we could use extendable arrays (lists of...), for the amortized O(1) snoc/append1 operation (that's lots and lots of coding); or maintain the list of primes split in two (three, actually; see the code below), building the second portion in reverse with cons, and appending it in reverse to the first portion only every so often (specifically, judging the need by the next prime's square):
; times: ; 2M 1934 ; 3M 3260 ; 4M 4665 ; 6M 8081 .... n^1.30
;; find primes up to and including n, n > 2
(define (find-primes n)
(let loop ( [k 5] [q 9] ; next candidate; square of (car LOP2)
[LOP1 (list 2)] ; primes to test by
[LOP2 (list 3)] ; more primes
[LOP3 (list )] ) ; even more primes, in reverse
(cond [ (> k n)
(append LOP1 LOP2 (reverse LOP3)) ]
[ (= k q)
(if (null? (cdr LOP2))
(loop k q LOP1 (append LOP2 (reverse LOP3)) (list))
(loop (+ k 2)
(* (cadr LOP2) (cadr LOP2)) ; next prime's square
(append LOP1 (list (car LOP2)))
(cdr LOP2) LOP3 )) ]
[ (is-prime? k (cdr LOP1))
(loop (+ k 2) q LOP1 LOP2 (cons k LOP3)) ]
[ else
(loop (+ k 2) q LOP1 LOP2 LOP3 ) ])))
;; n is the number to check, lop is list of prime numbers to check it by
(define (is-prime? n lop)
(cond [ (null? lop) #t ]
[ (divisible n (car lop)) #f ]
[ else (is-prime? n (cdr lop)) ]))
edit2: The easiest and simplest fix though, closest to your code, was to decouple the primes calculations of the resulting list, and of the list to check divisibility by. In your
(local [(define LOP (find-primes (sub1 n)))]
(if (is-prime? n LOP)
LOP is used as the list of primes to check by, and it is reused as part of the result list in
(append LOP (list n))
LOP))))
immediately afterwards. Breaking this entanglement enables us to stop the generation of testing primes list at the sqrt of the upper limit, and thus it gives us:
;times: ; 1M-1076 2M-2621 3M-4664 4M-6693
; n^1.28 ^1.33 n^1.32
(define (find-primes n)
(cond
((<= n 4) (list 2 3))
(else
(let* ([LOP (find-primes (inexact->exact (floor (sqrt n))))]
[lp (last LOP)])
(local ([define (primes k ps)
(if (<= k lp)
(append LOP ps)
(primes (- k 2) (if (is-prime? k LOP)
(cons k ps)
ps)))])
(primes (if (> (modulo n 2) 0) n (- n 1)) '()))))))
It too uses the same is-prime? code as in the question, unaltered, as does the second variant above.
It is slower than the 2nd variant. The algorithmic reason for this is clear — it tests all numbers from sqrt(n) to n by the same list of primes, all smaller or equal to the sqrt(n) — but in testing a given prime p < n it is enough to use only those primes that are not greater than sqrt(p), not sqrt(n). But it is the closest to your original code.
For comparison, in Haskell-like syntax, under strict evaluation,
isPrime n lop = null [() | p <- lop, rem n p == 0]
-- OP:
findprimes 2 = [2]
findprimes n = lop ++ [n | isPrime n lop]
where lop = findprimes (n-1)
= lop ++ [n | n <- [q+1..n], isPrime n lop]
where lop = findprimes q ; q = (n-1)
-- 3rd:
findprimes n | n < 5 = [2,3]
findprimes n = lop ++ [n | n <- [q+1..n], isPrime n lop]
where lop = findprimes q ;
q = floor $ sqrt $ fromIntegral n
-- 2nd:
findprimes n = g 5 9 [2] [3] []
where
g k q a b c
| k > n = a ++ b ++ reverse c
| k == q, [h] <- b = g k q a (h:reverse c) []
| k == q, (h:p:ps) <- b = g (k+2) (p*p) (a++[h]) (p:ps) c
| isPrime k a = g (k+2) q a b (k:c)
| otherwise = g (k+2) q a b c
The b and c together (which is to say, LOP2 and LOP3 in the Scheme code) actually constitute a pure functional queue a-la Okasaki, from which sequential primes are taken and appended at the end of the maintained primes prefix a (i.e. LOP1) now and again, on each consecutive prime's square being passed, for a to be used in the primality testing by isPrime.
Because of the rarity of this appending, its computational inefficiency has no impact on the time complexity of the code overall.

Scheme Procedure that takes an argument and outputs a value

I am trying to write a procedure called bal-val that has to take in a single argument and output the value of the ball. The values for the balls are R = 5, G=4, B = 3, and W = 1.
The code I have is:
(define (bal-val n)
(if (= n R))
(= n 5)
(if (= n G))
(= n 4)
(if (= n B))
(= n 3)
(if (= n W))
(= n 1))
First of all (= n 5) applys the function = to the constant 5 and the variable n. Therefore it returns a Boolean value, it does not set n to be 5.
The main issue though is wrong use of Predicates:
= predicate is used to check whether two numbers are equal. If you supply anything else (but a number) it will raise an error.
The eq? predicate is used to check whether its two parameters respresent the same object in memory.
The equal? predicate tests for same value in primitive types and can also check two lists, vectors, etc.
This is what you are trying to do:
(define (bal-val n)
(if (equal? n 'R)
5
(if (equal? n 'G)
4
(if (equal? n 'B)
3
(if (equal? n 'W)
1
(error 'not_found))))))
You might want to use cond in this case as it resembles switch behavior more naturally. Done like so:
(define (bal-val-cond n)
(cond ((equal? n 'R) 5)
((equal? n 'G) 4)
((equal? n 'B) 3)
((equal? n 'W) 1)
(else (error 'not_found))))
coding 101 - ALWAYS indent your code correctly, it makes it understandable and with time errors will stand out and you will be able to spot them much quicker.

+: expects type <number> as 2nd argument, given: #<void>;

I'm currently working on exercise 1.29 of SICP, and my program keeps giving me the following error:
+: expects type <number> as 2nd argument, given: #<void>; other arguments were: 970299/500000
Here's the code I'm running using racket:
(define (cube x)
(* x x x))
(define (integral2 f a b n)
(define (get-mult k)
(cond ((= k 0) 1)
((even? k) 4)
(else 2)))
(define (h b a n)
(/ (- b a) n))
(define (y f a b h k)
(f (+ a (* k (h b a n)))))
(define (iter f a b n k)
(cond ((> n k)
(+ (* (get-mult k)
(y f a b h k))
(iter f a b n (+ k 1))))))
(iter f a b n 0))
(integral2 cube 0 1 100)
I'm guessing the "2nd argument" is referring to the place where I add the current iteration and future iterations. However, I don't understand why that second argument isn't returning a number. Does anyone know how to remedy this error?
"2nd argument" refers to the second argument to +, which is the expression (iter f a b n (+ k 1)). According to the error message, that expression is evaluating to void, rather than a meaningful value. Why would that be the case?
Well, the entire body of iter is this cond expression:
(cond ((> n k)
(+ (* (get-mult k)
(y f a b h k))
(iter f a b n (+ k 1)))))
Under what circumstances would this expression not evaluate to a number? Well, what does this expression do? It checks if n is greater than k, and in that case it returns the result of an addition, which should be a number. But what if n is less than k or equal to k? It still needs to return a number then, and right now it isn't.
You're missing an else clause in your iter procedure. Ask yourself: what should happen when (<= n k) ? It's the base case of the recursion, and it must return a number, too!
(define (iter f a b n k)
(cond ((> n k)
(+ (* (get-mult k)
(y f a b h k))
(iter f a b n (+ k 1))))
(else <???>))) ; return the appropriate value

Access and change a value created with `define`

I'm making a game, and I have this:
(define b "black piece") (define w "white piece")
(define (board)
(lambda (matrix)
(list ((b w b w b w b w)
(w b w b w b w b)
(b w b w b w b w)
(w b w b w b w b)
(b w b w b w b w)
(w b w b w b w b)
(b w b w b w b w)
(w b w b w b w b)))))
board makes a list with 8 lines and 8 columns of black and white pieces.
How do I access and change elements of the board? How do I do the procedure matrix with recursion?
first a few notes:
(define f (lambda (x) l ))
is the same as
(define (f x) l ))
You however are combining them with
(define (board) (lambda (matrix) l ))
which is the same as
(define board (lambda () (lambda (matrix) l )))
The distinction is important. The first two I have listed bind f to a function that take one parameter and return l. I'm guessing this is what you want to do. In the second two, you're binding board to a function that takes no parameters and returns a function that takes 1 parameter, matrix, (which it doesn't seem to do anything with), and returns a l.
second issue, (list ((b w....) ...)) isn't going to work because it will try to evaluate (b w ...). you need to have list in the function application position for each row of your board like so (list (list b w ...) (list w b ...) ...) in order for you code to even compile.
On to your question. link-ref is included in racket/base and is used for referencing elements in a list when you know the index into the list.
(list-ref 2 (list 'a 'b 'c 'd))
will return 'c. The index starts at 0. Since you have a list of lists, you will need to apply list-ref twice to retrieve a 'b or 'w.
As for changing it, well, you can't. As of r6rs, pairs (which make up lists) are immutable. The recommended way of doing things when possible is to return a new list with your change. you can use this somewhat inefficient version of list-set which returns a copy of the list with your new value at an index.
(define (list-set lis idx val)
(map (lambda (e i)
(if (= i idx) val e))
lis
(iota (length lis))))
In this case however, I would recommend switching to a different data structure more appropriate to the task at hand since you probably want O(1) access to the elements in the board. Look into vectors which behave much like lists but are used for constant lookups and updates. there is a built in vector-ref and vector-set! operations, which you should use instead of my above function.
Incase this is part of a larger problem and you're already using lists everywhere, you can use the vector->list and list->vector functions to go back and forth. Also, you can use mutable lists but don't.
Better still is the multidimensional array library offered in srfi/25, but that might be more complicated that you want to get.
The second part of your question was how to construct the board recursively. Well, here's a version using map.
(require (lib "1.ss" "srfi"))
(define (board)
(map (lambda (x)
(map (lambda (y)
(if (odd? (+ x y)) b w))
(iota 8)))
(iota 8)))
and here's a recursive version
(define (board)
(letrec ((board-helper
(lambda (x)
(if (eq? x 8) '()
(cons (row-helper x 0) (board-helper (+ 1 x))))))
(row-helper
(lambda (x y)
(if (eq? y 8) '()
(cons (if (odd? (+ x y)) b w) (row-helper x (+ 1 y)))))))
(board-helper 0)))

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