sumPicker([[]|_], Y, Z).
sumPicker([X|X1], Y, Z):-
downList(Y, X, Sum),
Total is Z,
Z is Total + Sum,
sumPicker(X1,Y, Z).
downList([Z|_], 1, Z).
downList([_|B],Count, Number):- Count > 1,
SendCount is Count - 1,
downList(B, SendCount, Number).
So this code is basically suppose to take in Two lists sumPicker([3,5], [1,2,3,4,5,6], X). The program then takes the first list and depending on the value of the number, so in this case 3, it will find the third number in the second list then it will find the 5th number of the second list and add them together.
ERROR: is/2: Arguments are not sufficiently instantiated is what i am getting
I'm assuming that your instructor would like you to work out the recursion yourself, rather than using built-in list operations. To that end, you could approach it something like this, using no built-ins at all.
A common prolog idiom is to have a simple "public" predicate that invokes a "helper" predicate that carries state (in this case, the current position in the list and the running sum). Often, that "helper" predicate will have the same functor (name) as the public predicate, with a higher arity (number of arguments).
So, first we have the public predicate, sum_of_desired/3:
sum_of_desired( Indices , Numbers , Sum ) :- % to sum certain list elements,
sum_of_desired( Indices , Numbers , 0 , Sum ) - % invoke the helper
. %
All it does is invoke the helper, sum_of_desired/4. This helper predicate carries an extra argument that is its state: an accumulator that contains the running sum. When it succeeds, that running sum is unified with the final total. This is because, in Prolog, you can't change the value of a variable: once you assign a value to a variable, it ceases to be variable. It become that with which it was unified (that's it's called unification). The only way to undo that assignment is via backtracking.
Typically, a recursive problem has a few special cases and a more general case. So, here, our helper predicate has 2 clauses:
The first clause is the special case: the list of desired indices is empty, in which case the finally sum is the current value of the accumulator (0 initially).
the second clause is the recursive general case: here we find the desired list item, add it to the running total and recurse down, moving on to the next item in the list of desired list items.
sum_of_desired( [] , _ , S , S ) . % the list of desired indices is empty: unify the accumulator with the result.
sum_of_desired( [I|Is] , L , T , S ) :- % otherwise...
get_nth_item(I,L,N) , % - get the nth item from the list
T1 is T+N , % - add it to the running total
sum_of_desired(Is,T1,S) % - and recurse down
. %
Finally, this predicate, get_nth_item/3, simple recursively walks the list, looking for the nth item in the list, where n is relative to 1 (e.g., the first item in the list is at index 1). When it finds it, it's returned as the 3rd argument of the predicate.
Again, here you will note that we have a single terminating special case and the more general recursive special case:
get_nth_item( 1 , [X|_] , X ) . % found it!
get_nth_item( N , [_|Xs] , R ) :- % otherwise...
N > 1 , % - if N > 1 ,
N1 is N-1 , % - decrement N
nth_item( N1 , Xs , R ) % - recurse down.
. % - easy!
Related
countdown(0, Y).
countdown(X, Y):-
append(Y, X, Y),
Y is Y-1,
countdown(X, Y).
So for this program i am trying to make a countdown program which will take Y a number and count down from say 3 to 0 while adding each number to a list so countdown(3, Y). should produce the result Y=[3,2,1]. I can't seem the end the recursion when i run this and i was wondering if anyone could help me?
I cant seem to get this code to work any help? I seem to be getting out of global stack so I dont understand how to end the recursion.
Your original code
countdown( 0 , Y ) .
countdown( X , Y ) :-
append(Y, X, Y),
Y is Y-1,
countdown(X, Y).
has some problems:
countdown(0,Y). doesn't unify Y with anything.
Y is Y-1 is trying to unify Y with the value of Y-1. In Prolog, variables, once bound to a value, cease to be variable: they become that with which they were unified. So if Y was a numeric value, Y is Y-1 would fail. If Y were a variable, depending on your Prolog implementation, it would either fail or throw an error.
You're never working with lists. You are expecting append(Y,X,Y) to magically produce a list.
A common Prolog idiom is to build lists as you recurse along. The tail of the list is passed along on each recursion and the list itself is incomplete. A complete list is one in which the last item is the atom [], denoting the empty list. While building a list this way, the last item is always a variable and the list won't be complete until the recursion succeeds. So, the simple solution is just to build the list as you recurse down:
countdown( 0 , [] ) . % The special case.
countdown( N , [N|Ns] ) :- % The general case: to count down from N...
N > 0 , % - N must be greater than 0.
N1 is N-1 , % - decrement N
countdown(N1,Ns) % - recurse down, with the original N prepended to the [incomplete] result list.
. % Easy!
You might note that this will succeed for countdown(0,L), producing L = []. You could fix it by changing up the rules a we bit. The special (terminating) case is a little different and the general case enforces a lower bound of N > 1 instead of N > 0.
countdown( 1 , [1] ) .
countdown( N , [N|Ns] ) :-
N > 1 ,
N1 is N-1 ,
countdown(N1,Ns)
.
If you really wanted to use append/3, you could. It introduces another common Prolog idiom: the concept of a helper predicate that carries state and does all the work. It is common for the helper predicate to have the same name as the "public" predicate, with a higher arity. Something like this:
countdown(N,L) :- % to count down from N to 1...
N > 0 , % - N must first be greater than 0,
countdown(N,[],L) % - then, we just invoke the helper with its accumulator seeded as the empty list
. % Easy!
Here, countdown/2 is our "public predicate. It calls countdown/3 to do the work. The additional argument carries the required state. That helper will look like something like this:
countdown( 0 , L , L ) . % once the countdown is complete, unify the accumulator with the result list
countdown( N , T , L ) . % otherwise...
N > 0 , % - if N is greater than 0
N1 is N-1 , % - decrement N
append(T,[N],T1) , % - append N to the accumulator (note that append/3 requires lists)
countdown(N1,T1,L) % - and recurse down.
. %
You might notice that using append/3 like this means that it iterates over the accumulator on each invocation, thus giving you O(N2) performance rather than the desired O(N) performance.
One way to avoid this is to just build the list in reverse order and reverse that at the very end. This requires just a single extra pass over the list, meaning you get O(2N) performance rather than O(N2) performance. That gives you this helper:
countdown( 0 , T , L ) :- % once the countdown is complete,
reverse(T,L) % reverse the accumulator and unify it with the result list
. %
countdown( N , T , L ) :- % otherwise...
N > 0 , % - if N is greater than 0
N1 is N-1 , % - decrement N
append(T,[N],T1) , % - append N to the accumulator (note that append/3 requires lists)
countdown(N1,T1,L) % - and recurse down.
. %
There are several errors in your code:
first clause does not unify Y.
second clause uses append with first and third argument Y, which would only succeed if X=[].
in that clause you are trying to unify Y with another value which will always fail.
Y should be a list (according to your comment) in the head but you are using it to unify an integer.
You might do it this way:
countdown(X, L):-
findall(Y, between(1, X, Y), R),
reverse(R, L).
between/3 will give you every number from 1 to X (backtracking). Therefore findall/3 can collect all the numbers. This will give you ascending order so we reverse/2 it to get the descending order.
If you want to code yourself recursively:
countdown(X, [X|Z]):-
X > 1,
Y is X-1,
countdown(Y, Z).
countdown(1, [1]).
Base case (clause 2) states that number 1 yields a list with item 1.
Recursive clause (first clause) states that if X is greater than 1 then the output list should contain X appended with the result from the recursive call.
So, the story began with counting the number of elements inside a list.
Then, I encountered this code when I searched for the solutions in Internet.
count([],0).
count([_HEAD|TAIL],X) :-
count(TAIL,X1),
X is X1+1.
However, there was no clear explanation on how the code actually worked and that is why I ask here in order to get a clear explanation about this code.
Hope that someone can explain step by step so that I can understand better.
Please think declaratively. You are relating a list to its length, so a better, relational name would be list_length/2: The first argument is a list, the second its length.
Obviously, the length of the empty list [] is 0.
Further, if Tail is a list of length L0, then the length of [_|Tail] is the number L0 + 1.
count([] ,0) means that an empty list has 0 element.
Now, to count the elements of a list
count([_HEAD|TAIL],X):-
% we remove the first element of the list
% we count the elements of the rest of the list
count(TAIL,X1),
% and we add 1 to the number of the elements of the rest
X is X1+1.
Learning to think recursively is hard. Most recursive problems can be broken down into a few "special cases" and the general case. In this case, we have two cases:
the empty list. This is our special case. The length of the empty list is ALWAYS zero.
A non-empty list. This is our general case.We have the list's head (a single item) and its tail (the remainder of the list: zero or more items). So, we can say that the length of a non-empty list is the length of its tail, plus 1 (the head).
Prolog lets you simply declare these to be facts defining truth. Then we let the Prolog inference engine determine the truth or falsity of an assertion. To whit:
count( [] , 0 ) . % The count of an empty list is zero
count( [_|Xs] , N ) :- % If the list is non-empty,
count( Xs, T ) , % - we count its tail as T
N is T+1 % - and then add 1.
. %
Then... you can say things like:
?- count([],3).
false.
?- count([a,b,c],3).
true.
This also works in a generative manner:
?- count( List , 3 ) .
List = [_G938, _G941, _G944] .
Or even...
?- count(X,N).
X = [], N = 0 ;
X = [_G950], N = 1 ;
X = [_G950, _G953], N = 2 ;
X = [_G950, _G953, _G956], N = 3 ;
...
Note that this is not tail-recursive and feed a list of sufficient length, will eventually overflow its stack.
You can write it in a tail-recursive manner as well, which might be easier to understand:
count( Xs , N ) :- % to count the number of items in a list,
count( Xs , 0 , N ) % - invoke the helper, seeding the accumulator with 0.
. %
count( [] , N , N ) . % if the source list is empty, the accumulator contains the number of items in the list.
count( [_|Xs] , T , N ) :- % otherwise (source list is non-empty)
T1 is T+1 , % - increment the accumulator, and
count(Xs,T1,N) % - recurse down on the tail, passing the incremented accumulator
. %
Hello I have to solve some prolog problems with lists but i can't figure it out how these work.
I have to add "1" after every even element in a list, and to make the difference of 2 lists.
I know this seems easy, in other language like java or c# i would make it very easy, but prolog it's giving me headaches.
Please help me :|
Edited to note the clarified problem statement ("even item" meaning the item's value is even (rather than the item's ordinal position within the list):
insert_one_after_even_items( [] , [] ). % if the source list is exhaused, we're done.
insert_one_after_even_items( [X|Xs] , [X,1|Ys] ) :- % otherwise,
0 is X mod 2 , % - if the number is even, prepend it and a 1 to the result list, and
insert_one_after_even_items( Xs , Ys ) % - recurse down.
. %
insert_one_after_even_items( [X|Xs] , [X|Ys] ) :- % otherwise,
1 is X mod 2 , % - if the number is odd, prepend it to the result list, and
insert_one_after_even_items( Xs , Ys ) % - recurse down.
. % Easy!
For your second problem, producing the difference between two lists, are you talking about set differences? If so, given two sets A and B, are you talking about the relative difference (all elements of A that do not exist in B), or the absolute difference (all elements of either A or B that do not exist in both sets)?
To solve the relative set difference problem (Find all members of A that do not also exist in B), you can use the built-in member/2 predicate:
relative_difference( [] , _ , [] ) . % if the source list is exhausted, we're done
relative_difference( [A|As] , Bs , R ) :- % if the source list is non-empty, and
member(A,Bs) , % - the current A is an element of B,
! , % - we insert a deterministic cut (no backtracking)
relative_difference( As , Bs , R ) % - and recurse down, discarding the current A
. %
relative_difference( [A|As] , Bs , [A|R] ) :- % if the source list is non-empty (and A is not an element of B due to the cut inserted earlier)
relative_difference( As , Bs , R ) % we simply add A to the result list and recurse down.
.
One thing you will note here: we are building the result list in all of these examples is built from a variable. The tail of the list is unbound (and passed as the new result to the next recursive call, where it either become a new list node or, at the very end, the empty list.
This has the effect of
building the list in order (rather than in reverse order).
if the result was bound on the initial call, unification against the expected result occurs item by item as the recursion proceeds, which means
execution is short-circuited when the first unification failure occurs.
If your prolog implementation doesn't have member/2 as a built in, it's easy enough to implement. Something like this ought to do it:
member(X,[X|T]) :- ! . % A hit! cut and succeed.
member(X,[_|T]) :- member(X,T) . % ... and a miss. Just recurse down on the tail.
I want to implement a predicate (vecLine2BitLine) which does the following:
get two lists and a number the first list is the length of blocks (the elements of the blocks are '$') and the second list contains the indexes that these blocks should be placed at meaning:
vecLine2BitLine([1,2,1],[2,5,9],12,BitLine).
BitLine=[' ','$',' ',' ','$','$',' ',' ','$',' ',' ',' '].
explanation:a block of length 1 is at index 2
and a block of length 2 is at index 5 and so on..
insert_at_mul : inserts an element N times (it works perfectly,dupli and my_flatten were implemented previously so i used them)
Ive been trying to activate insert_at_mul N times when N is the length of the list X and Y
in the predicate vecLine2BitLine.
dupli(L1,N,L2) :- dupli(L1,N,L2,N).
dupli([],_,[],_).
dupli([_|Xs],N,Ys,0) :- dupli(Xs,N,Ys,N).
dupli([X|Xs],N,[X|Ys],K) :- K > 0, K1 is K - 1, dupli([X|Xs],N,Ys,K1).
my_flatten(X,[X]) :- \+ is_list(X).
my_flatten([],[]).
my_flatten([X|Xs],Zs) :- my_flatten(X,Y), my_flatten(Xs,Ys), append(Y,Ys,Zs).
insert_at_mul(L,X,K,R,N):-dupli([X],N,XX) , insert_at(L,XX,K,L1) , my_flatten(L1,R).
get_num_spaces(L,N,X):-sum(L,S), X is N-S.
generate_spaces(N,L,X):- insert_at_mul(L,'',1,X,N).
vecLine2BitLineAux([],[],_,_,_).
vecLine2BitLineAux([X|Tail1],[Y|Tail2],N,L,Lnew):- insert_at_mul(L,'*',Y,Lnew,X) ,vecLine2BitLineAux(Tail1,Tail2,N,Lnew,R). // problem here!!!
vecLine2BitLine(X,Y,N,L):- get_num_spaces(X,N,Z) , generate_spaces(Z,[],ZZ) , vecLine2BitLineAux(X,Y,N,ZZ,L).
now the problem is that in the function vecLine2BitLine i cant activate insert_at_mul N times(thats what i tried to do in this code, but failed).
how can I fix vecLine2BitLine for it to work properly as in returning the correct output by actually activating the predicate insert_at_mul N times??
THANKS!
added :
vecLine2BitLine : input parameters : (L1,L2,N,Result)
N: after activating the predicate Result will be N in length.
L1: L1 is a list of numbers each number indicates the length of a block, a block is comprised of a Sequence of '$'.
L2: L2 is a list of numbers the numbers are indices for where the blocks in L1 should be placed.
example:
vecLine2BitLine([3,2],[1,5],9,BitLine).
we can look at the input better as tuples :
vecLine2BitLine[(3,1),(2,5)],9,BitLine).
(3,1) : there is a sequence of '' 3 times at index 1
(2,5) : there is a sequence of '' 2 times at index 5
in our example 9 is the length of BitLine at the end and we have to insert into the
list BitLine 3+2 of the "special chars" '*' but we have 9-(3+2) places left in the list
so we add '' in those places and then we get:
BitLine=['$','$','$','','$','$','','','',''].
This is kind of a nice problem because you can use the arguments as loop counters. The K argument gets you to the proper index. Let's just traverse the list and find a particular index as an example. Notice the base case is that you're at the right element, and the inductive case is prior to the right element.
traverse(1, [X|_], X).
traverse(N, [_|Xs], X) :- N > 0, N0 is N-1, traverse(N0, Xs, X).
We're going to apply that pattern to insert_at/4 to get to the right location in the list. Now let's write a repeat/3 predicate that repeats X N times in a new list L. This time the base case is when we've added all the repetitions we care to, and the inductive case is that we'll add another instance.
repeat(1, X, [X]).
repeat(N, X, [X|Xs]) :- N > 0, N0 is N-1, repeat(N0, X, Xs).
You can see the similarity of structure between these two. Try to combine them into a single predicate. Since this is homework, I'll stop here. You're inches from the goal.
I made two different Fibonacci functions, the first one worked perfectly. Then I tried to simplify it in an intuitive way. I thought it would work but for some reason it says ERROR: Out of local stack every time I test it.
Working version:
fibonacci(0,0).
fibonacci(1,1).
fibonacci(N,F) :- N1 is N-1, N2 is N-2, fibonacci(N1,F1), fibonacci(N2,F2), F is F1+F2.
Not working version:
fibonacci(0,0).
fibonacci(1,1).
fibonacci(N,F) :- fibonacci(N-1,F1), fibonacci(N-2,F2), F is F1+F2.
Could someone explain me what is the problem with the second one? Thanks.
Your problem is that in your second one you are recursively calling fibonacci/2 with the term N-1 instead of an integer whose value is N-1.
So, for example if you where calling fibonacci(3, F) it would enter in the third clause and call fibonacci(3-1, F1) instead of fibonacci(2, F1). It would then enter again in the third clause and call fibonacci(3-1-1, F1) and so on.
Note that Prolog uses special operator is to perform arithmetic operations.
The first example is right.
Wouldn't this be simpler? Define fibonnaci\3 such that the first two arguments are the two 'seed' elements (normally 1 and 1, though they can be any two positive integers). The third argument is the computed value of that element of the series.
All you have to do is maintain a sliding window as you recurse along the fibonnaci sequence, thus:
%
% the public interface predicate
%
fibonnaci( A , _ , A ) . % 1. return the first element of the series
fibonnaci( _ , B , B ) . % 2. return the second element of the series
fibonnaci( A , B , C ) :- % 3. all subsequent values are the sum of
fib_body( A , B , C ) . % the preceding two elements in the series.
%
% the 'private' worker predicate
%
fib_body( A , B , X ) :- % 1. first, compute the next element of the series
X is A + B . % as the sum of the preceding two elements.
fib_body( A , B , X ) :- % 2. on backtracking, shift our window
C is A + B , % and recurse down to get the next element
fib_body( B , C , X ) . % in the series.