I'm studying scheme and I have just encountered my first problem:
(define x (cons (list 1 2) (list 3 4)))
(length x)
3
why the output is 3 and not 2? I have displayed x
((1 2) 3 4)
why is like that and not ((1 2) . (3 4)) ?
Thanks.
Maybe it's easier to see this way.
You have:
(cons (list 1 2) (list 3 4))
If you
(define one-two (list 1 2))
you have
(cons one-two (list 3 4))
which is equivalent to
(cons one-two (cons 3 (cons 4 '())))
or
(list one-two 3 4)
which is
((1 2) 3 4)
List is the basic data structure of scheme.
Cons is used for making a pair of objects. List is the chain of cons.
eg. list (1 2 3 4) is same as (cons 1(cons 2(cons 3(cons 4 '())))).
See the block pointer representation for make it clear
Related
I am having trouble writing a Scheme procedure that takes a tree (represented as a list) and returns a list whose elements are all the leaves of the tree arranged in right to left order.
For example, if I were to call: ( leaves '(((1 2) (3 4)) ((1 2) (3 4))) ) I would get: '(4 3 2 1 4 3 2 1)
I have the following so far, and the output is technically correct, but there is an issue with the parenthesis:
(define (leaves givenList)
(if (null? givenList) givenList
(if (list? (car givenList))
(append (leaves (cdr givenList)) (cons (leaves (car givenList)) '()))
(append (leaves (cdr givenList)) (list (car givenList))))))
The output when I call: ( leaves '(((1 2) (3 4)) ((1 2) (3 4))) ) is: (((4 3) (2 1)) ((4 3) (2 1)))
I need to get rid of the parenthesis on the inside and just get: '(4 3 2 1 4 3 2 1)
Any help or insight is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
In doing some tests I've noticed that append always gives me the same output as input when using map:
#lang sicp
(map append '(1 2 3 4 5))
(map (lambda (x) x) '(1 2 3 4 5))
; (1 2 3 4 5)
; (1 2 3 4 5)
(map append '((1 2)(3 4)))
(map (lambda (x) x) '((1 2)(3 4)))
; ((1 2) (3 4))
; ((1 2) (3 4))
That seems pretty neat/unexpected to me. Is this in fact the case? If so, how does the append work to give the identity property?
The append procedure takes zero or more list arguments, and a final argument that can be any object. When the final argument is a list, the result of appending is a proper list. When the final argument is not a list, but other list arguments have been provided, the result is an improper list. When only one argument is provided, it is just returned. This behavior with one argument is exactly the behavior of an identity procedure.
> (append '(1 2) '(3))
(1 2 3)
> (append '(1 2) 3)
(1 2 . 3)
> (append '(1 2))
(1 2)
> (append 3)
3
The call (map append '(1 2 3 4 5)) is equivalent to:
> (list (append 1)
(append 2)
(append 3)
(append 4)
(append 5))
(1 2 3 4 5)
Here, append is just acting as an identity procedure, as described above.
This question already has answers here:
Dot notation in scheme
(3 answers)
Closed 5 years ago.
I tried to reproduce the same data layout by using different combinations of list and cons. In MIT Scheme, the same data layout seems to be printed differently depending on how it was built.
In example,
> (cons 1 (cons 2 3))
(1 2 . 3)
> (list 1 (cons 2 3))
(1 (2 . 3))
> (cons 1 (list 2 3))
(1 2 3)
> (list 1 (list 2 3))
(1 (2 3))
The underlying data should always be the same. Why does MIT Scheme represents it differently? Is the underlying arrangements of pairs really the same every time?
Each of the inputs is building a different output, so they're printed differently. Notice that the following expressions are equivalent:
(cons 1 (cons 2 3))
; (1 2 . 3)
(list 1 (cons 2 3))
(cons 1 (cons (cons 2 3) '()))
; (1 (2 . 3))
(cons 1 (list 2 3))
(cons 1 (cons 2 (cons 3 '())))
; (1 2 3)
(list 1 (list 2 3))
(cons 1 (cons (cons 2 (cons 3 '())) '()))
; (1 (2 3))
Remember: a list is defined if and only if the cdr part of each cons is also a cons cell, or an empty list.
I am trying to write a procedure that takes a a symbol and a list and inserts the symbol at every possible position inside the given list (thus generating a list of lists). I have coded the following definitions, which I must implement:
1
(define (insert-at pos elmt lst)
(if (empty? lst) (list elmt)
(if (= 1 pos)
(cons elmt lst)
(cons (first lst)
(insert-at (- pos 1) elmt (rest lst))))))
2
(define (generate-all-pos start end)
(if (= start end)
(list end)
(cons start (generate-all-pos (+ start 1) end))))
1 takes a position in a list (number), a symbol and the list itself and inserts the symbol at the requested position.
2 takes a start and a target position (numbers) and creates a sorted list with numbers from start to target.
So far I have got this:
(define (insert-everywhere sym los)
(cond
[(empty? los) (list sym)]
[else (cons (insert-at (first (generate-all-pos (first los)
(first (foldl cons empty los)))) sym los) (insert-everywhere sym (rest los)))
]
)
)
Which results in
> (insert-everywhere 'r '(1 2 3))
(list (list 'r 1 2 3) (list 2 'r 3) (list 3 'r) 'r)
so I actually managed to move the 'r' around. I'm kind of puzzled about preserving the preceding members of the list. Maybe I'm missing something very simple but I've stared and poked at the code for quite some time and this is the cleanest result I've had so far. Any help would be appreciated.
Óscar López's answer shows how you can do this in terms of the procedures that you've already defined. I'd like to point out a way to do this that recurses down the input list. It uses an auxiliary function called revappend (I've taken the name from Common Lisp's revappend). revappend takes a list and a tail, and efficiently returns the same thing that (append (reverse list) tail) would.
(define (revappend list tail)
(if (null? list)
tail
(revappend (rest list)
(list* (first list) tail))))
> (revappend '(3 2 1) '(4 5 6))
'(1 2 3 4 5 6)
The reason that we're interested in such a function is that as we recurse down the input list, we can build up a list of the elements we've already seen, but it's in reverse order. That is, as we walk down (1 2 3 4 5), it's easy to have:
rhead tail (revappend rhead (list* item tail))
----------- ----------- -----------------------------------
() (1 2 3 4 5) (r 1 2 3 4 5)
(1) (2 3 4 5) (1 r 2 3 4 5)
(2 1) (3 4 5) (1 2 r 3 4 5)
(3 2 1) (4 5) (1 2 3 r 4 5)
(4 3 2 1) (5) (1 2 3 4 r 5)
(5 4 3 2 1) () (1 2 3 4 5 r)
In each of these cases, (revappend rhead (list* item tail)) returns a list with item inserted in one of the positions. Thus, we can define insert-everywhere in terms of rhead and tail, and revappend, if we build up the results list in reverse order, and reverse it at the end of the loop.
(define (insert-everywhere item list)
(let ie ((tail list)
(rhead '())
(results '()))
(if (null? tail)
(reverse (list* (revappend rhead (list* item tail)) results))
(ie (rest tail)
(list* (first tail) rhead)
(list* (revappend rhead (list* item tail)) results)))))
(insert-everywhere 'r '(1 2 3))
;=> '((r 1 2 3) (1 r 2 3) (1 2 r 3) (1 2 3 r))
What's interesting about this is that the sublists all share the same tail structure. That is, the sublists share the structure as indicated in the following “diagram.”
;=> '((r 1 2 3) (1 r 2 3) (1 2 r 3) (1 2 3 r))
; ----- +++ o
; +++ o
; o
The insert-everywhere procedure is overly complicated, a simple map will do the trick. Try this:
(define (insert-everywhere sym los)
(map (lambda (i)
(insert-at i sym los))
(generate-all-pos 1 (add1 (length los)))))
Also notice that in Racket there exists a procedure called range, so you don't need to implement your own generate-all-pos:
(define (insert-everywhere sym los)
(map (lambda (i)
(insert-at i sym los))
(range 1 (+ 2 (length los)))))
Either way, it works as expected:
(insert-everywhere 'r '(1 2 3))
=> '((r 1 2 3) (1 r 2 3) (1 2 r 3) (1 2 3 r))
I have this program:
(define scale-tree
(lambda (tree factor)
(map (lambda (sub-tree)
(if (list? sub-tree)
(scale-tree sub-tree factor)
(* sub-tree factor)))
tree)))
(scale-tree (list 1 (list 2 (list 3 4) 5) (list 6 7))
10)
How does this code work? First, we give it the whole list as parameter (list 1 (list 2 (list 3 4) 5) (list 6 7)), and in the first call, the (lambda (sub-tree) gets the (list 1 (list 2 (list 3 4) 5) (list 6 7)) as parameter. For that, we call (scale-tree sub-tree factor) with (list 1 (list 2 (list 3 4) 5) (list 6 7)) again. When does the list reduce?
Thank you.
Remember what map does - it applies a function to every element of a list. So on the first call, this function:
(lambda (sub-tree)
(if (list? sub-tree)
(scale-tree sub-tree factor)
(* sub-tree factor)))
is being applied to the elements of your list: 1, (list 2 (list 3 4) 5), and (list 6 7). And so on in the recursive calls.