Haskell Programming Tutorial: Recursive Functions on Lists

Computing with lists
- There are two approaches to working with lists:
- Write functions to do what you want, using recursive definitions that traverse the list structure.
- Write combinations of the standard list processing functions.
- The second approach is preferred, but the standard list processing functions do need to be defined, and those definitions use the first approach (recursive definitions).
- We’ll cover both methods.
Recursion on lists
- A list is built from the empty list \([]\) and the function \(cons\; :: \; a\rightarrow [a] \rightarrow [a]\). In Haskell, the function \(cons\) is actually written as the operator \((:)\) , in other words : is pronounced as
cons
.
- A list is built from the empty list \([]\) and the function \(cons\; :: \; a\rightarrow [a] \rightarrow [a]\). In Haskell, the function \(cons\) is actually written as the operator \((:)\) , in other words : is pronounced as
- Every list must be either
- \([]\) or
- \((x : xs)\) for some \(x\) (the head of the list) and \(xs\) (the tail)
- Every list must be either
- The recursive definition follows the structure of the data:
- Base case of the recursion is \([]\).
- Recursion (or induction) case is \((x : xs)\).
- The recursive definition follows the structure of the data:
Some examples of recursion on lists
Recursive definition of length
The length of a list can be computed recursively as follows:length :: [a] -> Int -- function type
length [] = 0 -- base case
length (x:xs) = 1 + length xs -- recursion case
Recursive definition of filter
- filter is given a predicate (a function that gives a Boolean result) and a list, and returns a list of the elements that satisfy the predicate.
filter :: (a->Bool) -> [a] -> [a]
filter (<5) [3,9,2,12,6,4] -- > [3,2,4]
filter
is shown below. This relies on guards. filter :: (a -> Bool) -> [a] -> [a]
filter pred [] = []
filter pred (x:xs)| pred x = x : filter pred xs| otherwise = filter pred xs
Computations over lists
- Many computations that would be for/while loops in an imperative language are naturally expressed as list computations in a functional language.
- There are some common cases:
- Perform a computation on each element of a list: \(map\)
- Iterate over a list, from left to right: \(foldl\)
- Iterate over a list, from right to left: \(foldr\)
- There are some common cases:
- It’s good practice to use these three functions when applicable
- And there are some related functions that we’ll see later
Function composition
- We can express a large computation by “chaining together” a sequence of functions that perform smaller computations
- Start with an argument of type \(a\)
- Apply a function \(g :: a \to b\) to it, getting an intermediate result of type \(b\)
- Then apply a function \(f :: b \to c\) to the intermediate result, getting the final result of type \(c\)
- The entire computation (first \(g\), then \(f\)) is written as \(f \circ g\).
- This is traditional mathematical notation; just remember that in \(f \circ g\), the functions are used in right to left order.
- Haskell uses
.
as the function composition operator(.) :: (b->c) -> (a->b) -> a -> c (f . g) x = f (g x)
- Haskell uses
Performing an operation on every element of a list: map
- map applies a function to every element of a list
map f [x0,x1,x2] -- > [f x0, f x1, f x2]
- map applies a function to every element of a list
Composition of maps
- map is one of the most commonly used tools in your functional toolkit
- A common style is to define a set of simple computations using map, and to compose them.
map f (map g xs) = map (f . g) xs
- A common style is to define a set of simple computations using map, and to compose them.
Recursive definition of map
map :: (a -> b) -> [a] -> [b]
map _ [] = []
map f (x:xs) = f x : map f xs
Folding a list (reduction)
- An iteration over a list to produce a singleton value is called a fold
- There are several variations: folding from the left, folding from the right, several variations having to do with “initialisation”, and some more advanced variations.
- Folds may look tricky at first, but they are extremely powerful, and they are used a lot! And they aren’t actually very complicated.
Left fold: foldl
- foldl is fold from the left
- Think of it as an iteration across a list, going left to right.
- A typical application is \(foldl\, f\, z\, xs\)
- The \(z :: b\) is an initial value
- The \(xs :: [a]\) argument is a list of values which we combine systematically using the supplied function \(f\)
- A useful intuition: think of the \(z :: b\) argument as an “accumulator”.
- The function \(f\) takes the current value of the accumulator and a list element, and gives the new value of the accumulator.
foldl :: (b->a->b) -> b -> [a] -> b
- The function \(f\) takes the current value of the accumulator and a list element, and gives the new value of the accumulator.
Examples of foldl with function notation
\[\begin{aligned}\mathtt{foldl\,f\,z\,[]} &\rightsquigarrow & z\\
\mathtt{foldl\,f\,z\,[x0]} & \rightsquigarrow & f\,z\,x0\\
\mathtt{foldl\,f\,z\,[x0,x1]} & \rightsquigarrow & f\,(f\,z\,x0)\,x1\\
\mathtt{foldl\,f\,z\,[x0,x1,x2]} & \rightsquigarrow & f\,(f\,(f\,z\,x0)\,x1)\, x2\end{aligned}\]
Examples of foldl with infix notation
In this example, + denotes an arbitrary operator for f; it isn’t supposed to mean specifically addition.foldl (+) z [] -- > z
foldl (+) z [x0] -- > z + x0
foldl (+) z [x0,x1] -- > (z + x0) + x1
foldl (+) z [x0,x1,x2] -- > ((z + x0) + x1) + x2
Recursive definition of foldl
foldl :: (b -> a -> b) -> b -> [a] -> b
foldl f z0 xs0 = lgo z0 xs0wherelgo z [] = zlgo z (x:xs) = lgo (f z x) xs
Right fold: foldr
- Similar to \(foldl\), but it works from right to left
foldr :: (a -> b -> b) -> b -> [a] -> b
Examples of foldr with function notation
\[\begin{aligned}\mathtt{foldr\,f\, z\, [] } & \rightsquigarrow & z\\
\mathtt{foldr\, f\, z\, [x0] } & \rightsquigarrow & f\, x0\, z\\
\mathtt{foldr\, f\, z\, [x0,x1] } & \rightsquigarrow & f\, x0\, (f\, x1\, z)\\
\mathtt{foldr\, f\, z\, [x0,x1,x2] } & \rightsquigarrow & f\, x0\, (f\, x1\, (f\, x2\, z))\end{aligned}\]
Examples of foldr with operator notation
foldr (+) z [] -- > z
foldr (+) z [x0] -- > x0 + z
foldr (+) z [x0,x1] -- > x0 + (x1 + z)
foldr (+) z [x0,x1,x2] -- > x0 + (x1 + (x2 + z))
Recursive definition of foldr
foldr :: (a -> b -> b) -> b -> [a] -> b
foldr k z = gowherego [] = zgo (y:ys) = y `k` go ys
Relationship between foldr and list structure
We have seen that a list[x0,x1,x2]
can also be written as x0 : x1 : x2 : []
foldr (:) [] [x0,x1,x2]-- >x0 : x1 : x2 : []
Some applications of folds
sum xs = foldr (+) 0 xs
product xs = foldr (*) 1 xs
sum = foldr (+) 0
product = foldr (*) 1
Functional Programming in Haskell: Supercharge Your Coding

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