writing my own version of `in` as an Arc macro - macros

In Arc there's a macro called in
> (let x 1
(in x 4 5 6))
nil
> (let x 1
(in x 1 5 6))
t
that checks if its first parameter is equal to any of the rest. I want a version of this that takes a parameter plus a list (semantically identical to Python's in), so I wrote:
(assign weak-tens* '(11 12))
(mac in? (elt lst)
(cons 'in (cons elt lst)))
(def transform-deck (deck)
(map [if (in? _ weak-tens*) #\T _] deck))
output:
arc> (load "main.arc")
*** redefining in?
map: contract violation
expected: list?
given: '(_ . weak-tens*)
argument position: 2nd
other arguments...:
#<procedure:ac-niltree>

To answer your immediate question, you can use mem, as follows:
arc> (let x 3
(mem x '(1 2 3 4)))
(3 4)
Also, there's no reason this should be a macro. It doesn't do anything that requires a macro.
But let's look at why the macro doesn't work:
arc> (macex1 '(in? 1 '(1 2 3)))
(in 1 quote (1 2 3))
Ah, we're putting the value "quote".
Here's how we want the code to expand:
(in? 1 '(1 2 3))
should expand to:
(in 1 1 2 3)
But as mentioned, we don't even want this to be a macro in the first place. Ignoring mem, it could be written as follows:
(def in? (elt lst)
(if (no lst)
nil
(is elt ;;if we've found the element
(car lst))
t
(in? elt (cdr lst)))) ;;otherwise recurse

Related

Writing the Foo Function In LISP With the following Specification

I am struggling to find the right approach to solve the following function
(FOO #'– '(1 2 3 4 5))
=> ((–1 2 3 4 5) (1 –2 3 4 5) (1 2 –3 4 5) (1 2 3 –4 5) (1 2 3 4 –5))
The first Parameter to the foo function is supposed to be a function "-" that has to be applied to each element returning a list of list as shown above. I am not sure as to what approach I can take to create this function. I thought of recursion but not sure how I will preserve the list in each call and what kind of base criteria would I have. Any help would be appreciated. I cannot use loops as this is functional programming.
It's a pity you cannot use loop because this could be elegantly solved like so:
(defun foo (fctn lst)
(loop
for n from 0 below (length lst) ; outer
collect (loop
for elt in lst ; inner
for i from 0
collect (if (= i n) (funcall fctn elt) elt))))
So we've got an outer loop that increments n from 0 to (length lst) excluded, and an inner loop that will copy verbatim the list except for element n where fctn is applied:
CL-USER> (foo #'- '(1 2 3 4 5))
((-1 2 3 4 5) (1 -2 3 4 5) (1 2 -3 4 5) (1 2 3 -4 5) (1 2 3 4 -5))
Replacing loop by recursion means creating local functions by using labels that replace the inner and the outer loop, for example:
(defun foo (fctn lst)
(let ((len (length lst)))
(labels
((inner (lst n &optional (i 0))
(unless (= i len)
(cons (if (= i n) (funcall fctn (car lst)) (car lst))
(inner (cdr lst) n (1+ i)))))
(outer (&optional (i 0))
(unless (= i len)
(cons (inner lst i) (outer (1+ i))))))
(outer))))
Part of the implementation strategy that you choose here will depend on whether you want to support structure sharing or not. Some of the answers have provided solutions where you get completely new lists, which may be what you want. If you want to actually share some of the common structure, you can do that too, with a solution like this. (Note: I'm using first/rest/list* in preference to car/car/cons, since we're working with lists, not arbitrary trees.)
(defun foo (operation list)
(labels ((foo% (left right result)
(if (endp right)
(nreverse result)
(let* ((x (first right))
(ox (funcall operation x)))
(foo% (list* x left)
(rest right)
(list* (revappend left
(list* ox (rest right)))
result))))))
(foo% '() list '())))
The idea is to walk down list once, keeping track of the left side (in reverse) and the right side as we've gone through them, so we get as left and right:
() (1 2 3 4)
(1) (2 3 4)
(2 1) (3 4)
(3 2 1) (4)
(4 3 2 1) ()
At each step but the last, we take the the first element from the right side, apply the operation, and create a new list use revappend with the left, the result of the operation, and the rest of right. The results from all those operations are accumulated in result (in reverse order). At the end, we simply return result, reversed. We can check that this has the right result, along with observing the structure sharing:
CL-USER> (foo '- '(1 2 3 4 5))
((-1 2 3 4 5) (1 -2 3 4 5) (1 2 -3 4 5) (1 2 3 -4 5) (1 2 3 4 -5))
By setting *print-circle* to true, we can see the structure sharing:
CL-USER> (setf *print-circle* t)
T
CL-USER> (let ((l '(1 2 3 4 5)))
(list l (foo '- l)))
((1 . #1=(2 . #2=(3 . #3=(4 . #4=(5))))) ; input L
((-1 . #1#)
(1 -2 . #2#)
(1 2 -3 . #3#)
(1 2 3 -4 . #4#)
(1 2 3 4 -5)))
Each list in the output shares as much structure with the original input list as possible.
I find it easier, conceptually, to write some of these kind of functions recursively, using labels, but Common Lisp doesn't guarantee tail call optimization, so it's worth writing this iteratively, too. Here's one way that could be done:
(defun phoo (operation list)
(do ((left '())
(right list)
(result '()))
((endp right)
(nreverse result))
(let* ((x (pop right))
(ox (funcall operation x)))
(push (revappend left (list* ox right)) result)
(push x left))))
The base case of a recursion can be determined by asking yourself "When do I want to stop?".
As an example, when I want to compute the sum of an integer and all positive integers below it, I can do this recusively with a base case determined by answering "When do I want to stop?" with "When the value I might add in is zero.":
(defun sumdown (val)
(if (zerop val)
0
(+ (sumdown (1- val)) val)))
With regard to 'preserve the list in each call', rather than trying to preserve anything I would just build up a result as you go along. Using the 'sumdown' example, this can be done in various ways that are all fundamentally the same approach.
The approach is to have an auxiliary function with a result argument that lets you build up a result as you recurse, and a function that is intended for the user to call, which calls the auxiliary function:
(defun sumdown1-aux (val result)
(if (zerop val)
result
(sumdown1-aux (1- val) (+ val result))))
(defun sumdown1 (val)
(sumdown1-aux val 0))
You can combine the auxiliary function and the function intended to be called by the user by using optional arguments:
(defun sumdown2 (val &optional (result 0))
(if (zerop val)
result
(sumdown2 (1- val) (+ val result))))
You can hide the fact that an auxiliary function is being used by locally binding it within the function the user would call:
(defun sumdown3 (val)
(labels ((sumdown3-aux (val result)
(if (zerop val)
result
(sumdown3-aux (1- val) (+ val result)))))
(sumdown3-aux val 0)))
A recursive solution to your problem can be implemented by answering the question "When do I want to stop when I want to operate on every element of a list?" to determine the base case, and building up a result list-of-lists (instead of adding as in the example) as you recurse. Breaking the problem into smaller pieces will help - "Make a copy of the original list with the nth element replaced by the result of calling the function on that element" can be considered a subproblem, so you might want to write a function that does that first, then use that function to write a function that solves the whole problem. It will be easier if you are allowed to use functions like mapcar and substitute or substitute-if, but if you are not, then you can write equivalents yourself out of what you are allowed to use.

Function that is always evaluated to t (or any value)

Say, we would like to use a function that requires a predicate, but for some reason we're interested in other features of the function (like :start and :end parameters), so we need to supply a predicate, that always returns true.
Obviously, it's not a problem at all:
CL-USER> (defparameter *list* '(0 1 2 3 4 5))
*LIST*
CL-USER> (remove-if (lambda (x) t) *list* :start 1 :end 3)
(0 3 4 5)
Works, but not beautifully at all. And we may get ugly message that variable x is not used. Since I'm in LISP for beauty, I'm curious if there is a 'always t' predicate?
We can define it:
(defun tp (&rest rest)
(declare (ignore rest))
t)
..but may be it exists?
You're looking for the function constantly that takes an argument and returns a function that always returns that value. The predicate you need, then is (constantly t). Thus:
CL-USER> (remove-if (constantly t) '(0 1 2 3 4 5) :start 1 :end 3)
(0 3 4 5)
The notes on constantly show that you were absolutely on the right track with your proposed implementation. (You did even better, though, by adding the (declare (ignore …)).)
Notes:
constantly could be defined by:
(defun constantly (object)
#'(lambda (&rest arguments) object))
After writing this, it occurred to me that this might be a duplicate. I didn't find a proper duplicate, found a similar, more specific, question that was looking to remove a single element at a position, Is there a common lisp macro for popping the nth element from a list?, in which Rainer Joswig's answer includes:
Removing the nth element of a list:
(defun remove-nth (list n)
(remove-if (constantly t) list :start n :end (1+ n)))
This is really just a generalization of that approach, since you're working with arbitrary sequence boundaries. Thus we could have (making the boundary argument analogous to subseq's):
(defun remove-subseq (sequence &optional (start 0) end)
(remove-if (constantly t) sequence :start start :end end))
(defun remove-nth (sequence n)
(remove-subseq sequence n (1+ n)))
CL-USER> (remove-subseq '(0 1 2 3 4 5) 1 3)
(0 3 4 5)
CL-USER> (remove-nth '(0 1 2 3 4 5) 3)
(0 1 2 4 5)

Creating repetitions of list with mapcan freezes?

I have two lists: (1 2 3) and (a b) and I need to create something like this (1 2 3 1 2 3). The result is a concatenation of the first list as many times as there are elements in the second. I should use some of the functions (maplist/mapcar/mapcon, etc.). This is exactly what I need, although I need to pass first list as argument:
(mapcan #'(lambda (x) (list 1 2 3)) (list 'a 'b))
;=> (1 2 3 1 2 3)
When I try to abstract it into a function, though, Allegro freezes:
(defun foo (a b)
(mapcan #'(lambda (x) a) b))
(foo (list 1 2 3) (list 'a 'b))
; <freeze>
Why doesn't this definition work?
There's already an accepted answer, but I think some more explanation about what's going wrong in the original code is in order. mapcan applies a function to each element of a list to generate a bunch of lists which are destructively concatenated together. If you destructively concatenate a list with itself, you get a circular list. E.g.,
(let ((x (list 1 2 3)))
(nconc x x))
;=> (1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 ...)
Now, if you have more concatenations than one, you can't finish, because to concatenate something to the end of a list requires walking to the end of the list. So
(let ((x (list 1 2 3)))
(nconc (nconc x x) x))
; ----------- (a)
; --------------------- (b)
(a) terminates, and returns the list (1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 ...), but (b) can't terminate since we can't get to the end of (1 2 3 1 2 3 ...) in order to add things to the end.
Now that leaves the question of why
(defun foo (a b)
(mapcan #'(lambda (x) a) b))
(foo (list 1 2 3) '(a b))
leads to a freeze. Since there are only two elements in (a b), this amounts to:
(let ((x (list 1 2 3)))
(nconc x x))
That should terminate and return an infinite list (1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 ...). In fact, it does. The problem is that printing that list in the REPL will hang. For instance, in SBCL:
CL-USER> (let ((x (list 1 2 3)))
(nconc x x))
; <I manually stopped this, because it hung.
CL-USER> (let ((x (list 1 2 3)))
(nconc x x) ; terminates
nil) ; return nil, which is easy to print
NIL
If you set *print-circle* to true, you can see the result from the first form, though:
CL-USER> (setf *print-circle* t)
T
CL-USER> (let ((x (list 1 2 3)))
(nconc x x))
#1=(1 2 3 . #1#) ; special notation for reading and
; writing circular structures
The simplest way (i.e., fewest number of changes) to adjust your code to remove the problematic behavior is to use copy-list in the lambda function:
(defun foo (a b)
(mapcan #'(lambda (x)
(copy-list a))
b))
This also has an advantage over a (reduce 'append (mapcar ...) :from-end t) solution in that it doesn't necessarily allocate an intermediate list of results.
You could
(defun f (lst1 lst2)
(reduce #'append (mapcar (lambda (e) lst1) lst2)))
then
? (f '(1 2 3) '(a b))
(1 2 3 1 2 3)
Rule of thumb is to make sure the function supplied to mapcan (and destructive friends) creates the list or else you'll make a loop. The same applies to arguments supplied to other destructive functions. Usually it's best if the function has made them which makes it only a linear update.
This will work:
(defun foo (a b)
(mapcan #'(lambda (x) (copy-list a)) b))
Here is some alternatives:
(defun foo (a b)
;; NB! apply sets restrictions on the length of b. Stack might blow
(apply #'append (mapcar #'(lambda (x) a) b))
(defun foo (a b)
;; uses loop macro
(loop for i in b
append a))
I really don't understand why b cannot be a number? You're really using it as church numbers so I think I would have done this instead:
(defun x (list multiplier)
;; uses loop
(loop for i from 1 to multiplier
append list))
(x '(a b c) 0) ; ==> nil
(x '(a b c) 1) ; ==> (a b c)
(x '(a b c) 2) ; ==> (a b c a b c)
;; you can still do the same:
(x '(1 2 3) (length '(a b))) ; ==> (1 2 3 1 2 3)

Get a pointer to a list element in Emacs Lisp

For example, I have a list:
(setq foo '(1 2 3 4 5))
Then I need to get a pointer to its 3rd index element (which contains 4 in the example):
(setq p (SOME_FUNCTION foo 3))
The element with p address can be moved to another list so I can't just save its current foo's index.
And I need to be able to say later on:
(push 0 foo)
=> (0 1 2 3 4 5)
(setf p 444)
and list foo must be (0 1 2 3 444 5) afterwards.
Is this possible in Emacs lisp?
In general, you can't store the "address" of an object. However, you can refer to a cons cell (a cons cell is what lists are made of). The cons cell could later be modified using setcar and setcdr.
For example:
(defvar my-cons-cell nil)
(defun my-save-cons-cell (cons-cell)
(setq my-cons-cell cons-cell))
(defun my-set-car-in-saved-cons-cell (value)
(setcar my-cons-cell value))
;; Test
(setq foo '(1 2 3 4 5))
(my-save-cons-cell (cdr (cdr (cdr foo))))
(push 0 foo)
(my-set-car-in-saved-cons-cell 444)
Here, foo has the value (0 1 2 3 444 5).
Note that this is really un-lisp like and breaks the functional programming paradigm...
You can do
(setq p (nth 3 foo))
and it stores in p the value stored at the index you want. You can also do
(setf (nth 3 foo) 444)
to store 444 at that place. But if you try to do something like
(setq pointer (nth 3 foo))
...
(setf pointer 444)
that won't work. In Emacs's trunk I have recently added gv-ref and gv-deref which would work just fine in such a case. They work pretty much like C's & and *:
(setq pointer (gv-ref (nth 3 foo)))
...
(setf (gv-deref pointer) 444)

Is there a common lisp macro for popping the nth element from a list?

I'm pretty fresh to the Common Lisp scene and I can't seem to find an quick way to get the nth element from a list and remove it from said list at the same time. I've done it, but it ain't pretty, what I'd really like is something like "pop" but took a second parameter:
(setf x '(a b c d))
(setf y (popnth 2 x))
; x is '(a b d)
; y is 'c
I'm pretty sure that "popnth" would have to be a macro, in case the parameter was 0 and it had to behave like "pop".
EDIT: Here's my crap first version:
(defmacro popnth (n lst)
(let ((tempvar (gensym)))
`(if (eql ,n 0)
(pop ,lst)
(let ((,tempvar (nth ,n ,lst)))
(setf (cdr (nthcdr ,(- n 1) ,lst)) (nthcdr ,(+ n 1) ,lst))
,tempvar))))
Something like this:
Removing the nth element of a list:
(defun remove-nth (list n)
(remove-if (constantly t) list :start n :end (1+ n)))
constantly returns a function, that always returns its argument.
As a macro that accepts a place, using define-modify-macro:
(define-modify-macro remove-nth-f (n) remove-nth "Remove the nth element")
POP-NTH
(defmacro pop-nth (list n)
(let ((n-var (gensym)))
`(let ((,n-var ,n))
(prog1 (nth ,n-var ,list)
(remove-nth-f ,list ,n-var)))))
Example:
CL-USER 26 > (defparameter *list* (list 1 2 3 4))
*LIST*
CL-USER 27 > (pop-nth *list* 0)
1
CL-USER 28 > *list*
(2 3 4)
CL-USER 29 > (pop-nth *list* 2)
4
CL-USER 30 > *list*
(2 3)
Yes, Lisp has a macro for popping the N-th element of a list: it is called pop.
$ clisp -q
[1]> (defvar list (list 0 1 2 3 4 5))
LIST
[2]> (pop (cdddr list))
3
[3]> list
(0 1 2 4 5)
[4]>
pop works with any form that denotes a place.
The problem is that, unlike cddr, nthcdr isn't an accessor; a form like (nthcdr 3 list) does not denote a place; it works only as a function call.
Writing a specialized form of pop is not the best answer; rather, we can achieve a more general fix by writing a clone of nthcdr which behaves like a place accessor. Then the pop macro will work, and so will every other macro that works with places like setf and rotatef.
;; our clone of nthcdr called cdnth
(defun cdnth (idx list)
(nthcdr idx list))
;; support for (cdnth <idx> <list>) as an assignable place
(define-setf-expander cdnth (idx list &environment env)
(multiple-value-bind (dummies vals newval setter getter)
(get-setf-expansion list env)
(let ((store (gensym))
(idx-temp (gensym)))
(values dummies
vals
`(,store)
`(let ((,idx-temp ,idx))
(progn
(if (zerop ,idx-temp)
(progn (setf ,getter ,store))
(progn (rplacd (nthcdr (1- ,idx-temp) ,getter) ,store)))
,store))
`(nthcdr ,idx ,getter)))))
Test:
$ clisp -q -i cdnth.lisp
;; Loading file cdnth.lisp ...
;; Loaded file cdnth.lisp
[1]> (defvar list (list 0 1 2 3 4 5))
LIST
[2]> (pop (cdnth 2 list))
2
[3]> list
(0 1 3 4 5)
[4]> (pop (cdnth 0 list))
0
[5]> list
(1 3 4 5)
[6]> (pop (cdnth 3 list))
5
[7]> list
(1 3 4)
[8]> (pop (cdnth 1 list))
3
[9]> list
(1 4)
[10]> (pop (cdnth 1 list))
4
[11]> list
(1)
[12]> (pop (cdnth 0 list))
1
[13]> list
NIL
[14]>
A possible improvement to the implementation is to analyze the idx form and optimize away the generated code that implements the run-time check on the value of idx. That is to say, if idx is a constant expression, there is no need to emit the code which tests whether idx is zero. The appropriate code variant can just be emitted. Not only that, but for small values of idx, the code can emit special variants based on the "cadavers": cddr, cdddr, rather than the general nthcdr. However, some of these optimizations might be done by the Lisp compiler and thus redundant.
I came up with a solution that is a little more efficient than my first attempt:
(defmacro popnth (n lst)
(let ((t1 (gensym))(t2 (gensym)))
`(if (eql ,n 0)
(pop ,lst)
(let* ((,t1 (nthcdr (- ,n 1) ,lst))
(,t2 (car (cdr ,t1))))
(setf (cdr ,t1) (cddr ,t1))
,t2))))
Here is it in action:
[2]> (defparameter *list* '(a b c d e f g))
*LIST*
[3]> (popnth 3 *list*)
D
[4]> *list*
(A B C E F G)
[5]> (popnth 0 *list*)
A
[6]> *list*
(B C E F G)
I have same suspicion as #6502...If I remember right...Neither push nor pop can be defined as modify-macros, the former because the place is not its first argument, and the latter because its return value is not the modified object.
Definition of define-modify-macro
An expression of the form (define-modify-macro m (p1 ... pn) f) defines a new macro m, such that a call of the form (m place a1 ... an) will cause place to be set to (f val a1 ... an), where val represents the value of place. The parameters may also include rest and optional parameters. The string, if present, becomes the documentation of the new macro.
I have this popnth works just fine:
(defun nthpop (index lst)
(pop (nthcdr (1- index) lst)))
> *list*
(1 2 3 4 5)
> (nthpop 2 *list*)
2
> *list*
(1 3 4 5)