I am new to Scala, and ran across a small hiccup that has been annoying me.
Initializing two vars in parallel works great: var (x,y) = (1,2)
However I can't find a way to assign new values in parallel: (x,y) = (x+y,y-x) //invalid syntax
I end up writing something like this: val xtmp = x+y; y = x-y; x = xtmp
I realize writing functional code is one way of avoiding this, but there are certain situations where vars just make more sense.
I have two questions:
1) Is there a better way of doing this? Am I missing something?
2) What is the reason for not allowing true parallel assignment?
Unfortunately, you cannot do multiple assignments in Scala. But you may use tuples, if they fit your problem:
scala> var xy = (1,2)
xy: (Int, Int) = (1,2)
scala> xy = (xy._1 + xy._2, xy._2 - xy._1)
xy: (Int, Int) = (3,1)
This way, xy is one tuple with two values. The first value can be accessed using xy._1, the second one using xy._2.
Scala has 2 types of variables: vals and vars. Vals are similar to Java's final variables, so as far as I understand from what you're asking, the only way to assign new values in parallel to vals is by:
scala> val (x, y) = (1, 2);
or
scala> val s = (3, 4);
s: (Int, Int) = (3,4)
scala> s._1
res1: Int = 3
scala> s._2
res2: Int = 4
Related
I am implementing function that gets random index and returns the element at random index of tuple.
I know that for tuple like, val a=(1,2,3) a._1=2
However, when I use random index val index=random_index(integer that is smaller than size of tuple), a._index doesnt work.
You can use productElement, note that it is zero based and has return type of Any:
val a=(1,2,3)
a.productElement(1) // returns 2nd element
If you know random_index only at runtime the best what you can have is (as #GuruStron answered)
val a = (1,2,3)
val i = 1
val x = a.productElement(i)
x: Any // 2
If you know random_index at compile time you can do
import shapeless.syntax.std.tuple._
val a = (1,2,3)
val x = a(1)
x: Int // 2 // not just Any
// a(4) // doesn't compile
val i = 1
// a(i) // doesn't compile
https://github.com/milessabin/shapeless/wiki/Feature-overview:-shapeless-2.0.0#hlist-style-operations-on-standard-scala-tuples
Although this a(1) seems to be pretty similar to standard a._1.
I found a piece of code I wrote some time ago using _* to create a flattened set from a list of objects.
The real line of code is a bit more complex and as I didn't remember exactly why was that there, took a bit of experimentation to understand the effect, which is actually very simple as seen in the following REPL session:
scala> val someList = List("a","a","b")
someList: List[java.lang.String] = List(a, a, b)
scala> val x = Set(someList: _*)
x: scala.collection.immutable.Set[java.lang.String] = Set(a, b)
scala> val y = Set(someList).flatten
y: scala.collection.immutable.Set[java.lang.String] = Set(a, b)
scala> x == y
res0: Boolean = true
Just as a reference of what happens without flatten:
scala> val z = Set(someList)
z: scala.collection.immutable.Set[List[java.lang.String]] = Set(List(a, a, b))
As I can't remember where did I get that idiom from I'd like to hear about what is actually happening there and if there is any consequence in going for one way or the other (besides the readability impact)
P.S.: Maybe as an effect of the overuse of underscore in Scala language (IMHO), it is kind of difficult to find documentation about some of its use cases, specially if it comes together with a symbol commonly used as a wildcard in most search engines.
_* is for expand this collection as if it was written here literally, so
val x = Set(Seq(1,2,3,4): _*)
is the same as
val x = Set(1,2,3,4)
Whereas, Set(someList) treats someList as a single argument.
To lookup funky symbols, you could use symbolhound
Suppose I want a Scala data structure that implements a 2-dimensional table of counts that can change over time (i.e., individual cells in the table can be incremented or decremented). What should I be using to do this?
I could use a 2-dimensional array:
val x = Array.fill[Int](1, 2) = 0
x(1)(2) += 1
But Arrays are mutable, and I guess I should slightly prefer immutable data structures.
So I thought about using a 2-dimensional Vector:
val x = Vector.fill[Int](1, 2) = 0
// how do I update this? I want to write something like val newX : Vector[Vector[Int]] = x.add((1, 2), 1)
// but I'm not sure how
But I'm not sure how to get a new vector with only a single element changed.
What's the best approach?
Best depends on what your criteria are. The simplest immutable variant is to use a map from (Int,Int) to your count:
var c = (for (i <- 0 to 99; j <- 0 to 99) yield (i,j) -> 0).toMap
Then you access your values with c(i,j) and set them with c += ((i,j) -> n); c += ((i,j) -> (c(i,j)+1)) is a little bit annoying, but it's not too bad.
Faster is to use nested Vectors--by about a factor of 2 to 3, depending on whether you tend to re-set the same element over and over or not--but it has an ugly update method:
var v = Vector.fill(100,100)(0)
v(82)(49) // Easy enough
v = v.updated(82, v(82).updated(49, v(82)(49)+1) // Ouch!
Faster yet (by about 2x) is to have only one vector which you index into:
var u = Vector.fill(100*100)(0)
u(82*100 + 49) // Um, you think I can always remember to do this right?
u = u.updated(82*100 + 49, u(82*100 + 49)+1) // Well, that's actually better
If you don't need immutability and your table size isn't going to change, just use an array as you've shown. It's ~200x faster than the fastest vector solution if all you're doing is incrementing and decrementing an integer.
If you want to do this in a very general and functional (but not necessarily performant) way, you can use lenses. Here's an example of how you could use Scalaz 7's implementation, for example:
import scalaz._
def at[A](i: Int): Lens[Seq[A], A] = Lens.lensg(a => a.updated(i, _), (_(i)))
def at2d[A](i: Int, j: Int) = at[Seq[A]](i) andThen at(j)
And a little bit of setup:
val table = Vector.tabulate(3, 4)(_ + _)
def show[A](t: Seq[Seq[A]]) = t.map(_ mkString " ") mkString "\n"
Which gives us:
scala> show(table)
res0: String =
0 1 2 3
1 2 3 4
2 3 4 5
We can use our lens like this:
scala> show(at2d(1, 2).set(table, 9))
res1: String =
0 1 2 3
1 2 9 4
2 3 4 5
Or we can just get the value at a given cell:
scala> val v: Int = at2d(2, 3).get(table)
v: Int = 5
Or do a lot of more complex things, like apply a function to a particular cell:
scala> show(at2d(2, 2).mod(((_: Int) * 2), table))
res8: String =
0 1 2 3
1 2 3 4
2 3 8 5
And so on.
There isn't a built-in method for this, perhaps because it would require the Vector to know that it contains Vectors, or Vectors or Vectors etc, whereas most methods are generic, and it would require a separate method for each number of dimensions, because you need to specify a co-ordinate arg for each dimension.
However, you can add these yourself; the following will take you up to 4D, although you could just add the bits for 2D if that's all you need:
object UpdatableVector {
implicit def vectorToUpdatableVector2[T](v: Vector[Vector[T]]) = new UpdatableVector2(v)
implicit def vectorToUpdatableVector3[T](v: Vector[Vector[Vector[T]]]) = new UpdatableVector3(v)
implicit def vectorToUpdatableVector4[T](v: Vector[Vector[Vector[Vector[T]]]]) = new UpdatableVector4(v)
class UpdatableVector2[T](v: Vector[Vector[T]]) {
def updated2(c1: Int, c2: Int)(newVal: T) =
v.updated(c1, v(c1).updated(c2, newVal))
}
class UpdatableVector3[T](v: Vector[Vector[Vector[T]]]) {
def updated3(c1: Int, c2: Int, c3: Int)(newVal: T) =
v.updated(c1, v(c1).updated2(c2, c3)(newVal))
}
class UpdatableVector4[T](v: Vector[Vector[Vector[Vector[T]]]]) {
def updated4(c1: Int, c2: Int, c3: Int, c4: Int)(newVal: T) =
v.updated(c1, v(c1).updated3(c2, c3, c4)(newVal))
}
}
In Scala 2.10 you don't need the implicit defs and can just add the implicit keyword to the class definitions.
Test:
import UpdatableVector._
val v2 = Vector.fill(2,2)(0)
val r2 = v2.updated2(1,1)(42)
println(r2) // Vector(Vector(0, 0), Vector(0, 42))
val v3 = Vector.fill(2,2,2)(0)
val r3 = v3.updated3(1,1,1)(42)
println(r3) // etc
Hope that's useful.
I was wondering how (if possible) I can go about making an adjacency list representation of a (mutable) graph via HashMap[Int, Vector[Int]]. HashMap would be mutable of course.
Currently I have it set as HashMap[Int, ArrayBuffer[Int]], but the fact that I can change each cell in the ArrayBuffer makes me uncomfortable, even though I'm fairly certain I'm not doing that. I would use a ListBuffer[Int] but I would like fast random access to neighbors due to my need to do fast random walks on the graphs. A Vector[Int] would solve this problem, but is there anyway to do this?
To my knowledge (tried this in the REPL), this won't work:
scala> val x = new mutable.HashMap[Int, Vector[Int]]
x: scala.collection.mutable.HashMap[Int,Vector[Int]] = Map()
scala> x(3) = Vector(1)
scala> x(3) += 4 // DOES NOT WORK
I need to be able to both append to it at any time and also access any element within it randomly (given the index). Is this possible?
Thanks!
-kstruct
Using the Vector:
x += 3 -> (x(3) :+ 4) //x.type = Map(3 -> Vector(1, 4))
You might notice that this will fail if there's no existing key, so you might like to set up your map as
val x = new mutable.HashMap[Int, Vector[Int]] withDefaultValue Vector.empty
I'm trying to construct nested maps in Scala, where both the outer and inner map use the "withDefaultValue" method. For example, the following :
val m = HashMap.empty[Int, collection.mutable.Map[Int,Int]].withDefaultValue( HashMap.empty[Int,Int].withDefaultValue(3))
m(1)(2)
res: Int = 3
m(1)(2) = 5
m(1)(2)
res: Int = 5
m(2)(3) = 6
m
res : scala.collection.mutable.Map[Int,scala.collection.mutable.Map[Int,Int]] = Map()
So the map, when addressed by the appropriate keys, gives me back what I put in. However, the map itself appears empty! Even m.size returns 0 in this example. Can anyone explain what's going on here?
Short answer
It's definitely not a bug.
Long answer
The behavior of withDefaultValue is to store a default value (in your case, a mutable map) inside the Map to be returned in the case that they key does not exist. This is not the same as a value that is inserted into the Map when they key is not found.
Let's look closely at what's happening. It will be easier to understand if we pull the default map out as a separate variable so we can inspect is at will; let's call it default
import collection.mutable.HashMap
val default = HashMap.empty[Int,Int].withDefaultValue(3)
So default is a mutable map (that has its own default value). Now we can create m and give default as the default value.
import collection.mutable.{Map => MMap}
val m = HashMap.empty[Int, MMap[Int,Int]].withDefaultValue(default)
Now whenever m is accessed with a missing key, it will return default. Notice that this is the exact same behavior as you have because withDefaultValue is defined as:
def withDefaultValue (d: B): Map[A, B]
Notice that it's d: B and not d: => B, so it will not create a new map each time the default is accessed; it will return the same exact object, what we've called default.
So let's see what happens:
m(1) // Map()
Since key 1 is not in m, the default, default is returned. default at this time is an empty Map.
m(1)(2) = 5
Since m(1) returns default, this operation stores 5 as the value for key 2 in default. Nothing is written to the Map m because m(1) resolves to default which is a separate Map entirely. We can check this by viewing default:
default // Map(2 -> 5)
But as we said, m is left unchanged
m // Map()
Now, how to achieve what you really wanted? Instead of using withDefaultValue, you want to make use of getOrElseUpdate:
def getOrElseUpdate (key: A, op: ⇒ B): B
Notice how we see op: => B? This means that the argument op will be re-evaluated each time it is needed. This allows us to put a new Map in there and have it be a separate new Map for each invalid key. Let's take a look:
val m2 = HashMap.empty[Int, MMap[Int,Int]]
No default values needed here.
m2.getOrElseUpdate(1, HashMap.empty[Int,Int].withDefaultValue(3)) // Map()
Key 1 doesn't exist, so we insert a new HashMap, and return that new value. We can check that it was inserted as we expected. Notice that 1 maps to the newly added empty map and that they 3 was not added anywhere because of the behavior explained above.
m2 // Map(1 -> Map())
Likewise, we can update the Map as expected:
m2.getOrElseUpdate(1, HashMap.empty[Int,Int].withDefaultValue(1))(2) = 6
and check that it was added:
m2 // Map(1 -> Map(2 -> 6))
withDefaultValue is used to return a value when the key was not found. It does not populate the map. So you map stays empty. Somewhat like using getOrElse(a, b) where b is provided by withDefaultValue.
I just had the exact same problem, and was happy to find dhg's answer. Since typing getOrElseUpdate all the time is not very concise, I came up with this little extension of the idea that I want to share:
You can declare a class that uses getOrElseUpdate as default behavior for the () operator:
class DefaultDict[K, V](defaultFunction: (K) => V) extends HashMap[K, V] {
override def default(key: K): V = return defaultFunction(key)
override def apply(key: K): V =
getOrElseUpdate(key, default(key))
}
Now you can do what you want to do like this:
var map = new DefaultDict[Int, DefaultDict[Int, Int]](
key => new DefaultDict(key => 3))
map(1)(2) = 5
Which does now result in map containing 5 (or rather: containing a DefaultDict containing the value 5 for the key 2).
What you're seeing is the effect that you've created a single Map[Int, Int] this is the default value whenever the key isn't in the outer map.
scala> val m = HashMap.empty[Int, collection.mutable.Map[Int,Int]].withDefaultValue( HashMap.empty[Int,Int].withDefaultValue(3))
m: scala.collection.mutable.Map[Int,scala.collection.mutable.Map[Int,Int]] = Map()
scala> m(2)(2)
res1: Int = 3
scala> m(1)(2) = 5
scala> m(2)(2)
res2: Int = 5
To get the effect that you're looking for, you'll have to wrap the Map with an implementation that actually inserts the default value when a key isn't found in the Map.
Edit:
I'm not sure what your actual use case is, but you may have an easier time using a pair for the key to a single Map.
scala> val m = HashMap.empty[(Int, Int), Int].withDefaultValue(3)
m: scala.collection.mutable.Map[(Int, Int),Int] = Map()
scala> m((1, 2))
res0: Int = 3
scala> m((1, 2)) = 5
scala> m((1, 2))
res3: Int = 5
scala> m
res4: scala.collection.mutable.Map[(Int, Int),Int] = Map((1,2) -> 5)
I know it's a bit late but I've just seen the post while I was trying to solve the same problem.
Probably the API are different from the 2012 version but you may want to use withDefaultinstead that withDefaultValue.
The difference is that withDefault takes a function as parameter, that is executed every time a missed key is requested ;)