Suppose we want to write a function to sum a list of integers. By now you should be able to write the following code:
let rec sum (l : int list) : int =
match l with
[] -> 0
| x :: xs -> x + (sum xs)
Now suppose we want to concatenate a list of strings. We can write:
let rec concat (l : string list) : string =
match l with
[] -> ""
| x :: xs -> x ^ (concat xs)
Notice that both functions look almost identical. With the exception of the different types and different operation (^ vs +), both functions are equivalent. In both cases, we walk down a list performing some operation with the data at each step. Since we love to reuse code in this class, is there some easier way to encode this?
It turns out we can abstract all of the details of traversing a list. The idea is simple. As we walk across a list, we store an accumulator, a value that stores some data that is important to us. For example, if we want to walk across a list of integers and sum them, we could store the current sum in the accumulator. We start with the accumulator set to 0. As we come across each new element, we add the element to the accumulator. When we reach the end, we return the value stored in the accumulator.
Let's try to rewrite the sum function to introduce the idea of an accumulator.
let rec sum' (acc : int) (l : int list) : int =
match l with
[] -> acc
| x :: xs -> sum' (acc + x) xs
Of course, to get the sum, we must call sum' with 0 for the initial acc
value. Similarly, we can rewrite concat with this concept of the
accumulator.
let rec concat' (acc : string) (l : string list) : string =
match l with
[] -> acc
| x :: xs -> concat' (acc ^ x) xs
To use this function, we pass in the empty string for the initial
accumulator. Now we see even more similarity between the two
functions. We are in a position to eliminate any differences between
the two by passing in the operator that acts on the head of the list and the
accumulator. The result is the most powerful list function in the list
library: List.fold_left.
let rec fold_left (f : 'a -> 'b ->'a) (acc : 'a) (l : 'b list): 'a =
match l with
[] -> acc
| x :: xs -> fold_left f (f acc x) xs
Now we can rewrite sum and concat as
let sum (l : int list) : int = List.fold_left (fun acc x -> acc + x) 0 l let concat (l : string list) : string = List.fold_left (fun acc x -> acc ^ x) "" l
Given a function f of type 'a -> 'b -> 'a, the expression
List.fold_left f b [x1; x2; ...; xn] evaluates to
f (... (f (f b x1) x2) ...) xn.
The 'left' in List.fold_left comes from the fact that it walks the list from left to
right. Thus, we have to be careful sometimes in applying functions in the
right order (hence acc ^ x and not x ^ acc in concat above). There is also a
library function List.fold_right which traverses the list from right to left. Note that
List.fold_right uses a different argument order than List.fold_left.
The list and the accumulator arguments are switched, and the function takes in the accumulator as
its second curried argument, not its first.
So, List.fold_right f [x1; x2; ...; xn] b evaluates to f x1 (f x2 (... (f xn b)...)). The code for List.fold_right is
let rec fold_right (f : 'a -> 'b -> 'b) (l : 'a list) (acc : 'b) : 'b =
match l with
[] -> acc
| x :: xs -> f x (List.fold_right f xs acc)
We can use List.fold_right to write concat in the more natural manner.
let concat (l : string list) : string = List.fold_right (fun x acc -> x ^ acc) l ""
But we can still do better. Remember, both List.fold_left and List.fold_right are curried,
so that we can leave out the list argument and write
let sum = List.fold_left (fun a x -> x + a) 0 let concat = List.fold_left (fun a x -> a ^ x) ""
We can do even better. OCaml provides a convenient notation to use
infix binary operators as curried functions by enclosing them in parentheses.
So (+) is a curried function that takes two integers and add them,
(^) is a curried function that takes two strings and concatenates them. We can write sum and concat one last time as
let sum = List.fold_left (+) 0 let concat = List.fold_left (^) ""
Now you see the true power of functional programming. Try rewriting functions that sum a list of ints and concatenate a list of strings in 2 short lines of Java.
Folding is so powerful, that we can write almost every other general list function in terms of
List.fold_left or List.fold_right. For example,
let length l = List.fold_left (fun a _ -> a + 1) 0 l let rev l = List.fold_left (fun a x -> x :: a) [] l let map f l = List.fold_right (fun x a -> (f x) :: a) l [] let app f l = List.fold_left (fun _ x -> f x) () l let filter f l = List.fold_right (fun x a -> if f x then x :: a else a) l []
When writing code with fold, OCaml's type system can be tremendously
helpful. The type of List.fold_left is ('a -> 'b -> 'a) -> 'a -> 'b list -> 'a. Suppose we know we are applying List.fold_left to an int list and we
want to return a string. Then 'b is of type int and 'a is of type
string. So right away, we know that the function we have to pass into
List.fold_left is of type string -> int -> string. Remember to use your type system
to help you in writing code.
You should try writing some functions with List.fold_left to get a feel for it.
It can be incredibly useful.
A function is tail recursive if it calls itself recursively
but does not perform any computation after the recursive call returns,
and immediately returns to its caller the value of its recursive call.
Observe the following difference between the sum and sum' functions
above: In the first sum function, which is not tail recursive,
after the recursive call returned its
value, we add x to it. In the tail recursive sum', after the recursive
call returns, we immediately return the value without further computation.
Notice also that List.fold_left is tail recursive, whereas List.fold_right is not.
Why do we care about tail recursion? Performance.
Conceptually, there is a
call stack, which is a stack (the data structure with push and
pop operations) with one element for each function call that has been
started but has not yet completed. Each element stores things like
the value of local variables and what part of the function has not
been evaluated yet. When the evaluation of one function
body calls another function, a new element is pushed on the call stack
and it is popped off when the called function completes.
When a function makes a recursive call to itself
and there is nothing more for the caller to do after the
callee returns (except return the callee's result),
this situation is called a tail call.
Functional languages like OCaml (and even imperative languages
like C++) typically include an
hugely useful optimization: when a call is a tail call, the caller's
stack-frame is popped before the call—the callee's
stack-frame just replaces the caller's. This makes sense: the
caller was just going to return the callee's result anyway.
With this optimization, recursion can sometimes be as efficient as
a while loop in imperative languages (such loops don't make the
call-stack bigger.) The
"sometimes" is exactly when calls are tail calls—something both you and
the compiler can (often) figure out.
With tail-call optimization, the space performance of a recursive algorithm can
be reduced from O(n) to O(1), that is, from one stack frame per call to
a single stack frame for all calls.
So when you have a choice between using List.fold_left and List.fold_right,
you are likely better off using List.fold_left on really long lists.
Nonetheless, it is sometimes easier to express a computation using List.fold_right (notice
that we wrote map in terms of fold_right in lecture on map and fold),
so there is a tradeoff between performance and code clarity.
If you want to use List.fold_right on a very lengthy
list, you might instead choose to reverse the list first, then
use List.fold_left.
For example, we could have written map as follows:
let map f l = List.fold_left (fun a x -> (f x) :: a) [] (List.rev l)
That results in a tail recursive hence space efficient implementation. But that doesn't mean that a tail-recursive implementation is strictly better. On small to medium sized lists, the overhead of reversing the list (both in time and in allocating memory for the reversed list) can make the tail-recursive version less time efficient.