Hi, First I'll answer your second question: but in this case what is i and what is k? (So the question is about primes 3) Think about the meaning of the expression primes 3, which is: primes 3 = 2:[i | i <- [3,5..3], and [mod i k /= 0 | k <- primes (isqrt i)]] = 2:*[i | i <- [3], and [mod i k /= 0 | k <- primes (isqrt i)]] * So, in the list *[i | i <- [3], and [mod i k /= 0 | k <- primes (isqrt i)]]* i takes all values in the list *[3]* (i.e. it is only 3) and for each of them the condition *[mod i k /= 0 | k <- primes (isqrt i)] * must be checked. When i=3, it is *[mod 3 k /= 0 | k <- primes 1] * = * [mod 3 k /= 0 | k <- []]*, so the condition is empty (it means you must check that mod 3 k is nonzero for every k in the empty list, so you don't need to check anything!). So this is clearly primes 3 = 2:*[3]* = [2,3]. To understand better, if you had: [i | i <- [3,4,5,6], and [mod i k /= 0 | k <- []]] (this never occurs in the program, but just to understand what i and k are) i would be respectively 3,4,5 and 6 and for each i, k would be nothing. So the list above is equal to [3,4,5,6]. Now maybe the meaning of this kind of expressions is mor clear, and you can see that what you imagined the function did is not completely correct: primes 10 = 2:[i | i <- [3,5,7,9], and [mod i k /= 0 | k <- primes (isqrt i)]] So, i is not 10 (so you don't always take k in primes 3), since it varies among the values 3,5,7 and 9. When i is 3, as I said before, k is in primes 1 = [], so there is no further condition to check, so 3 is in the list. When i is 5, k is in primes (isqrt 5) = primes 2 = [2], so you have to check if mod 5 2 is nonzero, and it is, so 5 is in the list. When i is 7, k is in primes (isqrt 7) = primes 2 = [2], so you have to check if mod 7 2 is nonzero, and it is, so 7 is in the list. When i is 9, k is in primes (isqrt 9) = primes 3 = [2,3], so you have to check if mod 9 2 is nonzero and mod 9 3 is nonzero, but this is false, so 9 is NOT in the list. As for your first question (which is now about something that happens for i=9, not for i=10 which never happens, n=10, not i, so you never look at primes (isqrt 10), but the answer would be the same, there is no difference) I haven't reached base case in this situations so can i or can i not meaningfully evaluate* mod i k /= 0*? The answer is that of course you have to evaluate primes 3 before. So when the expression is reduced, first primes 3 is calculated (and as you said it gives [2,3]), and then mod i k /=0 can be evaluated because you know where both i and k vary. I hope it is clear, cheers, Ut Il giorno mer 15 gen 2020 alle ore 15:49 Alexander Chen < alexander@chenjia.nl> ha scritto:

Hi,

This could gives you for any given integer the list of prime numbers. source is from a stack overflow snippet.

helper function: isqrt :: Integral a => a -> a isqrt = floor . sqrt . fromIntegral

main function: primes 1 = [] primes n = 2:[i | i <- [3,5..n], and [mod i k /= 0 | k <- primes (isqrt i)]]

my main unclarity is how I should interpret i and k in de mod part. At every step of the recursion.

example: *primes 10*.

it should generate *[2,3,5,7,9]* if you ignore the second part.

however, when I look at the second part

then first I need to do this *primes (isqrt 10)*, which give primes 3. which gives met *[2,3]*. first question) I haven't reached base case in this situations so can i or can i not meaningfully evaluate* mod i k /= 0*? Independent of that I now go deeper to reach base case. So I go to *primes (isqrt 3)* which gives me primes 1 which is *[]*. Now I hit the base case and need to definitely evaluate *mod i k /= 0.* second question) but in this case what is i and what is k?

If I have it completely wrong, then please be patience. I appreciate the input!

best,

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