August 2001 - Haskell-Cafe

Numeric literals
by Mark Carroll 27 Aug '01

27 Aug '01

Today's other question has to do with numeric literals. How do I write literals for interesting IEEE values, e.g. Prelude> x Infinity Prelude> :type x Double Prelude> (read "Infinity") :: Double *** Exception: Ratio.%: zero denominator Prelude> ...? If I'm just missing something obvious in the standard documentation, please feel free to just give me a citation. I've already tried sections 2.5 and 6.4.1 of the Haskell Report, etc. though. Thanks. -- Mark

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Easy syntax question
by Mark Carroll 27 Aug '01

27 Aug '01

I can write a function x :: Integer -> Integer that returns 5 if I give it 2, 5 or 9, or 7 otherwise. Say, x 2 = 5 x 5 = 5 x 9 = 5 x _ = 7 Generally, this is a question about where multiple cases lead to the same thing, maybe even in the middle of a function. (Like C's "case 1: case 2: case 3: foo; break;".) Does it get any better than this, though? I can't convince 'case' to do something like, case n of 2,5,9 -> 5 otherwise -> 7 Am I missing some syntax somewhere? I'm lost in the grammar in the Haskell report. -- Mark

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Re: GHC Mandrake problem
by Pixel 24 Aug '01

24 Aug '01

Hampus Ram <d00ram(a)dtek.chalmers.se> writes: > > Loading package std ... ghc-5.00.2: can't find .o or .so/.DLL for: m (lib.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory) > > > > Can anyone tell me what's missing, or how to fix this?? > > A _very_ ugly "fix" for this problem is to make a symbolic link to > libm.so and call it lib.so. Maybe a nicer fix:

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GHC Mandrake problem
by phaywood＠mail.iprimus.com.au 24 Aug '01

24 Aug '01

Hello, I tried to install version ghc 5.00.2 & prof from mandrake (vers 8.0 with current updates). It installed fine, but i get this message when i try to run ghci: Loading package std ... ghc-5.00.2: can't find .o or .so/.DLL for: m (lib.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory) Can anyone tell me what's missing, or how to fix this?? TIA -------------------------------------------------------------------- Mail2Web - Check your email from the web at http://www.mail2web.com/ .

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Re: 2 points on language
by D. Tweed 24 Aug '01

24 Aug '01

On Fri, 24 Aug 2001, S.D.Mechveliani wrote: > D. Tweed <tweed(a)compsci.bristol.ac.uk> writes > > On a purely pragmatic note ( :-) ) these optimisations can't necessarily > > be safely used in three of the four most common cases, namely Int, Float > > and Double because of the restricted range of intermediates. > Int, Float, Double > are not supposed to be provided with the CommutativeRing instance. > And most common cases are, to my mind, different: > Integer, Rational, (Integer, Rational), Polynomial Integer ... Ah, I must admit I'd rather missed the point that you were only intending them to apply to things that were of the algebraic class `Commutative Ring'. I was thinking that it'd be something where a particular funciton over a (possibly polymorphic) type could be declared associative, commutative, etc and then those more elementary classes came together in the particular example of the CommutativeRing. For example, the operator ++ on lists is associative, there are useful computational savings to be made utilising this (IIRC Lennart Augustsson had this specal cased in the hbc compiler), but it's difficult to see how you gain anything by trying to pin down any of the other properties of lists that would figure in the mathematically standard classes (there's no inverse as far as I can see so we don't even make it as far as a group). I think from the point of view of lobbying compiler implementors to put in the spade work to make this happen you're more likely to get support if the elegant algebraic classes come as a neat combination of more low-level, `unstructured' features. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of extending the power of the Haskell compilers, I was just pointing out that the obvious thought that associative- and commutative-rewrite based optimisation `will also be very helpful for programs that are doing "everyday arithmetic" operations (say running a Kalman filter over a sequence of data represented using Doubles)' isn't necessarily true, and it certainly wasn't obvious to me: it was only happening upon the reference in the MetaFont book that made me realise it. ___cheers,_dave________________________________________________________ www.cs.bris.ac.uk/~tweed/pi.htm |tweed's law: however many computers email: tweed(a)cs.bris.ac.uk | you have, half your time is spent work tel: (0117) 954-5250 | waiting for compilations to finish.

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Braces vs. Whitespace
by Ashley Yakeley 21 Aug '01

21 Aug '01

At 2001-08-21 20:31, Dean Herington wrote (on the Haskell list): >Now realizing that the "where" keyword is optional when there are no >accompanying declarations, I think it would be preferable to omit the >"where" keyword to indicate that the absence of declarations is >intentional. Personally I prefer the explicit braces/semicolons syntax rather than worrying about whitespace: module DeepSeq where { class DeepSeq a where { deepSeq :: a -> b -> b; deepSeq = seq; -- default, for simple cases }; ... instance DeepSeq Ordering; instance DeepSeq Integer; instance DeepSeq Int; instance DeepSeq Float; instance DeepSeq Double; } ...or if you prefer... module DeepSeq where { class DeepSeq a where { deepSeq :: a -> b -> b; deepSeq = seq; -- default, for simple cases }; ... instance DeepSeq Ordering; instance DeepSeq Integer; instance DeepSeq Int; instance DeepSeq Float; instance DeepSeq Double; } etc. Basically you put a braced block after every 'do', 'in' and 'where', and semicolons after every declaration. When I was first learning Haskell, I got massively confused by the whitespace rules, especially with mixed tabs/spaces etc. I reckon the braces style is more readable to anyone used to C/C++/Java etc. -- Ashley Yakeley, Seattle WA

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Re: Subtyping
by Fritz K Ruehr 21 Aug '01

21 Aug '01

[sorry about that, let's try again...] Ross Paterson wrote (in regards variations on factorial): > Another version: > > fac = foldr (*) 1 . unfoldr (\n -> guard (n > 0) >> return (n, n-1)) Thanks for forwarding this; may I quote it on the web site? (with full attribution, of course) If so, you are welcome to give it a name and a pithy little "slogan" (also for the one below). > Also, the combinatory programmer would regard defining y by recursion > as cheating, and would probably prefer one of these versions: > > newtype SelfApp a = SA (SelfApp a -> a) > > selfApply :: SelfApp a -> a > selfApply (SA f) = f (SA f) > > yCurry :: (a -> a) -> a > yCurry f = selfApply (SA (\x -> f (selfApply x))) > > yTuring :: (a -> a) -> a > yTuring = selfApply (SA (\x f -> f (selfApply x f))) Yes, this is definitely the right way to go here. I comment on the site about the fact that we should really *define* Y (and I felt a bit guilty about it :) ), but I didn't try hard enough to get around the typing issue. You have done so quite elegantly. Of course, there is also a trade-off at some point between the impact of the various examples and their sheer number (I added an environment-model based interpreter yesterday that started to push this boundary). Still, more monads (arrows, even?) are needed. -- Fritz Ruehr PS: for those who missed it, the site is at: <http://www.willamette.edu/~fruehr/haskell/evolution.html>

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Re: Subtyping
by Fritz K Ruehr 21 Aug '01

21 Aug '01

Ross Paterson wrote (in regards variations on factorial):

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Re: GHC Mandrake problem
by Pixel 21 Aug '01

21 Aug '01

"phaywood(a)mail.iprimus.com.au" <phaywood(a)pop.iprimus.com.au> writes: > Hello, I tried to install version ghc 5.00.2 & prof from mandrake (vers 8.0 > with current updates). It installed fine, but i get this message when i try to > run ghci: > > > Loading package std ... ghc-5.00.2: can't find .o or .so/.DLL for: m (lib.so: > cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory) booh :'-( it tries to find m.o then tries lib.so > > Can anyone tell me what's missing, or how to fix this?? i don't know either. It used to work. I'm currently trying a rebuild...

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Re: Subtyping
by Fritz K Ruehr 21 Aug '01

21 Aug '01

Frank Atanassow wrote: > This is a situation where the explicit fixpoint datatype comes in handy: > > data Fix f = In (f (Fix f)) > > ... > > BTW, this is not a beginner, or even intermediate, Haskell programmer's > technique. For those who are interested in what exactly is or isn't a beginner or intermediate Haskell programmer's technique, I humbly offer the following <http://www.willamette.edu/~fruehr/haskell/evolution.html> which includes examples of the afore-mentioned approach, along with many others, from accumulating parameters to comonads. Fair warning: tongue held firmly in cheek ... -- Fritz Ruehr fruehr(a)willamette.edu

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