Thanks, Raul.  --Kip

Sent from my iPad


On Feb 17, 2013, at 7:39 AM, Raul Miller <[email protected]> wrote:

> Here's how I would approach this task:
> 
> First, I would think about how the sentence gets parsed.  Or, if I was
> just learning how that works, I could have J guide me:
> 
>   require 'addons/general/misc/trace.ijs'
>   trace '*/&>@{@((^ i.@>:)&.>/)@q:~&__'
> ...
> (long output elided)
> 
> Note that the current version of trace does some surprising things
> with user defined names, but since this sentence has no user defined
> names I can ignore that issue.
> 
> Then, I would build up a sequence of named definitions which
> correspond to those parsing steps.  I would try to give them
> meaningful names, and I would comment them with the code I was
> substituting for to keep me from getting too lost.  Note also that I
> could plug my names back into the original for testing purposes.  For
> example, using variations on the sentence
> 
>   (*/&>@{@((^ i.@>:)&.>/)@q:~&__) 720
> 
> If I was impatient, I might implement testing as something that
> happens when my definition script gets loaded.
> 
> Also, towards the end, I would skip a bunch of steps.  I used the
> idiom F@q:~&__ which is equivalent to __ F@q: ] but keeps the left
> argument of q: from getting to be too distant from q: itself. Rather
> than mechanically translate this idiom (a rather length process, which
> requires I come up with worthwhile names for what I think of as
> garbage intermediate results), I would just use its replacement.
> 
> The resulting definitions would look something like this:
> 
> NB. i.@>: monad
> oneThroughN=: [: i. 1 + ]
> 
> NB. ^ i.@>: dyad
> firstNPowers=: [ ^ oneThroughN
> 
> NB. (^ i.@>:)&.> dyad
> powersInBoxes=: ([: < ([: > [) firstNPowers [: > ])"0
> 
> NB. (^ i.@>:)&.>/ monad
> combineUsingPowers=: powersInBoxes/
> 
> NB. */ monad
> multiplyAll=: */
> 
> NB. */&> monad
> multiplyAllFromBox=: ([: multiplyAll  [: > ])"0
> 
> NB. */&>@{ monad
> multiplyAllPermutations=: [: multiplyAllFromBox {
> 
> NB. */&>@{@((^ i.@>:)&.>/) monad
> multiplyAllPowers=: [: multiplyAllPermutations combineUsingPowers
> 
> fctrs=: [: multiplyAllPowers __ q: ]
> 
> And, at this point, you could do
>   sfctrs=: fctrs f.
>   5!:4 <'sfctrs'
> 
> But note also that if there were any failures in my translations (for
> example, maybe I thought I was working with a monad where I was really
> working with a dyad), I could isolate them.
> 
> And, in fact, when I am debugging tacit J, I use analogous techniques.
> If I do not understand what data I am dealing with at a particular
> point, I replace the code which would run after that point so that I
> can capture the data.  If I am particularly lost, I might substitute a
> phrase, replacing it with  <@,&< in an otherwise working example.
> This shows me exactly what the values are and also shows me whether
> the context is a monadic or dyadic context.  If I want to see the
> shapes and do not know the context, I can use ;&$
> 
> Once I have sufficiently explored the data to be able to construct my
> own examples, I can extract the phrase (the one I had just replaced)
> onto the command line and give it representative arguments.
> 
> Anyways, I strongly believe that being able to isolate problems is a
> crucial skill for people working with computers.
> 
> I hope this helps,
> 
> -- 
> Raul
> 
> On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 at 10:13 PM, Linda Alvord <[email protected]> 
> wrote:
>> I am trying to write  factrs in simple J.  I hit two snags:
>> 
>>   factrs=: */&>@{@((^ i.@>:)&.>/)@q:~&__
>>   5!:6 <'factrs'
>> ((((((*/)&>)@{)@(((^ (i.@>:))&.>)/))@q:)~)&__
>>   factrs 500
>> 1  5  25 125
>> 2 10  50 250
>> 4 20 100 500
>> 
>>   f=:((((((*/)&>)@{)@(((^ (i.@>:))&.>)/))@q:)~)&__
>>   g=:(((^ (i.@>:))&.>)/)
>>   g
>> (^ i.@>:)&.>/
>>   g 500
>> 500
>> 
>>   f=:((((((*/)&>)@{)@g)@q:)~)&__
>>   h=:(((*/)&>)@{)
>>   h
>> */&>@{
>>   h 500
>> 500
>> 
>>   f=:(((h@g)@q:)~)&__
>>   f
>> h@g@q:~&__
>> 
>>   gg=: 13 :'(<( ^ [: i. >:)>)/ y'
>>   hh=:  13 :'*/"1>"0{y'
>> 
>>   ff=:(((hh@g)@q:)~)&__
>>   ff 500
>> 1  5  25 125
>> 2 10  50 250
>> 4 20 100 500
>> 
>>   ff=:(((hh@gg)@q:)~)&__
>>   ff 500
>> |length error: gg
>> |       ff 500
>> |[-24] c:\users\owner\j701-user\temp\52.ijs
>> 
>> I can't understand  gg  well enough to adjust the rank.
>> 
>> What does  &__  mean?
>> 
>> Linda
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: [email protected]
>> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Raul Miller
>> Sent: Monday, February 11, 2013 3:28 PM
>> To: [email protected]
>> Subject: Re: [Jprogramming] Recursive programming (and scoping therein)
>> 
>> After reading this, and finally noticing the comment about remel in the
>> original post, I am uncomfortable with this treatment of remel.
>> 
>> A scheme 'alist' is like two J lists, one a list of keys which we search to
>> get an index into the other.  If the types are compatible (probably valid
>> for integers or boxes), this could be a two dimensional array where one of
>> the dimensions is 2.
>> 
>> But the original code is not using an alist, as near as I can tell -- it's
>> just using a list of divisors.  In this context, I think remel would
>> logically be replaced by dyadic use of J's -. primitive.
>> Except, this does not work as near as I can tell.  I'm not sure if that's
>> because remel is expected to modify the original alist, or if that's because
>> remel is really meant to treat the alist as a stack where it's removing not
>> only the matching element but all previous elements (which is what the J
>> implementation does).
>> 
>> But ignoring that, and using the original supplied definition, here's how I
>> would translate the original code to J:
>> 
>> allfactors =: af q:
>> 
>> remel =: [ }.~ [: >: i.
>> 
>> af=: dyad define
>>  divisors=. y
>>  num=. x
>>  if.0=#divisors do.,num end.
>>  uniquefactors=. ~.divisors
>>  ;num;(num&% af divisors&remel)&.> uniquefactors
>> )
>> 
>> I have not tried to optimize this for efficiency because the recursive
>> process itself is too inefficient to be worth bothering with.
>> 
>> For reference, here's one of the implementations from that rosetta code link
>> I posted earlier:
>> 
>>   factrs=: */&>@{@((^ i.@>:)&.>/)@q:~&__
>>   factrs 12
>> 1  3
>> 2  6
>> 4 12
>> 
>> Obviously you would want to ravel that result before treating it as a list.
>> 
>>   ,@factrs 12
>> 1 3 2 6 4 12
>> 
>> Anyways, I believe that this approach should be more efficient than the use
>> of remel (or whatever that should be) in recursion.
>> 
>> --
>> Raul
>> 
>> On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 12:01 PM, Marshall Lochbaum <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>> I assume the problems you're having are in getting num and divisors to
>>> work inside the lambda clause. J can handle this fine--just use tacit
>>> code rather than an explicit function for the lambda. Here is the same
>>> code in J.
>>> 
>>> remel =: ([ }.~ [: >: i.)"_ 0
>>> 
>>> allfactors =: af q:
>>> 
>>> af =: [ , 4 : 0 ^: (*@#@])
>>>  x (% af&.>(;@:) y <@remel ]) ~.y
>>> )
>>> 
>>> af uses a bit of refactoring to avoid having to write the case where y
>>> (divisors) is empty explicitly. We know we want to tack x (num) to the
>>> beginning of the list regardless of what happens in the function. Once
>>> we have made this choice with the [ , at the beginning of af's
>>> definition, we see that the rest of the function should just return an
>>> empty list if passed an empty list for y. Therefore we add ^:(*@#@])
>>> to af. This means the explicit portion is only executed if y has
>>> nonzero length. Otherwise it will do nothing, that is, return y which
>>> is the empty list we want.
>>> 
>>> The inside of the function is fairly straightforward. We compute the
>>> nub of y to use as the right argument. Then y <@remel ] gives a boxed
>>> list of terms (remel divisors x), and % with left argument x and right
>>> argument ~.y gives the terms (/ num x). We apply af to them using
>>> af&.> to give a list of boxed results and combine these into a single
>>> list with ; .
>>> 
>>> af can also be written in a completely tacit form, although in this
>>> form we can't easily juggle the three terms num, divisors, and (unique
>>> divisors). The easiest way out of this is just to compute the nub of
>>> divisors twice.
>>> 
>>> af =: [ , ((%~.) $:&.>(;@:) (<@remel ~.)@]) ^: (*@#@])
>>> 
>>> This verb uses $: for self-reference, but is largely the same as the
>>> other form of af.
>>> 
>>> I realize that methods like these aren't really equivalent to proper
>>> scoping rules, but I think most of the time they are good enough.
>>> 
>>> Marshall
>>> 
>>> On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 01:04:31PM +0000, Alex Giannakopoulos wrote:
>>>> Are there any resources on recursive programming in J?  Couldn't find
>>>> much by searching.
>>>> I would particularly like to know about scoping, and also so-called
>>>> free variables.
>>>> 
>>>> It seems to me that the enforced naming of variables as 'x' and 'y'
>>>> might cause problems in nested functions, necessitating awkward
>>>> renaming and copying.
>>>> 
>>>> I will give a little example here (my apologies to those unfamiliar
>>>> with
>>>> Scheme.)
>>>> I am trying to write a routine that will return ALL the factors of a
>>>> number, not just the prime ones.
>>>> I do this by using an auxiliary routine that takes the number to
>>>> factor and a list of numbers still to combine.
>>>> 
>>>> ;; function (unique numlist) corresponds to J's ~.
>>>> ;; function (remel alist elem) corresponds to J's   [ }.~ [: >: i.
>>>> ;; function (primefactors n) corresponds to J's   q:
>>>> 
>>>> (define (allfactors n) (af n (primefators n))
>>>> 
>>>> (define (af num divisors)
>>>>  (if (null? divisors) (list num)
>>>>      (let ((uniquefactors (unique divisors)))
>>>>           (flatten
>>>>           (cons num
>>>>                 (map (lambda(x) (af (/ num x) (remel divisors x)))
>>>>                      uniquefactors))))))
>>>> 
>>>> Now I tried to express this in J, but can't even get to first base,
>>>> because of the scoping problems I mentioned.
>>>> I realise that recursion is not the primary mode for programming J,
>>>> and a good solution may instead use something like running totals
>>>> (\), but for the time being I am stuck.
>>>> Any suggestions gratefully received.
>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> - For information about J forums see
>>>> http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
>> 
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
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