[Haskell-cafe] Re: How to make code least strict?

[Conal Elliott]

I second Ryan's recommendation of using unamb [1,2,3] to give you unbiased
(symmetric) laziness.

The zip definition could also be written as

    zip xs@(x:xs') ys@(y:ys') =
      assuming (xs == []) [] `unamb`
      assuming (ys == []) [] `unamb`
      (x,y) : zip xs' ys'

The 'assuming' function yields a value if a condition is true and otherwise
is bottom:

    assuming :: Bool -> a -> a
    assuming True  a = a
    assuming False _ = undefined

This zip definition is a special case of the annihilator pattern, so

    zip = parAnnihilator (\ (x:xs') (y:ys') -> (x,y) : zip xs' ys') []

where 'parAnnihilator' is defined in Data.Unamb (along with other goodies)
as follows:

    parAnnihilator :: Eq a => (a -> a -> a) -> a -> (a -> a -> a)
    parAnnihilator op ann x y =
      assuming (x == ann) ann `unamb`
      assuming (y == ann) ann `unamb`
      (x `op` y)

[1] http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Unamb
[2]
http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/unamb/latest/doc/html/Data-Unamb.html
[3] http://conal.net/blog/tag/unamb/

   - conal

On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 12:27 PM, Ryan Ingram <ryani.spam at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 9:10 AM, ChrisK <haskell at list.mightyreason.com>
> wrote:
> > Consider that the order of pattern matching can matter as well, the
> simplest
> > common case being zip:
> >
> > zip xs [] = []
> > zip [] ys = []
> > zip (x:xs) (y:ys) = (x,y) : zip xs ys
>
> If you are obsessive about least-strictness and performance isn't a
> giant concern, this seems like a perfect use for Conal's unamb[1]
> operator.
>
> zipR xs [] = []
> zipR [] ys = []
> zipR (x:xs) (y:ys) = (x,y) : zip xs ys
>
> zipL [] ys = []
> zipL xs [] = []
> zipL (x:xs) (y:ys) = (x,y) : zip xs ys
>
> zip xs ys = unamb (zipL xs ys) (zipR xs ys)
>
> This runs both zipL and zipR in parallel until one of them gives a
> result; if neither of them is _|_ they are guaranteed to be identical,
> so we can "unambiguously choose" whichever one gives a result first.
>
>  -- ryan
>
> [1]
> http://conal.net/blog/posts/functional-concurrency-with-unambiguous-choice/
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