Taking this simple comparison loopValue == "Firstname", is the following statement true?
If the internal operand inspecting the first char does not match the compared string, it will early abort
So taking the rawer form loopValue and "Firstname" are both []byte. And it would walk the array kind of like so as callback loop for truth:
someInspectionFunc(loopValue, "Firstname", func(charA, charB) {
return charA == charB
})
... making it keep on going until it bumps false and checks if the number of iterations was equal to both their lengths. Also does it check length first?
if len(loopValue) != len("Firstname") {
return false
}
I can't really find an explanation in the go source-code on GitHub as it's a bit above me.
The reason I'm asking this is because I'm doing big data processing and am benchmarking and doing cpu, memory and allocation pprof to squeeze some more juice out of the process. From that process it kind of made me think how Go (but also just C in general) would do this under the hood. Is this fully on an assembly level or does the comparison already happen in native Go code (kind of like sketched in the snippets above)?
Please let me know if I'm being too vague or if I missed something. Thank you
Update
When I did a firstCharater match in big strings of json, before really comparing I got about 3.7% benchmarking gain on 100k heavy entries:
<some irrelevant inspection code>.. v[0] == firstChar && v == lookFor {
// Match found when it reaches here
}
the code above (especially on long strings) is faster than just going for v == lookFor.
The function is handled in assembly. The amd64 version is:
TEXT runtime·eqstring(SB),NOSPLIT,$0-33
MOVQ s1str+0(FP), SI
MOVQ s2str+16(FP), DI
CMPQ SI, DI
JEQ eq
MOVQ s1len+8(FP), BX
LEAQ v+32(FP), AX
JMP runtime·memeqbody(SB)
eq:
MOVB $1, v+32(FP)
RET
And it's the compiler's job to ensure that the strings are of equal length before that is called. (The runtime·memeqbody function is actually where the optimized memory comparisons happen, but there's probably no need to post the full text here)
The equivalent Go code would be:
func eqstring_generic(s1, s2 string) bool {
if len(s1) != len(s2) {
return false
}
for i := 0; i < len(s1); i++ {
if s1[i] != s2[i] {
return false
}
}
return true
}
in my code I have the following if statement:
if (a.count >= 2) {
t2 = array[b % a.count];
array[0] = t2;
}
I have another if statement that goes like the first. What I want it to do is if a <= 0 then goto a certain line, or skip over certain parts of code. How would I do this? I was thinking something along the lines of
if (a.count <= 0) {
goto line 96
}
This wouldn't work, the syntax is wrong, but how would I do this?
Goto statements are generally considered bad programming and excessive utilization of them can lead to code that is hard to maintain and debug.
That said, if/else/else if provide all the functionality you need.
I recommend putting the code you need to run inside that if statement in a separate method and then calling it from the if statement.
if (a.count <= 0) {
nameOfNewMethod();
}
//somewhere else
- (void) nameOfNewMethod {
//code here
}
Put the lines of code you want to "goto" in a function (or if appropriate, a block) and call the function (or block). If there are lines of code you want to skip, you can always return early out of a function, or use an else block?
There is in fact a goto command in Objective-C. To utilize it, you have to create a label, ex:
marker:
and jump to it like so within the same method:
goto marker;
But you can't declare any variables between those two commands. All the variables have to be created before the jump so that they still exist after.
Here's an example of how to use goto:
int x = 0;
if (a.count <= 0) {
goto marker;
}
x = 5;
marker:; // <-- semi-colon indicates the label is followed by an empty statement, thus allowing for immediate variable declaration
int y = x + 7;
In that case, if a.count <= 0, y == 7, else y == 12.
I have been developing a very simple text game using Objective C and Xcode. It is almost done but I am having a problem, the scanf method stops the loop and asks for user input while I need the computer to be running the rest of the loop, the solution I came up with was running two while loops at the same time, one being the logic loop and another being a loop for user input.
I have been doing my research and it looks like using threads are the way to go, I just have not found a tutorial that will break it down for a n00b in Objective C (I am decent in java, I just have never worked with threads). If anybody could explain them or link me to a very broken down tutorial that would be great. Or if anybody has another idea I am open to anything else.
Necessary Code (The scanf I am having a problem with has asterisks on the line):
while(running != 0)
{
if(gameState == 1)
{
if(timeToGenerateNum == true)
{
while(randNumber < 10000000)
{
randNumber = arc4random() % 100000000;
}
NSLog(#"%i", randNumber);
timeToGenerateNum = false;
}
else
{
while(time <= 2500)
{
NSLog(#"Testing");
time++;
******************scanf("%i", &userNum);************************
if(userNum == randNumber)
{
score += time;
time = 0;
timeToGenerateNum = true;
}
}
NSLog(#"Game Over! Your score was %i!", score);
running = 0;
}
}
else if(gameState == 2)
{
NSLog(#"To play, simply type in the number that appears on the screen.");
NSLog(#"But be careful, you only have a short amount of time before GAME OVER!");
NSLog(#"The quicker you type in the number the more score you get!");
NSLog(#"Are you ready to start, if so type '1' and press enter!");
scanf("%i", &gameState);
}
}
You're going to have to learn a bit about BSD (Unix, Linux) input/output to pull this off: replace your call to scanf with a non-blocking function you write to acquire input from the user's keyboard.
This function should immediately return whatever the user typed, or immediately return with a zero character count if she didn't type anything.
Read up on the select(2) system call, and keep in mind that keyboard input (standard input) is the first file descriptor, file descriptor zero.
I'm trying to create a loop than continues to take input until the input gives the command to break the loop. What I'm doing now looks a little like this:
int start = 1;
while (start == 1) {
//Program statement
}
However, I feel as though there is an easier, more effective way to create a loop that repeats until the user gives the command to stop it. Does something like that exist?
A common idiom to express a "forever" loop in C and other C-like languages, including Objective-C, is to use an empty for:
for(;;) {
// statements
}
You should do it like this:
while(true)
{
if( exit_condition)
{
break;
}
}
do{
userInput = readUserInput()
}while(userInput != exit_condition)
Any loop as for, while, or even goto can do this job. If you put a condition instead of "true" in the loop, You can reduce code and doesn't need to use the "break" statement.
I'm writing a function to find triangle numbers and the natural way to write it is recursively:
function triangle (x)
if x == 0 then return 0 end
return x+triangle(x-1)
end
But attempting to calculate the first 100,000 triangle numbers fails with a stack overflow after a while. This is an ideal function to memoize, but I want a solution that will memoize any function I pass to it.
Mathematica has a particularly slick way to do memoization, relying on the fact that hashes and function calls use the same syntax:
triangle[0] = 0;
triangle[x_] := triangle[x] = x + triangle[x-1]
That's it. It works because the rules for pattern-matching function calls are such that it always uses a more specific definition before a more general definition.
Of course, as has been pointed out, this example has a closed-form solution: triangle[x_] := x*(x+1)/2. Fibonacci numbers are the classic example of how adding memoization gives a drastic speedup:
fib[0] = 1;
fib[1] = 1;
fib[n_] := fib[n] = fib[n-1] + fib[n-2]
Although that too has a closed-form equivalent, albeit messier: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/FibonacciNumber.html
I disagree with the person who suggested this was inappropriate for memoization because you could "just use a loop". The point of memoization is that any repeat function calls are O(1) time. That's a lot better than O(n). In fact, you could even concoct a scenario where the memoized implementation has better performance than the closed-form implementation!
You're also asking the wrong question for your original problem ;)
This is a better way for that case:
triangle(n) = n * (n - 1) / 2
Furthermore, supposing the formula didn't have such a neat solution, memoisation would still be a poor approach here. You'd be better off just writing a simple loop in this case. See this answer for a fuller discussion.
I bet something like this should work with variable argument lists in Lua:
local function varg_tostring(...)
local s = select(1, ...)
for n = 2, select('#', ...) do
s = s..","..select(n,...)
end
return s
end
local function memoize(f)
local cache = {}
return function (...)
local al = varg_tostring(...)
if cache[al] then
return cache[al]
else
local y = f(...)
cache[al] = y
return y
end
end
end
You could probably also do something clever with a metatables with __tostring so that the argument list could just be converted with a tostring(). Oh the possibilities.
In C# 3.0 - for recursive functions, you can do something like:
public static class Helpers
{
public static Func<A, R> Memoize<A, R>(this Func<A, Func<A,R>, R> f)
{
var map = new Dictionary<A, R>();
Func<A, R> self = null;
self = (a) =>
{
R value;
if (map.TryGetValue(a, out value))
return value;
value = f(a, self);
map.Add(a, value);
return value;
};
return self;
}
}
Then you can create a memoized Fibonacci function like this:
var memoized_fib = Helpers.Memoize<int, int>((n,fib) => n > 1 ? fib(n - 1) + fib(n - 2) : n);
Console.WriteLine(memoized_fib(40));
In Scala (untested):
def memoize[A, B](f: (A)=>B) = {
var cache = Map[A, B]()
{ x: A =>
if (cache contains x) cache(x) else {
val back = f(x)
cache += (x -> back)
back
}
}
}
Note that this only works for functions of arity 1, but with currying you could make it work. The more subtle problem is that memoize(f) != memoize(f) for any function f. One very sneaky way to fix this would be something like the following:
val correctMem = memoize(memoize _)
I don't think that this will compile, but it does illustrate the idea.
Update: Commenters have pointed out that memoization is a good way to optimize recursion. Admittedly, I hadn't considered this before, since I generally work in a language (C#) where generalized memoization isn't so trivial to build. Take the post below with that grain of salt in mind.
I think Luke likely has the most appropriate solution to this problem, but memoization is not generally the solution to any issue of stack overflow.
Stack overflow usually is caused by recursion going deeper than the platform can handle. Languages sometimes support "tail recursion", which re-uses the context of the current call, rather than creating a new context for the recursive call. But a lot of mainstream languages/platforms don't support this. C# has no inherent support for tail-recursion, for example. The 64-bit version of the .NET JITter can apply it as an optimization at the IL level, which is all but useless if you need to support 32-bit platforms.
If your language doesn't support tail recursion, your best option for avoiding stack overflows is either to convert to an explicit loop (much less elegant, but sometimes necessary), or find a non-iterative algorithm such as Luke provided for this problem.
function memoize (f)
local cache = {}
return function (x)
if cache[x] then
return cache[x]
else
local y = f(x)
cache[x] = y
return y
end
end
end
triangle = memoize(triangle);
Note that to avoid a stack overflow, triangle would still need to be seeded.
Here's something that works without converting the arguments to strings.
The only caveat is that it can't handle a nil argument. But the accepted solution can't distinguish the value nil from the string "nil", so that's probably OK.
local function m(f)
local t = { }
local function mf(x, ...) -- memoized f
assert(x ~= nil, 'nil passed to memoized function')
if select('#', ...) > 0 then
t[x] = t[x] or m(function(...) return f(x, ...) end)
return t[x](...)
else
t[x] = t[x] or f(x)
assert(t[x] ~= nil, 'memoized function returns nil')
return t[x]
end
end
return mf
end
I've been inspired by this question to implement (yet another) flexible memoize function in Lua.
https://github.com/kikito/memoize.lua
Main advantages:
Accepts a variable number of arguments
Doesn't use tostring; instead, it organizes the cache in a tree structure, using the parameters to traverse it.
Works just fine with functions that return multiple values.
Pasting the code here as reference:
local globalCache = {}
local function getFromCache(cache, args)
local node = cache
for i=1, #args do
if not node.children then return {} end
node = node.children[args[i]]
if not node then return {} end
end
return node.results
end
local function insertInCache(cache, args, results)
local arg
local node = cache
for i=1, #args do
arg = args[i]
node.children = node.children or {}
node.children[arg] = node.children[arg] or {}
node = node.children[arg]
end
node.results = results
end
-- public function
local function memoize(f)
globalCache[f] = { results = {} }
return function (...)
local results = getFromCache( globalCache[f], {...} )
if #results == 0 then
results = { f(...) }
insertInCache(globalCache[f], {...}, results)
end
return unpack(results)
end
end
return memoize
Here is a generic C# 3.0 implementation, if it could help :
public static class Memoization
{
public static Func<T, TResult> Memoize<T, TResult>(this Func<T, TResult> function)
{
var cache = new Dictionary<T, TResult>();
var nullCache = default(TResult);
var isNullCacheSet = false;
return parameter =>
{
TResult value;
if (parameter == null && isNullCacheSet)
{
return nullCache;
}
if (parameter == null)
{
nullCache = function(parameter);
isNullCacheSet = true;
return nullCache;
}
if (cache.TryGetValue(parameter, out value))
{
return value;
}
value = function(parameter);
cache.Add(parameter, value);
return value;
};
}
}
(Quoted from a french blog article)
In the vein of posting memoization in different languages, i'd like to respond to #onebyone.livejournal.com with a non-language-changing C++ example.
First, a memoizer for single arg functions:
template <class Result, class Arg, class ResultStore = std::map<Arg, Result> >
class memoizer1{
public:
template <class F>
const Result& operator()(F f, const Arg& a){
typename ResultStore::const_iterator it = memo_.find(a);
if(it == memo_.end()) {
it = memo_.insert(make_pair(a, f(a))).first;
}
return it->second;
}
private:
ResultStore memo_;
};
Just create an instance of the memoizer, feed it your function and argument. Just make sure not to share the same memo between two different functions (but you can share it between different implementations of the same function).
Next, a driver functon, and an implementation. only the driver function need be public
int fib(int); // driver
int fib_(int); // implementation
Implemented:
int fib_(int n){
++total_ops;
if(n == 0 || n == 1)
return 1;
else
return fib(n-1) + fib(n-2);
}
And the driver, to memoize
int fib(int n) {
static memoizer1<int,int> memo;
return memo(fib_, n);
}
Permalink showing output on codepad.org. Number of calls is measured to verify correctness. (insert unit test here...)
This only memoizes one input functions. Generalizing for multiple args or varying arguments left as an exercise for the reader.
In Perl generic memoization is easy to get. The Memoize module is part of the perl core and is highly reliable, flexible, and easy-to-use.
The example from it's manpage:
# This is the documentation for Memoize 1.01
use Memoize;
memoize('slow_function');
slow_function(arguments); # Is faster than it was before
You can add, remove, and customize memoization of functions at run time! You can provide callbacks for custom memento computation.
Memoize.pm even has facilities for making the memento cache persistent, so it does not need to be re-filled on each invocation of your program!
Here's the documentation: http://perldoc.perl.org/5.8.8/Memoize.html
Extending the idea, it's also possible to memoize functions with two input parameters:
function memoize2 (f)
local cache = {}
return function (x, y)
if cache[x..','..y] then
return cache[x..','..y]
else
local z = f(x,y)
cache[x..','..y] = z
return z
end
end
end
Notice that parameter order matters in the caching algorithm, so if parameter order doesn't matter in the functions to be memoized the odds of getting a cache hit would be increased by sorting the parameters before checking the cache.
But it's important to note that some functions can't be profitably memoized. I wrote memoize2 to see if the recursive Euclidean algorithm for finding the greatest common divisor could be sped up.
function gcd (a, b)
if b == 0 then return a end
return gcd(b, a%b)
end
As it turns out, gcd doesn't respond well to memoization. The calculation it does is far less expensive than the caching algorithm. Ever for large numbers, it terminates fairly quickly. After a while, the cache grows very large. This algorithm is probably as fast as it can be.
Recursion isn't necessary. The nth triangle number is n(n-1)/2, so...
public int triangle(final int n){
return n * (n - 1) / 2;
}
Please don't recurse this. Either use the x*(x+1)/2 formula or simply iterate the values and memoize as you go.
int[] memo = new int[n+1];
int sum = 0;
for(int i = 0; i <= n; ++i)
{
sum+=i;
memo[i] = sum;
}
return memo[n];