Is it valid to rebind a variable in a while loop? - while-loop

Is it valid to rebind a mutable variable in a while loop? I am having trouble getting the following trivial parser code to work. My intention is to replace the newslice binding with a progressively shorter slice as I copy characters out of the front of the array.
/// Test if a char is an ASCII digit
fn is_digit(c:u8) -> bool {
match c {
30|31|32|33|34|35|36|37|38|39 => true,
_ => false
}
}
/// Parse an integer from the front of an ascii string,
/// and return it along with the remainder of the string
fn parse_int(s:&[u8]) -> (u32, &[u8]) {
use std::str;
assert!(s.len()>0);
let mut newslice = s; // bytecopy of the fat pointer?
let mut n:Vec<u8> = vec![];
// Pull the leading digits into a separate array
while newslice.len()>0 && is_digit(newslice[0])
{
n.push(newslice[0]);
newslice = newslice.slice(1,newslice.len()-1);
//newslice = newslice[1..];
}
match from_str::<u32>(str::from_utf8(newslice).unwrap()) {
Some(i) => (i,newslice),
None => panic!("Could not convert string to int. Corrupted pgm file?"),
}
}
fn main(){
let s:&[u8] = b"12345";
assert!(s.len()==5);
let (i,newslice) = parse_int(s);
assert!(i==12345);
println!("length of returned slice: {}",newslice.len());
assert!(newslice.len()==0);
}
parse_int is failing to return a slice that is smaller than the one I passed in:
length of returned slice: 5
task '<main>' panicked at 'assertion failed: newslice.len() == 0', <anon>:37
playpen: application terminated with error code 101
Run this code in the rust playpen

As Chris Morgan mentioned, your call to slice passes the wrong value for the end parameter. newslice.slice_from(1) yields the correct slice.
is_digit tests for the wrong byte values. You meant to write 0x30, etc. instead of 30.
You call str::from_utf8 on the wrong value. You meant to call it on n.as_slice() rather than newslice.

Rebinding variables like that is perfectly fine. The general rule is simple: if the compiler doesn’t complain, it’s OK.
It’s a very simple error that you’ve made: your slice end point is incorrect.
slice produces the interval [start, end)—a half-open range, not closed. Therefore when you wish to just remove the first character, you should be writing newslice.slice(1, newslice.len()), not newslice.slice(1, newslice.len() - 1). You could also write newslice.slice_from(1).

Related

How to properly iterate over arrays in kotlin

I am currently learning kotlin and therefore following the kotlin track on exercism. The following exercise required me to calculate the Hamming difference between two Strings (so basically just counting the number of differences).
I got to the solution with the following code:
object Hamming {
fun compute(dnaOne: String, dnaTwo: String): Int {
if (dnaOne.length != dnaTwo.length) throw IllegalArgumentException("left and right strands must be of equal length.")
var counter = 0
for ((index, letter) in dnaOne.toCharArray().withIndex()) {
if (letter != dnaTwo.toCharArray()[index]) {
counter++
}
}
return counter
}
}
however, in the beginning I tried to do dnaOne.split("").withIndex() instead of dnaOne.toCharArray().withIndex() which did not work, it would literally stop after the first iteration and the following example
Hamming.compute("GGACGGATTCTG", "AGGACGGATTCT") would return 1 instead of the correct integer 9 (which only gets returned when using toCharArray)
I would appreciate any explanation
I was able to simplify this by using the built-in CharSequence.zip function because StringimplementsCharSequence` in Kotlin.
According to the documentation for zip:
Returns a list of pairs built from the characters of this and the [other] char sequences with the same index
The returned list has length of the shortest char sequence.
Which means we will get a List<Pair<Char,Char>> back (a list of pairs of letters in the same positions). Now that we have this, we can use Iterable.count to determine how many of them are different.
I implemented this as an extension function on String rather than in an object:
fun String.hamming(other: String): Int =
if(this.length != other.length) {
throw IllegalArgumentException("String lengths must match")
} else {
this.zip(other).count { it.first != it.second }
}
This also becomes a single expression now.
And to call this:
val ham = "GGACGGATTCTG".hamming("AGGACGGATTCT")
println("Hamming distance: $ham")

Unable to understand the certain operator in Swift

I have been changing some SWIFT code into OBJECTIVE-C, and I am stuck at certain part of the code, where I am unable to understand if it is a condition or something else.
Following is the code and I am stuck on 9th line stating :
if let channel1Buffer = buffer.floatChannelData?[0]
What I do not understand here is the above if condition is checking if "buffer.floatChannelData" is null, and then proceeding to get the first index, or is it something else.
input.installTap(onBus: 0, bufferSize:4096, format:format, block: { [weak self] buffer, when in
guard let this = self else {
return
}
print("Buffer Float Channel Data: ", buffer.floatChannelData as Any);
**if let channel1Buffer = buffer.floatChannelData?[0]** {
print("channel1Buffer: ", channel1Buffer);
/// encode PCM to mp3
let frameLength = Int32(buffer.frameLength) / 2;
print("frameLength: ", frameLength);
let bytesWritten = lame_encode_buffer_interleaved_ieee_float(this.lame, channel1Buffer, frameLength, this.mp3buf, 4096);
// `bytesWritten` bytes stored in this.mp3buf now mp3-encoded
print("\(bytesWritten) encoded");
this.file.append(this.mp3buf, length: Int(bytesWritten));
// #TODO: send data, better to pass into separate queue for processing
}
})
Let's take it part by part - buffer.floatChannelData?[0]
buffer has property named floatChannelData which is optional so it has ? at the end. then it takes that optional which accepts subscription [0] which also returns optional value. So it continues inside {} only if floatChannelData is not nil AND it's first value is not nil
Your Objc should look like
float *const *channelData = [buffer floatChannelData];
if (channelData) {
float *channel1Buffer = channelData[0]; //this might crash if channelData is empty
...
The line tries to assign the variable channel1Buffer the value of buffer.floatChannelData[0], and the code within {} is only executed if that assignment is successful. It may for instance fail if buffer.floatChannelData is nil or buffer.floatChannelData[0] is nil.

Why does .flat_map() with .chars() not work with std::io::Lines, but does with a vector of Strings?

I am trying to iterate over characters in stdin. The Read.chars() method achieves this goal, but is unstable. The obvious alternative is to use Read.lines() with a flat_map to convert it to a character iterator.
This seems like it should work, but doesn't, resulting in borrowed value does not live long enough errors.
use std::io::BufRead;
fn main() {
let stdin = std::io::stdin();
let mut lines = stdin.lock().lines();
let mut chars = lines.flat_map(|x| x.unwrap().chars());
}
This is mentioned in Read file character-by-character in Rust, but it does't really explain why.
What I am particularly confused about is how this differs from the example in the documentation for flat_map, which uses flat_map to apply .chars() to a vector of strings. I don't really see how that should be any different. The main difference I see is that my code needs to call unwrap() as well, but changing the last line to the following does not work either:
let mut chars = lines.map(|x| x.unwrap());
let mut chars = chars.flat_map(|x| x.chars());
It fails on the second line, so the issue doesn't appear to be the unwrap.
Why does this last line not work, when the very similar line in the documentation doesn't? Is there any way to get this to work?
Start by figuring out what the type of the closure's variable is:
let mut chars = lines.flat_map(|x| {
let () = x;
x.unwrap().chars()
});
This shows it's a Result<String, io::Error>. After unwrapping it, it will be a String.
Next, look at str::chars:
fn chars(&self) -> Chars
And the definition of Chars:
pub struct Chars<'a> {
// some fields omitted
}
From that, we can tell that calling chars on a string returns an iterator that has a reference to the string.
Whenever we have a reference, we know that the reference cannot outlive the thing that it is borrowed from. In this case, x.unwrap() is the owner. The next thing to check is where that ownership ends. In this case, the closure owns the String, so at the end of the closure, the value is dropped and any references are invalidated.
Except the code tried to return a Chars that still referred to the string. Oops. Thanks to Rust, the code didn't segfault!
The difference with the example that works is all in the ownership. In that case, the strings are owned by a vector outside of the loop and they do not get dropped before the iterator is consumed. Thus there are no lifetime issues.
What this code really wants is an into_chars method on String. That iterator could take ownership of the value and return characters.
Not the maximum efficiency, but a good start:
struct IntoChars {
s: String,
offset: usize,
}
impl IntoChars {
fn new(s: String) -> Self {
IntoChars { s: s, offset: 0 }
}
}
impl Iterator for IntoChars {
type Item = char;
fn next(&mut self) -> Option<Self::Item> {
let remaining = &self.s[self.offset..];
match remaining.chars().next() {
Some(c) => {
self.offset += c.len_utf8();
Some(c)
}
None => None,
}
}
}
use std::io::BufRead;
fn main() {
let stdin = std::io::stdin();
let lines = stdin.lock().lines();
let chars = lines.flat_map(|x| IntoChars::new(x.unwrap()));
for c in chars {
println!("{}", c);
}
}
See also:
How can I store a Chars iterator in the same struct as the String it is iterating on?
Is there an owned version of String::chars?

Reading an integer from input and assigning it to a variable

I've been trying to find an easy way to read variables in Rust, but haven't had any luck so far. All the examples in the Rust Book deal with strings AFAIK, I couldn't find anything concerning integers or floats that would work.
I don't have a Rust compiler on this machine, but based in part on this answer that comes close, you want something like...
let user_val = match input_string.parse::<i32>() {
Ok(x) => x,
Err(_) => -1,
};
Or, as pointed out in the comments,
let user_val = input_string.parse::<i32>().unwrap_or(-1);
...though your choice in integer size and default value might obviously be different, and you don't always need that type qualifier (::<i32>) for parse() where the type can be inferred from the assignment.
To read user input, you always read a set of bytes. Sometimes, you can interpret those bytes as a UTF-8 string. You can then further interpret the string as an integral or floating point number (or lots of other things, like an IP address).
Here's a complete example of reading a single line of input and parsing it as a 32-bit signed integer:
use std::io;
fn main() {
let mut input = String::new();
io::stdin().read_line(&mut input).expect("Not a valid string");
let input_num: i32 = input.trim().parse().expect("Not a valid number");
println!("Your number plus one is {}", input_num + 1);
}
Note that no user-friendly error handling is taking place. The program simply panics if reading input or parsing fails. Running the program produces:
$ ./input
41
Your number plus one is 42
A set of bytes comprises an input. In Rust, you accept the input as a UTF-8 String. Then you parse the string to an integer or floating point number. In simple ways you accept the string and parse it, then write an expect`` statement for both, to display a message to the user what went wrong when the program panics during runtime.
fn main() {
let mut x = String::new();
std::io::stdin().read_line(&mut x)
.expect("Failed to read input.");
let x: u32 = x.trim().parse()
.expect("Enter a number not a string.");
println!("{:?}", x);
}
If the program fails to parse the input string then it panics and displays an error message. Notice that the program still panics and we are not handling an error perfectly. One more thing to notice is that we can use the same variable name x and not some x_int because of the variable shadowing feature. To handle the error better we can use the match construct.
fn main() {
let mut x = String::new();
match std::io::stdin().read_line(&mut x) {
Ok(_) => println!("String has been taken in."),
Err(_) => {
println!("Failed to read input.");
return;
},
};
let x: u32 = match x.trim().parse() {
Ok(n) => {
println!("Converted string to int.");
n
},
Err(_) => {
println!("Failed to parse.");
return;
},
};
println!("{:?}", x);
}
This is longer way but a nicer way to handle errors and input and parse a number.

Counter as variable in for-in-loops

When normally using a for-in-loop, the counter (in this case number) is a constant in each iteration:
for number in 1...10 {
// do something
}
This means I cannot change number in the loop:
for number in 1...10 {
if number == 5 {
++number
}
}
// doesn't compile, since the prefix operator '++' can't be performed on the constant 'number'
Is there a way to declare number as a variable, without declaring it before the loop, or using a normal for-loop (with initialization, condition and increment)?
To understand why i can’t be mutable involves knowing what for…in is shorthand for. for i in 0..<10 is expanded by the compiler to the following:
var g = (0..<10).generate()
while let i = g.next() {
// use i
}
Every time around the loop, i is a freshly declared variable, the value of unwrapping the next result from calling next on the generator.
Now, that while can be written like this:
while var i = g.next() {
// here you _can_ increment i:
if i == 5 { ++i }
}
but of course, it wouldn’t help – g.next() is still going to generate a 5 next time around the loop. The increment in the body was pointless.
Presumably for this reason, for…in doesn’t support the same var syntax for declaring it’s loop counter – it would be very confusing if you didn’t realize how it worked.
(unlike with where, where you can see what is going on – the var functionality is occasionally useful, similarly to how func f(var i) can be).
If what you want is to skip certain iterations of the loop, your better bet (without resorting to C-style for or while) is to use a generator that skips the relevant values:
// iterate over every other integer
for i in 0.stride(to: 10, by: 2) { print(i) }
// skip a specific number
for i in (0..<10).filter({ $0 != 5 }) { print(i) }
let a = ["one","two","three","four"]
// ok so this one’s a bit convoluted...
let everyOther = a.enumerate().filter { $0.0 % 2 == 0 }.map { $0.1 }.lazy
for s in everyOther {
print(s)
}
The answer is "no", and that's a good thing. Otherwise, a grossly confusing behavior like this would be possible:
for number in 1...10 {
if number == 5 {
// This does not work
number = 5000
}
println(number)
}
Imagine the confusion of someone looking at the number 5000 in the output of a loop that is supposedly bound to a range of 1 though 10, inclusive.
Moreover, what would Swift pick as the next value of 5000? Should it stop? Should it continue to the next number in the range before the assignment? Should it throw an exception on out-of-range assignment? All three choices have some validity to them, so there is no clear winner.
To avoid situations like that, Swift designers made loop variables in range loops immutable.
Update Swift 5
for var i in 0...10 {
print(i)
i+=1
}