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crimsondoll
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Mon Nov 12, 2012 9:09 am
Post
by crimsondoll » Mon Nov 12, 2012 9:16 am
Hi, I'm incredibly new to Lisp and I've got to write a program that calculates the depth of an expression. Here's what I've got so far:
Code: Select all
(DEFUN depth (L)
(IF (NIL L) 0)
(IF (NIL (SECOND L)) 0)
(IF (ATOM (SECOND L)) (1+depth(CDR L)))
)
What it's supposed to do is return 0 if the list L is empty or only has one atom (the two base cases) and if not, return 1 plus the depth of the CDR of the list. Whenever I try to test the code, I get an illegal argument error. I tried to test the function with
and get this:
Code: Select all
Error: Illegal argument in functor position: 1 in (1 2 4).
Any help would be much appreciated.
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Paul
- Posts: 106
- Joined: Tue Jun 02, 2009 6:00 am
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by Paul » Mon Nov 12, 2012 2:50 pm
crimsondoll wrote:Hi, I'm incredibly new to Lisp and I've got to write a program that calculates the depth of an expression. Here's what I've got so far:
Code: Select all
(DEFUN depth (L)
(IF (NIL L) 0)
(IF (NIL (SECOND L)) 0)
(IF (ATOM (SECOND L)) (1+depth(CDR L)))
)
What it's supposed to do is return 0 if the list L is empty or only has one atom (the two base cases) and if not, return 1 plus the depth of the CDR of the list. Whenever I try to test the code, I get an illegal argument error. I tried to test the function with
and get this:
Code: Select all
Error: Illegal argument in functor position: 1 in (1 2 4).
Any help would be much appreciated.
Your first problem is the way you call it: (depth (1 2 4)) is attempting to call DEPTH on the result of calling 1 with arguments 2 and 4 -- 1 is not a function, so you get an error. You need to say (depth (quote (1 2 4))) to stop it trying to evaluate (1 2 4) -- or equivalently, (depth '(1 2 4))
The next problem is the structure of your function: a bunch of IFs one after another, but it doesn't return the value they generate -- if L is NIL, the first IF will evaluate to 0, but the code will go on to evaluate the next IF, and then the third, which will evaluate as NIL since the test is false if L is NIL; the function will return NIL, not 0. If the test in the last IF is not NIL, it'll attempt to call 1+ on NIL (since eventually the recursive calls bottom out in the previous case) -- or at least it would if you fixed the syntax there -- but (1+ nil) is an error...
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Goheeca
- Posts: 271
- Joined: Thu May 10, 2012 12:54 pm
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Contact:
Post
by Goheeca » Mon Nov 12, 2012 3:28 pm
Look at
cond and instead of
nil you mean
null.
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sylwester
- Posts: 133
- Joined: Mon Jul 11, 2011 2:53 pm
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by sylwester » Tue Nov 13, 2012 4:53 pm
It took a while to see that you're making your own length function.
Interestingly, your function has sequential if statements,. Even if NIL was a function (which clearly you mean NULL) The first IF would evaluate to 0 and then it will continue to the second if. You really want to use (if (null L) <then-expression> <else-expression>). The recursion (1+ (depth (cdr L))) lacked parenthesis around depth.
If you have a list '() it should return 0, but if it's '(q) (second L) would return NIL end result is 0 even though the length is clearly 1. I don't think you need more than one base case..
I'm the author of
two useless languages that uses
BF as target machine.
Currently I'm planning a Scheme compiler :p