Re: puts / print as method not keyword?

here is how jim was thinking of it.  he seems to love mixing in
Enumerable for all kinds of fun dataflow tricks, and that seemed not
such a bad idea to me.

but don't let this stifle your creativity thinking about postfix /
concatenative combinators this time around.  (the terminology of
"concatenative combinators" first found me by way of the Forth
language, which then influenced the Toy language.  feel free to also
browse jim cunningham's excellent programming language wiki at
c2.com).

From: Jim Weirich <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
To: ruby-talk ML <[e-mail]>
Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 11:07:09 +0900
Subject: Re: python generators to ruby closures, help

William Morgan wrote:
> Yes. I don't think you want the Generator class at all then. As the
> email you quoted said, Python generators are a solution to a problem
> that Ruby doesn't have. Generators have a place in Ruby but this ain't
> it.
>
> From what I can tell, all the functionality they build up in the Python
> example is just so that they can do thing that in Ruby can be done
> neatly with iterators, like this:

As William pointed out, enumerator pipes can be implemented in Ruby
without resorting to continuations, and that the current enumerator
syntax is very pipe-like in many ways.

However, one thing the Python version handles that enumerator chaining
does not is an infinite enumerator.  In the python examples, we have
the following construct:

   Ints() | firstTen | oddNotDivBy3

Ints() is a generator that will generate all the integers (given
enough time and space).  The next filter "firstTen" only takes the
first 10 of those numbers.  Since the generator chain only takes a
number from a generator when it is needed, the Ints() generator is
never asked for any more than 10 number.

We can do the same with Ruby enumerators.  Imagine a OddNumberFilter
object that implements a each method like this ...

  class OddNumberFilter
    include Enumerable
    attr_accessor :source
    def each
      @source.each { |n| yield(n) if (n % 2) != 0 }
    end
  end

It uses a source enumerable to generate numbers and only yields when
it finds an odd number.  We can use it like this ...

   odds_only = OddNumberFilter.new
   odds_only.source = (1..10)
   odds_only.to_a              # => [1, 3, 5, 7, 9]

Since a filter can take _any_ enumerable as a source, it can even take
other filters.  Let's generalize our OddNumberFilter class to a
CondFilter class that takes a condition and only passes items that
pass the condition.

  class CondFilter
    include Enumerable
    attr_accessor :source
    def initialize(&block)
      @block = block
    end
    def each
      @source.each { |it| yield(it) if @block.call(it) }
    end
  end

Now we create a chain of filters ...

  odds_only = CondFilter.new { |n| (n % 2) != 0 }
  odds_only.source = (1..10)

  divisible_by_three = CondFilter.new { |n| (n % 3) == 0 }
  divisible_by_three.source = odds_only

  divisible_by_three.to_a    #=> [3, 9]

It works, but it is ugly.  So lets create a little syntactic sugar to
get this to work ...

  module Enumerable
    def |(filter)
      filter.source = self
      filter
    end
  end

  odds_only = CondFilter.new { |n| (n%2) != 0 }
  divisible_by_three = CondFilter.new { |n| (n%3) == 0 }

  pipe = (1..10) | odds_only | divisible_by_three
  pipe.to_a       # => [3, 9]

With this foundation, handling infinite enumerations are easy ...

  class Ints
    include Enumerable
    def initialize
      @n = 0
    end
    def each
      loop do
        yield @n
        @n += 1
      end
    end
  end

And a class to take only so many items ...

  class Take
    include Enumerable
    attr_accessor :source

    def initialize(limit)
      @limit = limit
    end
    def each
      n = 0
      @source.each do |it|
        n += 1
        break if n > @limit
        yield it
      end
    end
  end

  ( Ints.new | Take.new(5) ).to_a      # => [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]

From this point the File generator and the other stuff in the Python
example should be obvious.

Here's a fun puzzle.  Using filters, create a Sieve of Erasothanes
filter that, given an input of Ints.new, will generate a series of
prime numbers.  In other words, the code ...

  ( Ints.new | Primes.new | Take.new(100) ).to_a

will create an array of the first 100 prime numbers.

I've attached full examples and test suites for all the the above
(although factored a bit differently), so don't peek if you want to work
out the Primes puzzle ...

--
-- Jim Weirich    [e-mail]     http://onestepback.org
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct,
not tried it." -- Donald Knuth (in a memo to Peter van Emde Boas)

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

require 'find'

module Enumerable
 def |(filter)
   filter.source = self
   filter
 end
end

class EmptyEnumClass
 include Enumerable
 def each() end
end

EmptyEnum = EmptyEnumClass.new

class EnumFilter
 include Enumerable
 attr_reader :source
 def initialize(source=nil)
   @source = source || EmptyEnum
 end
 def source=(new_source)
   case @source
   when EnumFilter
     @source.source = new_source
   else
     @source = new_source
   end
 end
 def each(&block)
   @source.each(block)
 end
end

class CondFilter < EnumFilter
 def initialize(&block)
   super()
   @block = block
 end
 def each
   @source.each do |it| yield it if @block[it] end
 end
end

class Ints
 include Enumerable
 def initialize
   @n = 0
 end
 def each
   loop do
     yield @n
     @n += 1
   end
 end
end

class Quit < EnumFilter
 def initialize(&block)
   @block = block
 end
 def each
   @source.each do |it|
     break if @block[it]
     yield it
   end
 end
end

class Start < EnumFilter
 def initialize(start)
   @start = start
 end
 def each
   @source.each do |it|
     yield it if it >= @start
   end
 end
end

class Take < EnumFilter
 def initialize(limit)
   @limit = limit
 end
 def each
   n = 0
   @source.each do |it|
     break if n >= @limit
     yield it
     n += 1
   end
 end
end

class EnumFiles
 include Enumerable
 def initialize(fn)
   @file_name = fn
 end
 def each
   Find.find(@file_name) do |fn| yield fn end
 end
end

class Primes < EnumFilter
 def initialize
   super
   @source = Start.new(2)
 end
 def each
   loop do
     n = (@source | Take.new(1)).to_a[0]
     yield n
     @source = @source | new_filter(n)
   end
 end
 def new_filter(n)
   CondFilter.new { |it| (it%n) != 0 }
 end
end

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

require 'test/unit'
require 'enumpipe'

class TestEnumPipe < Test::Unit::TestCase

 def test_create
   ep = CondFilter.new
   assert ep
 end

 def test_odd
   odd_filter = CondFilter.new { |it| (it % 2) != 0 }
   odd_filter.source = (1..10)
   assert_equal [1,3,5,7,9], odd_filter.to_a
 end

 def test_no_source
   odd_filter = CondFilter.new { |it| (it % 2) != 0 }
   assert_equal [], odd_filter.to_a
 end

 def test_two_filters
   odd_filter = CondFilter.new { |it| (it % 2) != 0 }
   filter_thirds = CondFilter.new { |it| (it % 3) == 0 }
   odd_filter.source = (1..10)
   filter_thirds.source = odd_filter
   assert_equal [3, 9], filter_thirds.to_a
 end

 def test_left_pipeing
   odd_filter = CondFilter.new { |it| (it % 2) != 0 }
   filter_thirds = CondFilter.new { |it| (it % 3) == 0 }
   filter_thirds.source = odd_filter
   filter_thirds.source = (1..10)
   assert_equal [3, 9], filter_thirds.to_a
 end

 def test_pipe_syntax
   pipe = (1..10) | CondFilter.new { |it| (it%2) != 0 }
   assert_equal [1,3,5,7,9], pipe.to_a
 end

 def test_pipe_three
   src = (1..10)
   odd = CondFilter.new { |it| (it%2) != 0 }
   thirds = CondFilter.new { |it| (it%3) == 0 }
   pipe = src | odd | thirds
   assert_equal [3, 9], pipe.to_a
 end

 def test_pipe_right_associative
   src = (1..10)
   odd = CondFilter.new { |it| (it%2) != 0 }
   thirds = CondFilter.new { |it| (it%3) == 0 }
   pipe = src | (odd | thirds)
   assert_equal [3, 9], pipe.to_a
 end

 def test_infinite_takes
   pipe = Ints.new | Take.new(10)
   assert_equal (0...10).to_a, pipe.to_a
 end

 def test_multiple_takes_on_ints
   pipe = Ints.new | Take.new(2)
   assert_equal [0,1], pipe.to_a
   assert_equal [2,3], pipe.to_a
   assert_equal [4,5], pipe.to_a
 end

 def test_quit_filter
   pipe = Ints.new | Quit.new { |it| it > 5 }
   assert_equal [0,1,2,3,4,5], pipe.to_a
 end

 def test_start
   pipe = Ints.new | Start.new(5) | Take.new(3)
   assert_equal [5,6,7], pipe.to_a
 end

 def test_files
   files = EnumFiles.new(".")
   filelist = files.to_a
   assert filelist.member?("./enumpipe.rb")
   assert filelist.member?("./testenumpipe.rb")
 end

 def test_file_filter
   testfiles = EnumFiles.new('.') | CondFilter.new { |fn|
File.basename(fn) =~ /^test.*\.rb$/ }
   filelist = testfiles.to_a
   assert filelist.member?("./testenumpipe.rb")
 end

 def test_primes
   primes = Ints.new | Primes.new | Take.new(10)
   assert_equal [2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19,23,29], primes.to_a
 end

end


On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 17:06:13 -0500, zuzu <[e-mail]> wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Dec 2004 06:23:06 +0900, Ilmari Heikkinen <[e-mail]> wrote:
> > la, 2004-12-11 kello 22:38, zuzu kirjoitti:
> >
> > > perhaps i don't just want the
> > > default STDOUT but would like to specify tty3 versus tty9 or perhaps
> > > window7 of some screen tty multiplexing session or how emacs manages
> > > buffers, and so on...
> >
> > You would then replace STDOUT with e.g. STDERR, or even
> > File.open("log","a"){|f| f.puts(string) }
> 
> i wouldn't want to save to a file as an intermediary, and then have to
> use something like the 'tail' command in another tty...  (for example,
> imagine if you were writing a cryptography tool).   but since in unix
> "everything is a file", i suppose some way could exist to write to a
> tty "file" directly.
> 
> though what i am really imagining is something such as a window
> manager written in ruby, where the display windows are objects
> (instances of a Window class or whatever), and take advantage of
> "everything is an object" rather than "everything is a file".  like
> naked object or the self language, i would like then for window
> objects to say how to display themselves to the screen object.
> 
> 
> 
> > > oh, also, correct me if i'm wrong, but method/function argument
> > > passing really should only be used for CONSTRAINTS _not_ DATA.
> >
> > > and so i also feel that
> > >
> > >    string.puts(STDOUT)
> > >
> > > or i'm probably thinking more like
> > >
> > >    string.puts {STDOUT}
> > >
> > > much more closely follows the so-called "Principle of Least Surprise".
> >
> > string.puts(STDOUT) creates a coupling, the string must call a method of the
> > given object with itself as the argument. It must know that the object it's
> > passed responds to #puts.
> 
> i think to me this seems natural for the pure-OO "everything is an
> object" nature of ruby (or  smalltalk).  strings know how to display
> themselves, they just need to know where.  again, i think "naked
> objects" is the latest way to talk about this, though i often think of
> self language which was built on smalltalk.
> 
> > Also, string.puts(STDOUT) modifies its argument
> > (by printing a new line), which, to me at least, is a big no-no.
> 
> i agree that the appending of a newline feels like a no-no.
> 
> > STDOUT.puts(string) modifies only STDOUT. It doesn't (shouldn't) magically add
> > an extra line to the string. And maybe it's better to have all objects respond
> > to just #to_s instead of #puts, #print and #write.
> >
> > The postfix notation is tempting though, hmm..
> > If you look at unix pipes, they use a syntax like:
> >
> > method | method | method , last method taking care of doing things
> 
> yes!  yes!  yes!   again, referring to those old emails i had here on
> the list with jim weirich, the streams/dataflow/coroutines approach of
> pipes and filters (commonly experienced in unix) was my inspiration.
> but this chaining is not at all foreign to ruby, as quite often data
> "collects and selects" are performed with method chaining.  e.g.
> 
> Object.methods.sort
> 
> 
> 
> > The difference to Ruby's method.method.method is that the shell pipes aren't
> > namespaced to the preceding object. Ie. With shell pipes it'd be quite doable
> > to except the following to work in every situation:
> >
> > gets | reverse | puts , because they are in the global namespace. What you pass
> > through the pipe doesn't change the available methods.
> >
> > In ruby
> >
> > gets.reverse.puts
> > creates a dependency chain.
> >
> > gets must return something that responds to reverse, and reverse must return
> > something that responds to puts. Which is bad.
> 
> hmmm... is this any different than unix which works blindly in bytestreams?
> 
> 
> 
> > So maybe we should emulate
> > shell pipes in some other way?
> >
> > def in; yield self; end
> >
> > string.in{|s| STDOUT.puts(s)}
> >
> > Works in dataflow-style, too:
> >
> > string.in{|s| puts s; s}.reverse.in{|s| puts s}
> >
> > Keeps concerns to the objects whom they may concern (String
> > doesn't have to know about what methods IO has, etc.), and doesn't do
> > black-box modifications to its arguments.
> >
> > Comments?
> 
> hehe, now i have to dig up those old emails for myself and really put
> my brain to work on this.
> 
> thanks!!!
> -z
>