Description
The objective of this project is to practice your Haskell programming skills. You will write a
few fairly simple Haskell functions.
The Assignment
You will implement the following Haskell functions.
1. elementPosition :: Eq t => t -> [t] -> Int
elementPosition takes an element elt and a list lst, and returns the number of
elements of lst that must be skipped over to find the first occurrence of elt. That is,
it returns the zero-based index of the first occurrence of elt on lst. It should return
the length of the list if elt is not on lst at all. For example:
elementPosition 3 [1,2,3,4,5] should return 2
elementPosition ’e’ “elephant” should return 0
elementPosition ’p’ “elephant” should return 3
elementPosition ’z’ “elephant” should return 8
2. everyNth :: Int -> [t] -> [t]
everyNth takes a number n and a list lst and returns a list of every nth element of
lst, beginning with the nth element of lst. For example:
everyNth 4 “elephant” should return “pt”
everyNth 2 [2,3,5,7,11,13,17] should return [3,7,13]
everyNth 1 [2,3,5,7,11,13,17] should return [2,3,5,7,11,13,17]
everyNth 0 [2,3,5,7,11,13,17] should report an error
3. sumLater :: Num a => [a] -> [a]
sumLater takes a list of numbers and returns a list of the partial sums of following
elements. That is the result is the same length as the input, and for each element of the
input, the corresponding output value is the sum of that number and all the numbers
following it on the list. For example:
sumLater [1,2,3,4,5] should return [15,14,12,9,5]
sumLater [5,4,3,2,1] should return [15,10,6,3,1]
sumLater [13,11,9,7,5,3,1] should return [49,36,25,16,9,4,1]
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4. sumEarlier :: Num a => [a] -> [a]
sumEarlier takes a list of numbers and returns a list of the partial sums up to each
element. That is the result is the same length as the input, and for each element of the
input, the corresponding output value is the sum of all elements up to and including
that element on the list. For example:
sumEarlier [1,2,3,4,5] should return [1,3,6,10,15]
sumEarlier [5,4,3,2,1] should return [5,9,12,14,15]
sumEarlier [1,3,5,7,9,11,13] should return [1,4,9,16,25,36,49]
Clearly this can be implemented as reverse (sumLater (reverse input)), but please
don’t implement it this way. The point of this exercise is to learn how to deal with two
different styles of recursion: one where the work is done before the recursive call (tail
recursion), and one where the work is done after the recursive call (head recursion).
You must call your source file Assignment1.hs or Assignment1.lhs (note the capitalisation), and it must begin with the module declaration:
module Assignment1 (elementPosition, everyNth, sumLater, sumEarlier) where
I will post on the LMS a test driver program called Assignment1Test which is substantially similar to the test driver I will use for testing your code. I will compile and link your
code for testing using the following command (or similar):
ghc -O2 –make Assignment1Test
Assessment
This assignment will not be assessed for credit; that is, it is worth 0% of your final mark. To
make it useful as practice for later, assessed work, your code will be tested for correctness.
Your submission will only be checked for correctness. For this assignment, code quality
will not be considered. However, for your own sanity, I do recommend commenting your code
and programming it carefully, paying due attention to programming technique.
Note that timeouts will be imposed on all tests. Test cases will be rather small, so the
timeouts should only affect you if you create an infinite recursion (infinite loop).
Submission
You must submit your project through the Maat (Melbourne Automated Appraisal Tool)
system by following the link from the LMS Projects page using your web browser. You may
drag-and-drop your file onto the box for your assignment1file, or click the “Choose” button
and use your browser’s file selection dialog. Either way, once you have provided your file,
click the “Save Submission” button to submit.
Important: you must wait while Maat tests your code. Once it has completed the
appraisal, the window will refresh to show the test results. If any tests fail, the display will
show which of the assigned functions failed their tests, but you will not see the failing test
case, so you will need to revisit your code, and reexamine this project specification, to try to
see what is wrong with your code.
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It is your responsibility to look over the feedback provided for your submission.
If the test results show any problems, you may correct your code and submit again. You
may submit as often as you like; only your final submission will be assessed.
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