I am not sure if it's even possible.
Say I have the following function defined:
a(), b(), c()
I want to get a user input from command line (either "a", "b", "c") and according to the input call the corresponding function
BUT without using cases or if's
ie:
input = getinput()
if exist?(input){
input()
}
Does this exist in any language?
Sure you can do something like that. For instance, in Python:
def a():
return 'a'
def b():
return 'b'
def select_func(name):
return eval(name)()
Executing select_func('a') will return 'a', and executing select_func('c') will raise an exception
Related
Ok here goes...
I have been experimenting on various examples of declaring functions with "self" in the parameters.
I don't have full understanding of this which is what I'm trying to fully understand. I'm a complete beginner, but I am compelled to grasp this fully.
The 2 examples below return the same results, although in example 2, if I don't declare "self = {}" within the function, I need to place "self" (or the ":") in the function parameters for it to work. Is this the whole deal with "self"?
Are there other implications when using "self"?
Example 1
function Character.new(x)
self = {}
self.name = x
return self.name
end
a = Character
b = Character
hobbit = a.new ("Frodo")
dragon = b.new ("Smaug")
print (hobbit)
print (dragon)
Example 2
Character = {}
function Character:new(x)
self.name = x
return self.name
end
a = Character
b = Character
hobbit = a:new ("Frodo")
dragon = b:new ("Smaug")
print (hobbit)
print (dragon)
;^)
Zalokin
You're using global variables when you should be creating instances.
Try these lines instead, they may help you understand:
-- example 1
print (hobbit)
print(self.name)
print (dragon)
print(self.name)
and
-- example 2
print (hobbit)
print(Character.name)
print (dragon)
print(Character.name)
: lets you access the table which includes the function from within the function without an explicit (first argument) pass. It can be used both when defining and calling a function.
The example below contains a table t. The table has 3 functions (a,b and c) and a string entry under the key greeting.
All the function/method calls print the same string "hello user".
Notice how you can still call a method (a function which has its container table as the first argument) the same way as a normal function, but you have to explicitly pass the table as the first argument.
The self argument can be called what ever you want and you can still call the function with a : as long as you use the correct argument name inside the function (not self in this case). The function c serves as an example of that.
It is basically just syntax sugar.
local t = {}
t.greeting = "hello"
function t:a(name)
print(self.greeting, name)
end
function t.b(self, name)
print(self.greeting, name)
end
function t.c(myself, name)
print(myself.greeting, name)
end
t.a(t, "user")
t:a("user")
t.b(t, "user")
t:b("user")
t.c(t, "user")
t:c("user")
I am currently learning on an online learning platform, and my code has to pass the test cases(included below)
Heres the question:
Write a higher-order function exception_function which will return a function with exceptions. exception_function should take in a function f(x), an integer input, and an integer output, and return another function g(x). The output of g(x) should be the same as f(x), except that when x is the same as the integer input, the output will be returned.
For example, given that we have a function sqrt which returns the square root of the argument. Using new_sqrt = exception_function(sqrt, 7, 2) we obtain new_sqrt, which behaves similarly to sqrt except for new_sqrt(7), where the value of 2 will be returned.
Below is the answer template
from math import *
def exception_function(f, rejected_input, new_output):
"""Your code here"""
pass
#################
#DO NOT REMOVE#
#################
new_sqrt = exception_function(sqrt, 7, 2)
Test Cases:
new_sqrt(9) -expected answer 3
new_sqrt(7) -expected answer 2
Here is what im not sure about.
How to control what f will return without changing f itself?
Thank you very much for your time.
Managed to solve it!
def exception_function(f, rejected_input, new_output):
def inner_function(x):
if x==rejected_input:
return new_output
else:
return f(x)
return inner_function
new_sqrt = exception_function(sqrt, 7, 2)
I am reading the Python Cookbook 3rd Edition and came across the topic discussed in 2.6 "Searching and Replacing Case-Insensitive Text," where the authors discuss a nested function that is like below:
def matchcase(word):
def replace(m):
text = m.group()
if text.isupper():
return word.upper()
elif text.islower():
return word.lower()
elif text[0].isupper():
return word.capitalize()
else:
return word
return replace
If I have some text like below:
text = 'UPPER PYTHON, lower python, Mixed Python'
and I print the value of 'text' before and after, the substitution happens correctly:
x = matchcase('snake')
print("Original Text:",text)
print("After regsub:", re.sub('python', matchcase('snake'), text, flags=re.IGNORECASE))
The last "print" command shows that the substitution correctly happens but I am not sure how this nested function "gets" the:
PYTHON, python, Python
as the word that needs to be substituted with:
SNAKE, snake, Snake
How does the inner function replace get its value 'm'?
When matchcase('snake') is called, word takes the value 'snake'.
Not clear on what the value of 'm' is.
Can any one help me understand this clearly, in this case?
Thanks.
When you pass a function as the second argument to re.sub, according to the documentation:
it is called for every non-overlapping occurrence of pattern. The function takes a single match object argument, and returns the replacement string.
The matchcase() function itself returns the replace() function, so when you do this:
re.sub('python', matchcase('snake'), text, flags=re.IGNORECASE)
what happens is that matchcase('snake') returns replace, and then every non-overlapping occurrence of the pattern 'python' as a match object is passed to the replace function as the m argument. If this is confusing to you, don't worry; it is just generally confusing.
Here is an interactive session with a much simpler nested function that should make things clearer:
In [1]: def foo(outer_arg):
...: def bar(inner_arg):
...: print(outer_arg + inner_arg)
...: return bar
...:
In [2]: f = foo('hello')
In [3]: f('world')
helloworld
So f = foo('hello') is assigning a function that looks like the one below to a variable f:
def bar(inner_arg):
print('hello' + inner_arg)
f can then be called like this f('world'), which is like calling bar('world'). I hope that makes things clearer.
I am making a terminal emulator in Python 3. The commands are being stored in functions, like:
def rd(os_vartmp, os_vartmp2):
if os_vartmp == None:
print('rd [path] [-S]')
print('Delete a folder')
else:
if os.path.isfile(os_vartmp) == True:
if os_vartmp2 == '-S': print('a')
else:
print(ERR5)
a = input('Command: ')
The terminal works like this:
Asks user for input
Splits the input
Uses the first part of input to search a function in locals
If there is one, uses the rest part of input as argument
Calls the function
The thing here is, when i call the function 'rd' with, for example, 'rd "boot.py" -S' it works just fine. But if i need to call it like this: rd "boot.py", it throws me a error about 1 argument given when 2 are required. Is there a fix for that?
You can make an argument optional by assigning a value in the method definition. For example:
def Add(x=0, y=0):
return x+y
If you input only one value, y will default to 0. If I wanted to give y a value but have x fall back on it's default value I could do Add(y=10). I hope this helped!
Have you tried this?
def rd(os_vartmp, os_vartmp2="-S"):
Instead of trying to get null value, which would require rd("boot.py",null), you can ser default value and then you can do rd("boot.py").
Hope it works.
I'm struggling a bit with this: I need a function that takes any function
of type fun(Any*) : Boolean as parameter, evaluates the function and returns true or
false, depending on the success of the function evaluation.
Essentially, what I need is a function type that allows any number and any type of parameter but the function must return Boolean.
Which would allow me to write functions like:
def checkLenght(str : String, length : Int) : Boolean ={
if (str.lenght == length)}
or
def ceckAB(a : Int, b : Int) : Boolean = {
if(a < b && a >= 23 && b < 42) }
so that, for example
eval(checkLenght(abc, 3)) //returns true
eval(ceckAB(4,1)) // returns false
I thought, a function type of:
type CheckFunction = (Any*) => Boolean
may does the trick but I struggle with writing the generic eval function.
Any advise?
Thank you
Solution:
The function requires
1) Another function of return type Boolean: "(func : => Boolean)"
2) Return type Boolean ": Boolean"
3) Returns the value of the passed function-parameter: " = func"
Altogether the function is:
def eval(func : => Boolean) : Boolean = func
It amazes me over again how simple simple things are in Scala.
As pointed out by the comments, this is a rather unusual function with no obvious
sense. Just a word about the underlying reasons.
Motivation:
There were a lot of question about the underlying motivation, so here a short
summary why such a function is needed.
Essentially, there are two reasons.
First one is about moving the failure handling away from the function itself
into a handler function. This preserves the purity of the check function and even allows
re-usage of generic checks.
Second, it's all about "pluggable failure handling". This means, the eval function only
tells if a failure happened (or not). In case of a failure, a handler is called through an interface. The implementation of the handler can be swapped using profiles as required.
Why?
Swapping profiles means, I code my checks and functions as usual but by switching the
profile, I switch the handler which means I can chose between full-stop, console print out, email alert, SNMP notification, push message... you name it. To do so, I need to decouple the check function from its evaluation and from its handling. That's the motivation for such a rather strange looking eval function.
And for the sake of completeness, I've already implemented all that stuff but was I facing the limitation of only handling trivial checks i.e. check(Boolean*) which is neat but often I would prefer to write a function to do more sophisticated checks.
Solved
The function is defined by returning the value of the passed function:
def eval(func : => Boolean) : Boolean = {func}
I can't say that I really understand your motivations for wanting to do what you want to do, but I guess that's beside the point. Maybe the eval function will check something before invoking the supplied function and not invoke that other function (like a fast fail) given some certain condition. Maybe you do some post checking after invoking the function and change the result based on something else. Either way, I suppose you could accomplish something similar to what you want with code looking like this:
def main(args: Array[String]) {
val str = "hello world"
println(eval(checkLength(str, 3)))
println(eval(intsEqual(1,1)))
}
def eval(func: => Boolean):Boolean = {
//Do whetever you want before invoking func, maybe
//not even invoke it if some other condition is present
val fres = func
//Maybe change something here before returning based on post conditions
fres
}
def checkLength(s:String, len:Int) = s.length() == len
def intsEqual(a:Int, b:Int) = a == b
If you really want the eval function to be able to support any function that takes any types of args and returns a Boolean, then using a by-name function like this, and then leveraging closure inside the by-name function to pass any params along to whatever actual function you want to invoke. A better way to demonstrate this is as follows:
def checkMyString(str:String, len:Int) = {
eval(str.length == len)
}
It's probably hard to see that the check str.length == len is not invoked unless eval decides to invoke it until you expand it to it's true form:
def checkMyString(str:String, len:Int) = {
def check = {
str.length == len
}
eval(check)
}
Here, the nested function check has access to str and len due to closure, and this will allow you to get around the requirement that eval must be able to invoke a function with any params that returns a Boolean.
This is just one way to solve your problem, and it might not even be suitable given your needs, but I just wanted to throw it out there.
If your input functions only have 2 arguments, like your two examples, you can write a semi generic function take takes all functions with two arguments of any type:
def eval[A,B](func: (A,B) => Boolean, arg1: A, arg2: B) = {
func(arg1, arg2)
}
def checkLength(str: String, length: Int) : Boolean = {
str.length == length
}
eval(checkLength, "ham", 4)
res0: Boolean = false
But if you want to support functions with more arguments, you would have to write one eval function for three arguments, four arguments, etc
Maybe there is a better way that can handle all cases?