phobos/docsrc/lisp-java-d.d
2008-02-19 06:46:52 +00:00

214 lines
8.9 KiB
D

Ddoc
$(COMMUNITY Lisp vs. Java... D?,
<center>
$(I by Lionello Lunesu, Oct. 18th 2006)
</center>
<p>Two weeks ago, Josh Stern posted an
$(LINK2 http://www.digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/Lisp_vs._C_not_off-topic_42717.html, interesting link)
on the
<a href="http://www.digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/index.html">digitalmars.D newsgroup</a>.
The link pointed to a
<a href="http://userpages.umbc.edu/~bcorfm1/C++-vs-Lisp.html">page describing a programming challenge</a>
that was originally used in a
study in which 38 C, C++ and Java programmers were asked to write versions of a
program to compare Java and C++ efficiency.
</p>
<p>Many other programmers had taken up the challenge since. In <a href="http://www.norvig.com/java-lisp.html">
one such comparison</a>, Lisp turned out to be a clear winner over Java and
C++ when comparing development time and lines of code, with the record standing
at about 2 hours, with 45 non-comment non-blank lines. For C++, the shortest
development time was 3 hours and the
shortest program had 107 lines of code.
</p>
<p>With some time to spare, I thought I should give it a try myself. Although I'm a
C++ programmer myself (and have been for 10 years now), I thought it would be a
great opportunity to test my skills in the <a href="http://www.digitalmars.com/d/">D
programming language</a>.</p>
<p>I had not looked at the other implementations and only read the <a href="http://www.flownet.com/ron/papers/lisp-java/">
original problem statement</a>. It took me <strong>1 hour and 15 minutes</strong>,
from reading the statement to finishing the program. The program was just 55
lines long (remember, the
shortest C++ entry
had 107 lines), not counting blank
lines, comments, assertions, unittests, contracts and trailing curly brackets
(similar to Lisp).
</p>
<p>The program basically had to do this: read all words from a dictionary file; for
each letter there was a corresponding digit (like the letters on a phone);
using this mapping, read phone numbers from another text file and print all
possible combinations of words for that phone number. Check the link above for
more details.</p>
<p>What made implementing this task so easy in D? I just happened to have every
construct I needed at hand. Some of the goodies used, are:</p>
$(UL
$(LI Assertions, contracts and unittests)
$(LI Built-in arrays and strings, with easy slicing)
$(LI Built-in associative array)
$(LI Garbage collection)
$(LI Type deduction and foreach)
$(LI Nested functions)
$(LI Returning (reference to) a array from a function)
)
<p>During the actual programming I did not have to stop and think about anything.
The program evolved automatically, once I thought of the actual container for
the dictionary. It turned out that the 'winning' Lisp version was storing the
dictionary in a similar manner.</p>
<h2>Compiling</h2>
<p>To test the program yourself, first download the <a href="http://www.flownet.com/ron/papers/lisp-java/dictionary.txt">
dictionary.txt</a> and <a href="http://www.flownet.com/ron/papers/lisp-java/input.txt">
input.txt</a>. Then, <a href="http://www.digitalmars.com/d/download.html">download
the latest D compiler</a>. To compile,
copy-paste the D code into a newly created file
phoneno.d, and compile it with:
</p>
$(CONSOLE
dmd -run phoneno.d
)
---------------------
// Created by Lionello Lunesu and placed in the public domain.
// This file has been modified from its original version.
// It has been formatted to fit your screen.
module phoneno; // optional
import std.stdio; // writefln
import std.ctype; // isdigit
import std.stream; // BufferedFile
// Just for readability (imagine char[][][char[]])
alias char[] string;
alias string[] stringarray;
/// Strips non-digit characters from the string (COW)
string stripNonDigit( in string line )
{
string ret;
foreach(uint i, c; line) {
// Error: std.ctype.isdigit at C:\dmd\src\phobos\std\ctype.d(37)
// conflicts with std.stream.isdigit at C:\dmd\src\phobos\std\stream.d(2924)
if (!std.ctype.isdigit(c)) {
if (!ret)
ret = line[0..i];
}
else if (ret)
ret ~= c;
}
return ret?ret:line;
}
unittest {
assert( stripNonDigit("asdf") == "" );
assert( stripNonDigit("\'13-=2 4kop") == "1324" );
}
/// Converts a word into a number, ignoring all non alpha characters
string wordToNum( in string word )
{
// translation table for the task at hand
const char[256] TRANSLATE =
" " // 0
" 0123456789 " // 32
" 57630499617851881234762239 " // 64
" 57630499617851881234762239 "
" "
" "
" "
" ";
string ret;
foreach(c; cast(ubyte[])word)
if (TRANSLATE[c] != ' ')
ret ~= TRANSLATE[c];
return ret;
}
unittest {
// Test wordToNum using the table from the task description.
assert( "01112223334455666777888999" ==
wordToNum("E | J N Q | R W X | D S Y | F T | A M | C I V | B K U | L O P | G H Z"));
assert( "01112223334455666777888999" ==
wordToNum("e | j n q | r w x | d s y | f t | a m | c i v | b k u | l o p | g h z"));
assert( "0123456789" ==
wordToNum("0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9"));
}
void main( string[] args )
{
// This associative array maps a number to an array of words.
stringarray[string] num2words;
foreach(string word; new BufferedFile("dictionary.txt" ) )
num2words[ wordToNum(word) ] ~= word.dup; // must dup
/// Finds all alternatives for the given number
/// (should have been stripped from non-digit characters)
stringarray _FindWords( string numbers, bool digitok )
in {
assert(numbers.length > 0);
}
out(result) {
foreach (a; result)
assert( wordToNum(a) == numbers );
}
body {
stringarray ret;
bool foundword = false;
for (uint t=1; t<=numbers.length; ++t) {
auto alternatives = numbers[0..t] in num2words;
if (!alternatives)
continue;
foundword = true;
if (numbers.length > t) {
// Combine all current alternatives with all alternatives
// of the rest (next piece can start with a digit)
foreach (a2; _FindWords( numbers[t..$], true ) )
foreach(a1; *alternatives)
ret ~= a1 ~ " " ~ a2;
}
else
ret ~= *alternatives; // append these alternatives
}
// Try to keep 1 digit, only if we're allowed and no other
// alternatives were found
// Testing "ret.length" makes more sense than testing "foundword",
// but the other implementations seem to do just this.
if (digitok && !foundword) { //ret.length == 0
if(numbers.length > 1) {
// Combine 1 digit with all altenatives from the rest
// (next piece can not start with a digit)
foreach (a; _FindWords( numbers[1..$], false ) )
ret ~= numbers[0..1] ~ " " ~ a;
}
else
ret ~= numbers[0..1]; // just append this digit
}
return ret;
}
/// (This function was inlined in the original program)
/// Finds all alternatives for the given phone number
/// Returns: array of strings
stringarray FindWords( string phone_number )
{
if (!phone_number.length)
return null;
// Strip the non-digit characters from the phone number, and
// pass it to the recursive function (leading digit is allowed)
return _FindWords( stripNonDigit(phone_number), true );
}
// Read the phone numbers
foreach(string phone; new BufferedFile("input.txt" ) )
foreach(alternative; FindWords( phone ) )
writefln(phone, ": ", alternative );
}
---------------------
)
Macros:
TITLE=Lisp vs. Java... D?
WIKI=LispVsJavaVsD
COPYRIGHT=