Evaluation of Erlang recursive function (why does this work)
I started to learn some Erlang and right now I am stuck with following "problem".
I know how recursion works and I am aware of the basics of HigherOrderFunctions.
So to get more into the whole concept I implemented "lists:all/2" with the usage of fold myself:
fold(_, Start, []) -> Start;
fold(F, Start, [H|T]) -> fold(F, F(H, Start), T).
all(Pred, L) ->
F = fun(H, ToF) ->
case Pred(H) of
true -> ToF;
false -> false
end
end,
fold(F, true, L).
I know this version does not care about empty lists, but that is not what bothers me. I can't figure out why it works how it does.
When I use my list [1,2,3] and set the Pred to "fun(X) when X == 3 -> true; (_) -> false end" it obviously returns "false". But why? if I work this through on paper as last call before something is returned I get:
fold(F, F(H, Start), T)
Where F is Pred and F(H, Start) returns "true" because the last element is 3 and T is an empty list [].
So when I get this right, the last call should be fold(_, true, []) and should therefore return "true" which it doesn't.
Am I missing something here or do I get anything wrong when it comes to evaluating the last expression? Does this function somehow use logical AND on all the returns of "Pred"?
Basically, you are right about the last call, but when doing your analysis, you've substituted true for Start value, where in fact this value is false :
fold(F, true, [1,2,3])
evaluates to:
fold(F, true, [1|[2,3]]) -> fold(F, F(1, true), [2,3])
which in turns evaluates to:
fold(F, false, [2|3]) -> fold(F, F(2, false) [3])
which in turns evaluates to:
fold(F, false, [3|[]]]) -> fold(F, F(3, false), [])
which evaluates to:
fold(_, false, []) -> false
Because in last call Pred is true, and you are returning ToF , which is false.
尽量避免针对简单问题的复杂解决方案（代码紧凑是函数式语言的好处之一）：
all(_, []) ->
true;
all(Pred, [H|T]) ->
case Pred(H) of
true ->
all(Pred, T);
false ->
false
end.