Amb
You are encouraged to solve this task according to the task description, using any language you may know.
Define and give an example of the Amb operator.
The Amb operator takes some number of expressions (or values if that's simpler in the language) and nondeterministically yeilds the one or fails if given no parameter, amb returns the value that doesn't lead to failure.
The example is using amb to choose four words from the following strings:
set 1: "the" "that" "a"
set 2: "frog" "elephant" "thing"
set 3: "walked" "treaded" "grows"
set 4: "slowly" "quickly"
it is a failure if the last character of word 1 is not equal to the first character of word 2, and similarly with word 2 and word 3, as well as word 3 and word 4. (the only successful sentence is "that thing grows slowly").
Haskell
<haskell>import Control.Monad import Data.List
amb choices = if null choices then mzero else choices
joins left right = head (reverse left) == head right
example = head $ do
w1 <- amb ["the", "that", "a"] w2 <- amb ["frog", "elephant", "thing"] w3 <- amb ["walked", "treaded", "grows"] w4 <- amb ["slowly", "quickly"] if joins w1 w2 then return () else amb [] if joins w2 w3 then return () else amb [] if joins w3 w4 then return () else amb [] return $ intercalate " " [w1, w2, w3, w4]</haskell>
Prolog
amb(E, [E|_]). amb(E, [_|ES]) :- amb(E, ES). joins(Left, Right) :- append(_, [T], Left), append([R], _, Right), ( T \= R -> amb(_, []) % (explicitly using amb fail as required) ; true ). amb_example([Word1, Word2, Word3, Word4]) :- amb(Word1, ["the","that","a"]), amb(Word2, ["frog","elephant","thing"]), amb(Word3, ["walked","treaded","grows"]), amb(Word4, ["slowly","quickly"]), joins(Word1, Word2), joins(Word2, Word3), joins(Word3, Word4).
Scheme
<scheme> (define fail
(lambda () (error "Amb tree exhausted")))
(define-syntax amb
(syntax-rules ()
((AMB) (FAIL)) ; Two shortcuts.
((AMB expression) expression)
((AMB expression ...)
(LET ((FAIL-SAVE FAIL))
((CALL-WITH-CURRENT-CONTINUATION ; Capture a continuation to
(LAMBDA (K-SUCCESS) ; which we return possibles.
(CALL-WITH-CURRENT-CONTINUATION
(LAMBDA (K-FAILURE) ; K-FAILURE will try the next
(SET! FAIL K-FAILURE) ; possible expression.
(K-SUCCESS ; Note that the expression is
(LAMBDA () ; evaluated in tail position
expression)))) ; with respect to AMB.
...
(SET! FAIL FAIL-SAVE) ; Finally, if this is reached,
FAIL-SAVE))))))) ; we restore the saved FAIL.
(let ((w-1 (amb "the" "that" "a"))
(w-2 (amb "frog" "elephant" "thing"))
(w-3 (amb "walked" "treaded" "grows"))
(w-4 (amb "slowly" "quickly")))
(define (joins? left right)
(equal? (string-ref left (- (string-length left) 1)) (string-ref right 0)))
(if (joins? w-1 w-2) '() (amb))
(if (joins? w-2 w-3) '() (amb))
(if (joins? w-3 w-4) '() (amb))
(list w-1 w-2 w-3 w-4))
</scheme>