(clj 8) Some notes on lazy sequences and function parameters

Almost done with the chapter 4 “Core Functions in Depth” of “Clojure for the Brave and True“! Before wrapping up the chapter with a longer example, a summary, and some exercises, the book goes into lazy sequences, the collection abstraction, and function functions. In this post I will share some notes on infinite lazy sequences and function parameters, making comparisons between Clojure and Python.

Infinite lazy sequences

A lazy sequence is a sequence whose members aren’t computed until you try to access them. One advantage is that it’s more efficient: the whole sequence doesn’t have to be calculated and kept in memory from the start. Another advantage is that it allows you to create infinite sequences. Do that with a normal sequence and your program would never want to stop calculating.

The book has the following example of an infinite sequence to calculate all even numbers:

(defn even-numbers
  ([] (even-numbers 0))
  ([n] (cons n (lazy-seq (even-numbers (+ n 2))))))


(take 10 (even-numbers))
; => (0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18)

I wondered how to do the same in Python and with some help from stackoverflow, I got:

def even_numbers(numb=None):
  numb = 0 if numb is None else numb

  while True:
    yield numb
    numb = numb + 2

top10 = itertools.islice(even_numbers(), 10)
list(top10)
# => [0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18]

What I find interesting is how they accomplish the same thing but in a different way.

Clojure’s lazy-seq is a function that: “Takes a body of expressions that returns an ISeq or nil, and yields a Seqable object that will invoke the body only the first time seq is called, and will cache the result and return it on all subsequent seq calls.”

Python’s yield is used inside a function instead of the return, which makes that function a generator function, which means the function returns a generator iterator:
“Each yield temporarily suspends processing, remembering the location execution state (including local variables and pending try-statements). When the generator iterator resumes, it picks up where it left off (in contrast to functions which start fresh on every invocation).”

So in essence, they do the same thing. Calculate the next step and cache. Rinse and repeat on demand. The syntax you need is a little different, though.

Clojure uses a recursive function. I tried a similar implementation in Python, but that didn’t work. If I use yield, it only returns the result of the first step, not of multiple. If I use a return instead, I get a RecursionError. That makes sense, since I needed the yield to not have an infinitely recursive function.

The working solution in Python is to create an infinite loop with a yield, so that it’s an infinite loop you actually have some control over. I thought about trying to implement something similar in Clojure, but decided that wouldn’t work. Clojure does not have a yield, it does not even have a return. Clojure returns the last form in the function it evaluates¹.

Function parameters

“Clojure for the Brave and True” has the following example for the apply function:

(max 0 1 2)
; => 2

(max [0 1 2])
; => [0 1 2]

(apply max [0 1 2])
; => 2)

As usual, I wondered how Python approached this and turns out it doesn’t care for max():

>>> max(0,1,2)
2

>>> max([0,1,2])
2

Python does care for sum(), although I don’t see why the decision was made to have it behave differently from max():

>>> sum(0,1,2)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: sum() takes at most 2 arguments (3 given)

>>> sum([0,1,2])
3

Rest parameters

The examples in the book used an & in the function parameters. I had forgotten what that did, but quickly relearned that the parameter after the & is a rest parameter. Let’s say you call a function with 4 arguments. The function has one parameter and a rest parameter. The first argument will be mapped to the one parameter, all the other arguments will be put in the rest parameter:

(defn favorite-things
  [name & things]
  (str "Hi, " name ", here are my favorite things: "
       (clojure.string/join ", " things)))


(favorite-things "Doreen" "gum" "shoes" "kara-te")
; => "Hi, Doreen, here are my favorite things: gum, shoes, kara-te"

My first thought was that Python does not have such a thing as rest parameters, but then I remembered *args. And looking it up, I found out you don’t even need to name the rest parameter args!

>>> def favorite_things(name, *things):
...     return f"Hi, {name}, here are my favorite things: {', '.join(things)}"
... 
>>> favorite_things("Doreen", "gum", "shoes", "kara-te")
'Hi, Doreen, here are my favorite things: gum, shoes, kara-te'

My instincts tell me that Clojure has more use of such a rest parameter than Python, but I could be completely wrong. Time will tell as I learn more.