I am trying to write a program which make the following:
?- g([2,3, [22,[3],9] ,4,[5],99],X).
X= [2,3,22,[3],9 ,4,5,99]
So it searches for lists in the given list and replace it by their elements without brackets [].
So I wrote this program:
The first block just searches for the first element in the list which is list
If there is no such element it returns [there_is_no_list]
.
first_list_in_the_list([],[there_is_no_list]):-!.
first_list_in_the_list([H|_],X):-is_list(H),X=H,!.
first_list_in_the_list([_|T],X):-first_list_in_the_list(T,X).
The first block works in prolog perfectly.
The second block just search in the list for an element X and then split the list into a two lists one is the list of all elements before X and the second is the elements after X.
splite_when_find_element([H|T],H,[],T):-!.
splite_when_find_element([H|T],X,F,G):-
splite_when_find_element(T,X,F1,G),append([H],F1,F).
it also works fine in Prolog.
and the third block is append, and it joins two list together in a new list.
append([],L,L).
append([H|T],L,[H|U1]):- append(T,L,U1).
and the last part is:
gg(L,L):-first_list_in_the_list(L,[there_is_no_list]),!.
gg(L,U):-first_list_in_the_list(L,X),
splite_when_find_element(L,X,F,G),gg(G,R),append(F,X,E),
append(E,R,U).
When I give a query [2,[3],5]
I get also [2,[3],5]
and I really don't understand why it does this.
A simple recursive solution will also work. Recursion is done by the head of the input list. In the non-trivial case, when the head is a list itself, we just append the rest of the flattened list to it. In the code below, it has not flattened Rest
yet in append(H, Rest, Out)
, but it will be, after the recursive call of g(In, Rest)
. Cut after the append call ensures that backtracking won't consider the last case, where the head will appear in the output as-is.
% Base case, empty list.
g([], []).
% First recursive case: head is list.
% Append remaining elements to it.
g([H|In], Out):-
append(H, Rest, Out), !,
g(In, Rest).
% Second recursive case: head is not list.
% Will appear as-is in the output.
g([H|In], [H|Out]):-
g(In, Out).