CS 61A Lab 3

Lambdas, Recursion, and Sequences

Starter Files

We've provided a set of starter files with skeleton code for the exercises in the lab. You can get them in the following places:

Lambda Expressions

Lambda expressions are one-line functions that specify two things: the parameters; and the return value.

lambda [parameters]: [return value]

One difference between using the def keyword and lambda expressions is that def is a statement, while lambda is an expression. Evaluating a def statement will have a side effect; namely, it creates a new function binding in the current environment. On the other hand, evaluating a lambda expression will not change the environment unless we do something with this expression. For instance, we could assign it to a variable or pass it in as a function argument.

Question 1

For each of the following expressions, what must f be in order for the evaluation of the expression to succeed, without causing an error? Give a definition of f for each expression such that evaluating the expression will not cause an error.

>>> f = ______
>>> f
3
>>> f = ______
>>> f()
3
>>> f = ______
>>> f(3)
3
>>> f = ______
>>> f()()
3
>>> f = ______
>>> f()(3)()
3

Environment Diagrams

Try drawing environment diagrams for the following code and predicting what Python will output:

# Q1
a = lambda x : x * 2 + 1

def b(x):
    return x * y

y = 3
b(y)
_________

def c(x):
    y = a(x)
    return b(x) + a(x+y)
c(y)
_________


# Q2: This one is pretty tough. A carefully drawn environment
# diagram will be really useful.
g = lambda x: x + 3

def wow(f):
    def boom(g):
      return f(g)
    return boom

f = wow(g)
f(2)
_________
g = lambda x: x * x
f(3)
_________

Recursion

Warm Up: Recursion Basics

A recursive function is a function that calls itself in its body, either directly or indirectly. Recursive functions have two important components:

  1. Base case(s), where the function directly computes an answer without calling itself. Usually the base case deals with the simplest possible form of the problem you're trying to solve.
  2. Recursive case(s), where the function calls itself as part of the computation.

Let's look at the canonical example, factorial:

def factorial(n):
    if n == 0:
        return 1
    return n * factorial(n - 1)

We know by its definition that 0! is 1. So we choose n = 0 as our base case. The recursive step also follows from the definition of factorial, i.e. n! = n * (n-1)!.

The next few questions in lab will have you writing recursive functions. Here are some general tips:

  1. Always start with the base case. The base case handles the simplest argument your function would have to handle. The answer is extremely simple, and often follows from the definition of the problem.
  2. Make a recursive call with a slightly simpler argument. This is called the "leap of faith" - your simpler argument should simplify the problem, and you should assume that the recursive call for this simpler problem will just work. As you do more problems, you'll get better at this step.

  3. Use the recursive call. Remember that the recursive call solves a simpler version of the problem. Now ask yourself how you can use this result to solve the original problem.

Question 2: In summation...

Write the recursive version of summation, which takes two arguments, a number n and a function term, applies term to every number between 0 and n, and returns the sum of those results.

Question 3

The greatest common divisor of two positive integers a and b is the largest integer which evenly divides both numbers (with no remainder). Euclid, a Greek mathematician in 300 B.C., realized that the greatest common divisor of a and b is one of the following:

In other words, if a is greater than b and a is not divisible by b, then

gcd(a, b) == gcd(b, a % b)

Write the gcd function using Euclid's algorithm.

Question 4: Recursive Boogaloo

For the hailstone function from homework 1, you pick a positive integer n as the start. If n is even, divide it by 2. If n is odd, multiply it by 3 and add 1. Repeat this process until n is 1. Write a recursive version of hailstone that prints out the values of the sequence and returns the number of steps.

Question 5

Consider an insect in an M by N grid. The insect starts at the top left corner, (0, 0), and wants to end up at the bottom right corner, (M-1, N-1). The insect is only capable of moving right or down. Write a function count_paths that takes a grid length and width and returns the number of different paths the insect can take from the start to the goal. (There is a closed-form solution to this problem, but try to answer it procedurally using recursion.)

grid

For example, the 2 by 2 brid has a total of two ways for the insect to move from the start to the goal. For the 3 by 3 grid, the insect has 6 diferent paths (only 3 are shown above).

def paths(m, n):
    "*** YOUR CODE HERE ***"

Tuples

What would Python print?

Predict what Python will display when you type the following into the interpreter. Then try it to check your answers.

Question 6

>>> x = (1, 2, 3)
>>> x[0]     # Q1
______
>>> x[3]     # Q2
______

>>> x[-1]    # Q3
______
>>> x[-3]    # Q4
______

Question 7

>>> x = (1, 2, 3, 4)
>>> x[1:3]       # Q1
______
>>> x[:2]        # Q2
______
>>> x[1:]        # Q3
______
>>> x[-2:3]      # Q4
______
>>> x[::2]       # Q5
______
>>> x[::-1]      # Q6
______
>>> x[-1:0:-1]   # Q7
______

Question 8

>>> y = (1,)
>>> len(y)       # Q1
______
>>> 1 in y       # Q2
______

>>> y + (2, 3)   # Q3
______
>>> (0,) + y     # Q4
______
>>> y * 3        # Q5
______

>>> z = ((1, 2), (3, 4, 5))
>>> len(z)       # Q6
______

Question 9

For each of the following, give the correct expression to get 7.

>>> x = (1, 3, 5, 7)
>>> x[-1]    # example
7

>>> x = (1, 3, (5, 7), 9)
>>> # YOUR EXPRESSION INVOLVING x HERE
7

>>> x = ((7,),)
>>> # YOUR EXPRESSION INVOLVING x HERE
7

>>> x = (1, (2, (3, (4, (5, (6, (7,)))))))
>>> # YOUR EXPRESSION INVOLVING x HERE
7

Question 10

Write a function reverse that takes a tuple and returns the reverse. Write both an iterative and a recursive version. You may use slicing notation, but don't use tup[::-1].

def reverse_iter(tup):
    """Returns the reverse of the given tuple.

    >>> reverse_iter((1, 2, 3, 4))
    (4, 3, 2, 1)
    """
    "*** YOUR CODE HERE ***"

def reverse_recursive(tup):
    """Returns the reverse of the given tuple.

    >>> reverse_revursive((1, 2, 3, 4))
    (4, 3, 2, 1)
    """
    "*** YOUR CODE HERE ***"

Question 11

Write a recursive function merge that takes 2 sorted tuples tup1 and tup2, and returns a new tuple that contains all the elements in the two tuples in sorted order.

def merge(tup1, tup2):
    """Merges two sorted tuples.

    >>> merge((1, 3, 5), (2, 4, 6))
    (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
    >>> merge((), (2, 4, 6))
    (2, 4, 6)
    >>> merge((1, 2, 3), ())
    (1, 2, 3)
    """
    "*** YOUR CODE HERE ***"

Immutability

One last thing about tuples: they're immutable data structures. This means that once they are created, they can't be changed. For example, try this:

>>> x = (1, 2, 3)
>>> x[0] = 4

This will cause TypeError complaining that tuples don't "support item assignment." In other words, you can't change the elements in a tuple because tuples are immutable. Later in the course, we'll see the opposite -- mutable data structures.