Numeric Haskell: A Vector Tutorial
From HaskellWiki
The vector library has an API similar to the famous Haskell list library, with many of the same names.
This tutorial is modelled on the NumPy tutorial.
1 Quick Tour
Here is a quick overview to get you started.
1.1 Importing the library
Download the vector package:
$ cabal install vector
and import it as, for boxed arrays:
import qualified Data.Vector as V
or:
import qualified Data.Vector.Unboxed as V
for unboxed arrays. The library needs to be imported qualified as it shares the same function names as list operations in the Prelude.
1.2 Generating Vectors
New vectors can be generated in many ways:
$ ghci GHCi, version 6.12.1: http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ :? for help Loading package ghc-prim ... linking ... done. Loading package integer-gmp ... linking ... done. Loading package base ... linking ... done. Loading package ffi-1.0 ... linking ... done. Prelude> :m + Data.Vector -- Generating a vector from a list: Prelude Data.Vector> let a = fromList [10, 20, 30, 40] Prelude Data.Vector> a fromList [10,20,30,40] :: Data.Vector.Vector -- Or filled from a sequence Prelude Data.Vector> enumFromStepN 10 10 4 fromList [10,20,30,40] :: Data.Vector.Vector -- A vector created from four consecutive values Prelude Data.Vector> enumFromN 10 4 fromList [10,11,12,13] :: Data.Vector.Vector
You can also build vectors using operations similar to lists:
-- The empty vector Prelude Data.Vector> empty fromList [] :: Data.Vector.Vector -- A vector of length one Prelude Data.Vector> singleton 2 fromList [2] :: Data.Vector.Vector -- A vector of length 10, filled with the value '2' -- Note that to disambiguate names, -- and avoid a clash with the Prelude, -- with use the full path to the Vector module Prelude Data.Vector> Data.Vector.replicate 10 2 fromList [2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2] :: Data.Vector.Vector
In general, you may construct new vectors by applying a function to the index space:
Prelude Data.Vector> generate 10 (^2) fromList [0,1,4,9,16,25,36,49,64,81] :: Data.Vector.Vector
Vectors may have more than one dimension:
-- Here we create a two dimensional vector, 10 columns, -- each row filled with the row index. Prelude Data.Vector> let x = generate 10 (\n -> Data.Vector.replicate 10 n) -- The type is "Vector of Vector of Ints" Prelude Data.Vector> :t x x :: Vector (Vector Int)
Vectors may be grown or shrunk arbitrarily:
Prelude Data.Vector> let y = Data.Vector.enumFromTo 0 11 Prelude Data.Vector> y fromList [0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11] :: Data.Vector.Vector -- Take the first 3 elements as a new vector Prelude Data.Vector> Data.Vector.take 3 y fromList [0,1,2] :: Data.Vector.Vector -- Duplicate and join the vector Prelude Data.Vector> y Data.Vector.++ y fromList [0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11] :: Data.Vector.Vector
1.3 Modifying vectors
Just as with lists, you can iterate (map) over arrays, reduce them (fold), filter them, or join them in various ways:
-- mapping a function over the elements of a vector Prelude Data.Vector> Data.Vector.map (^2) y fromList [0,1,4,9,16,25,36,49,64,81,100,121] :: Data.Vector.Vector -- Extract only the odd elements from a vector Prelude Data.Vector> Data.Vector.filter odd y fromList [1,3,5,7,9,11] :: Data.Vector.Vector -- Reduce a vector Prelude Data.Vector> Data.Vector.foldl (+) 0 y 66 -- Take a scan (partial results from a reduction): Prelude Data.Vector> Data.Vector.scanl (+) 0 y fromList [0,0,1,3,6,10,15,21,28,36,45,55,66] :: Data.Vector.Vector -- Zip two arrays pairwise, into an array of pairs Prelude Data.Vector> Data.Vector.zip y y fromList [(0,0),(1,1),(2,2),(3,3),(4,4),(5,5),(6,6),(7,7),(8,8),(9,9),(10,10),(11,11)] :: Data.Vector.Vector
1.4 Indexing vectors
And like all good arrays, you can index them in various ways:
-- Take the first element Prelude Data.Vector> Data.Vector.head y 0 -- Take the last element Prelude Data.Vector> Data.Vector.tail y fromList [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11] :: Data.Vector.Vector -- Take an arbitrary element Prelude Data.Vector> y ! 4 4
2 The Tutorial
The vector package provides a several types of array. The most general interface is via Data.Vector, which provides for boxed arrays, holding any type.
There are also more specialized array types:
which provide unboxed arrays (i.e. no closures) and storable arrays (data that is pinned, and may be passed to and from C via a Ptr).
In all cases, the operations are subject to loop fusion. That is, if you compose two functions,
map f . map g
the compiler will rewrite it into a single traversal:
map (f . g)
saving time and space.
2.1 Simple example
You can create the arrays in many ways, for example, from a regular Haskell list:
let a = fromList [2,3,4] Prelude Data.Vector> a fromList [2,3,4] :: Data.Vector.Vector Prelude Data.Vector> :t a a :: Vector Integer
GHCi will print the contents of the vector as executable code.
To create a multidimensional array, you can use a nested list generator to fill it:
Prelude Data.Vector> let x = fromList [ fromList [1 .. x] | x <- [1..10] ] Prelude Data.Vector> :t x x :: Vector (Vector Integer)
-- XXX TODO need a better printing function for multidimensional arrays.
You can also just create arrays filled with zeroes:
Prelude Data.Vector> Data.Vector.replicate 10 0 fromList [0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0] :: Data.Vector.Vector
And you can fill arrays from a sequence generator:
Prelude Data.Vector> enumFromN 1 10 fromList [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10] :: Data.Vector.Vector Prelude Data.Vector> enumFromStepN 0 10 10 fromList [0,10,20,30,40,50,60,70,80,90] :: Data.Vector.Vector
2.2 Array Types
The vector package provides several array types, with an identical interface. They have different flexibility with respect to the types of values that may be stored in them, and different performance characteristics.
2.2.1 Boxed Arrays: Data.Vector
The most flexible type is Data.Vector.Vector, which provides *boxed* arrays: arrays of pointers to Haskell values.
- Data.Vector.Vector's are fully polymorphic: they can hold any valid Haskell type
These arrays are suitable for storing complex Haskell types (sum types, or algebraic data types), but a better choice for simple data types is Data.Vector.Unboxed.
2.2.2 Unboxed Arrays: Data.Vector.Unboxed
Simple, atomic types, and pair types can be stored in a more efficient manner: consecutive memory slots without pointers. The Data.Array.Unboxed.Vector type provides unboxed arrays of types that are members of the Unbox class, including:
- Bool
- ()
- Char
- Double
- Float
- Int
- Int8, 16, 32, 64
- Word
- Word8, 16, 32, 64
- Complex a's, where 'a' is in Unbox
- Tuple types, where the elements are unboxable
Unboxed arrays should be preferred when you have unboxable elements, as they are generally more efficient.
2.2.3 Storable Arrays: passing data to C
Storable arrays (Data.Vector.Storable.Vector) are vectors of any type in the Storable class.
These arrays are pinned, and may be converted to and from pointers, that may be passed to C functions, using a number of functions:
unsafeFromForeignPtr
:: Storable a
=> ForeignPtr a
-> Int
-> Int
-> Vector a
-- Create a vector from a ForeignPtr with an offset and a length. The data may --- not be modified through the ForeignPtr afterwards.
unsafeToForeignPtr
:: Storable a
=> Vector a
-> (ForeignPtr a, Int, Int)
-- Yield the underlying ForeignPtr together with the offset to the data and its -- length. The data may not be modified through the ForeignPtr.
unsafeWith
:: Storable a
=> Vector a
-> (Ptr a -> IO b)
-> IO b
-- Pass a pointer to the vector's data to the IO action. The data may not be -- -- modified through the 'Ptr.2.2.4 Pure Arrays
2.2.5 Impure Arrays
2.2.6 Some examples
The most important attributes of an array are available in O(1) time, such as the size (length),
-- how big is the array? Prelude Data.Vector> let a = fromList [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10] Prelude Data.Vector> Data.Vector.length a 10 -- is the array empty? Prelude Data.Vector> Data.Vector.null a False
2.3 Array Creation
2.3.1 Enumerations
The most common way to generate a vector is via an enumeration function:
- enumFromN
- enumFromStepN
And the list-like:
- enumFromTo
- enumFromThenTo
The enumFrom*N functions are guaranteed to optimize well for any type. The enumFromTo functions might fall back to generating from lists if there is no specialization for your type. They are currently specialized to most Int/Word/Double/Float generators.
> enumFromN 1 10 fromList [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10] > enumFromStepN 1 3 4 fromList [1,4,7,10] > Data.Vector.enumFromTo 1 10 fromList [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10] -- counting backwards > Data.Vector.enumFromThenTo 10 9 1 fromList [10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1]
2.3.1.1 A note on fusion
As for almost all vector functions, if an enumerator is composed with a traversal or fold, they will fuse into a single loop.
For example, we can fuse generation of an array of doubles, with computing the product of the square roots. The source program consists of two loops:
import qualified Data.Vector as V test :: V.Vector Int -> Double test = V.foldl (\ a b -> a * sqrt (fromIntegral b)) 0 create :: Int -> V.Vector Int create n = (V.enumFromTo 1 n) main = print (test (create 1000000))
And after optimization (revealed with the ghc-core tool), we have only one loop:
main_$s$wfoldlM_loop :: Int# -> Double# -> Double# main_$s$wfoldlM_loop = \ (sc_sWA :: Int#) (sc1_sWB :: Double#) -> case <=# sc_sWA 1000000 of _ { False -> sc1_sWB; True -> main_$s$wfoldlM_loop (+# sc_sWA 1) (*## sc1_sWB (sqrtDouble# (int2Double# sc_sWA))) }
Doubling the performance, by halving the number of traversals. Fusion also means we can avoid any intermediate data structure allocation.
2.3.2 An example: filling a vector from a file
We often want to populate a vector using a external data file. The easiest way to do this is with bytestring IO, and Data.Vector.unfoldr (or the equivalent functions in Data.Vector.Unboxed or Data.Vector.Storable:
2.3.2.1 Parsing Ints
The simplest way to parse a file of Int or Integer types is with a strict or lazy ByteString, and the readInt or readInteger functions:
{-# LANGUAGE BangPatterns #-} import qualified Data.ByteString.Lazy.Char8 as L import qualified Data.Vector as U import System.Environment main = do [f] <- getArgs s <- L.readFile f print . U.sum . parse $ s -- Fill a new vector from a file containing a list of numbers. parse = U.unfoldr step where step !s = case L.readInt s of Nothing -> Nothing Just (!k, !t) -> Just (k, L.tail t)
Note the use of bang patterns to ensure the parsing accumulated state is produced strictly.
Create a data file filled with 1 million integers:
$ seq 1 1000000 > data
Compile with -Odph (enables special optimizations to help fusion):
$ ghc -Odph --make vector.hs
Run:
$ time ./vector data 500000500000 ./vector data 0.08s user 0.01s system 98% cpu 0.088 total
2.3.2.2 Parsing Floating Point Values
To load a file of floating point values into a vector, you can use bytestrings and the bytestring-lexing package, which provides readDouble and readFloat functions.
{-# LANGUAGE BangPatterns #-} import qualified Data.ByteString.Lazy.Char8 as L import qualified Data.ByteString.Lex.Lazy.Double as L import qualified Data.Vector as U import System.Environment main = do [f] <- getArgs s <- L.readFile f print . U.sum . parse $ s -- Fill a new vector from a file containing a list of numbers. parse = U.unfoldr step where step !s = case L.readDouble s of Nothing -> Nothing Just (!k, !t) -> Just (k, L.tail t)
2.3.3 Parsing Binary Data
The best way to parse binary data is via bytestrings and the Data.Binary package.
There are instances of Binary and Serialize available in the [http://hackage.haskell.org/package/vector-binary-instances-0.1 vector-binary- instances] package.
An example: parsing a list of integers in text form, serializing them back in binary form, then loading that binary file:
{-# LANGUAGE BangPatterns #-} import Data.Vector.Binary import Data.Binary import qualified Data.ByteString.Lazy.Char8 as L import qualified Data.Vector.Unboxed as V main = do s <- L.readFile "dat" let v = parse s :: V.Vector Int encodeFile "dat2" v v' <- decodeFile "dat2" :: IO (V.Vector Int) print (v == v') -- Fill a new vector from a file containing a list of numbers. parse = V.unfoldr step where step !s = case L.readInt s of Nothing -> Nothing Just (!k, !t) -> Just (k, L.tail t)
2.3.4 Random numbers
If we can parse from a file, we can also fill a vector with random numbers. We'll use the mersenne-random package:
$ cabal install mersenne-random
We can then use MTRandom class to generate random vectors of different types:
import qualified Data.Vector.Unboxed as U import System.Random.Mersenne import Control.Monad main = do -- create a new source of randomness -- andan infinite list of randoms g <- newMTGen Nothing rs <- randoms g -- fill a vector with the first 10 random Ints let a = U.fromList (take 10 rs) :: U.Vector Int -- print the sum print (U.sum a) -- print each element forM_ (U.toList a) print
Running it:
$ runhaskell B.hs -56426044567146682 -2144043065897064806 -2361203915295681429 1023751035988638668 -5145147152582103336 6545758323081548799 -7630294342751488332 -5861937811333342436 -3198510304070719259 8949914511577398116 -8681457396993884283
2.4 Transformations on Vectors
A primary operation on arrays are the zip class of functions.
> let a = fromList [20,30,40,50] > let b = enumFromN 0 4 > a fromList [20,30,40,50] > b fromList [0,1,2,3] > Data.Vector.zipWith (-) a b fromList [20,29,38,47]
We can also, of course, apply a function to each element of a vector (map):
> Data.Vector.map (^2) b fromList [0,1,4,9] > Data.Vector.map (\e -> 10 * sin (fromIntegral e)) a fromList [9.129452507276277,-9.880316240928618,7.451131604793488,-2.6237485370392877] > Data.Vector.map (< 35) a fromList [True,True,False,False]
2.4.1 Folds: Sums, Products, Min, Max
Many special purpose folds (reductions) on vectors are available:
> let a = enumFromN 1 100 > Data.Vector.sum a 5050 > Data.Vector.product a 93326215443944152681699238856266700490715968264381621468592963895217599993229915608941463976156518286253697920827223758251185210916864000000000000000000000000 > Data.Vector.minimum a 1 > Data.Vector.maximum a 100
2.5 Indexing, Slicing and Iterating
One dimensional arrays can be indexed, sliced and iterated over pretty much like lists.
Because Haskell values are by default immutable, all slice operations are zero-copying.
> let a = enumFromN 0 10 > a fromList [0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9] > let b = Data.Vector.map (^3) a > b ! 2 8 > slice 2 3 b fromList [8,27,64]
slice takes 3 arguments: the initial index to slice from, the number of elements to slice, and the vector to operate on.
A number of special-purpose slices are also available:
> Data.Vector.init b fromList [0,1,8,27,64,125,216,343,512] > Data.Vector.tail b fromList [1,8,27,64,125,216,343,512,729] > Data.Vector.take 3 b fromList [0,1,8] :: Data.Vector.Vector > Data.Vector.drop 3 b fromList [27,64,125,216,343,512,729] :: Data.Vector.Vector
