# [Haskell-cafe] Detecting Cycles in Datastructures

jerzy.karczmarczuk at info.unicaen.fr jerzy.karczmarczuk at info.unicaen.fr
Fri Nov 18 19:32:18 EST 2005

My simple-mindness and naïveté begin to bother me. I begin to get lost,
and I don't know anymore what is the problem...

Greg Woodhouse a &eacute;crit:

> --- Paul Hudak <paul.hudak at yale.edu> wrote:
...
>> The important property of Y is this:
>>
>> Y f = f (Y f)
>
> Right. This is just a formal statement of the property thaat f fixex Y
> f. I'm with you so far.

No, not exactly. This *may be* the *definition* of Y in a typed system
(Haskell). On the other hand you cannot  make Y as a self-applying lambda
construct for obvious reasons, and still you can sleep well...

...
>> Now note that if we define g as (\ones. cons 1 (cons 1 ones)), we
>> get:
>>
>> Y g ==> g (Y g) ==> cons 1 (cons 1 (Y g))
>
> Now, this is where things get a little mysterious. Where did g come
> from?
>
> I understand that the "x x" om formal definition of Y is what makes
> everything work (or, at least I think I do).

Not exactly. Let's do it in Haskell, without this (x x) stuff...
My `g`means something different, though.

fix f = f (fix f)   -- Here you have your Y. No typeless lambda.

g f n = n : f n    -- This is a generic *non-recursive* `repeat`
ones = fix g 1     -- Guess what.

Now (take 30 ones) works perfectly well. 'ones' is a piece of co-data, or a
co-recursive stream as many people, e.g., David Turner would say. It has
no finite form. Yet, we live happy with, provided we have a normal
reduction scheme (laziness).
Why do you want (in a further posting) to have a "real thing" which for you
means a finite list? Are you sure that everybody needs the LEAST fixed
point? The co-streams give you something different...

Frankly, I don't know what is the issue...

Jerzy Karczmarczuk