Re: List.flatten....

Sure can....
'a -> 'a list -> a' list is for List.cons

'a list -> 'a list -> a' list is for List.append

I think those 2 functions start to overlap however if you're working with a
list of lists.  Well "overlap" could be a poor choice of words, but what if
'a refers to a list and 'a list -> refers to a list of lists, so then you
would have something like:

[1; 2; 3; 4] :: [[5; 6; 7; 8]] ;;

The result is a list of lists or nested lists.

A professor of mine is studying Haskell.  I asked him if he liked it, to
which he replied.... "It's very LISTY".  And I think LISP is really an
acronym for LISt Processing.  It seems that this is a hallmark of most ( or
all? ) functional programming languages.  A big emphasis on lists and list
manipulations.  Of course how do you define a list?  In some languages the
words "array" and "list" are interchangeable.  ( I think Python for example
does have arrays, but in general in Python arrays and lists are
interchangeable. )  I read somewhere that Ocaml lists have more in common
with Java linked lists than Java arrays.

Okay.... I'm rambling!  I better shut up!  I hope everyone on the list has
a great weekend.

Best,

Douglas.


On Sat, Apr 2, 2016 at 5:33 AM, 'Mr. Herr' [email protected]
[ocaml_beginners] <[email protected]> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> On 02.04.2016 07:32, Douglas Lewit [email protected] [ocaml_beginners]
> wrote:
>
>
>
> I think I read somewhere that the cons operator :: is more efficient than
> the append operator @, so whenever possible it's better to use cons rather
> than append.
>
> # List.cons ;;  (* this is :: *)
>
> - : 'a -> 'a list -> 'a list = <fun>
>
> # List.append ;;  (* this is @ *)
>
> - : 'a list -> 'a list -> 'a list = <fun>
>
> #
>
>
> there is a tiny little difference, can you find it?
>
> /Str.
>
> 
>