Question

I’m new to F# and looking for a function which take N*indexes and a sequence and gives me N elements. If I have N indexes it should be equal to concat Seq.nth index0, Seq.nth index1 .. Seq.nth indexN but it should only scan over indexN elements (O(N)) in the sequence and not index0+index1+…+indexN (O(N^2)).

To sum up, I’m looking for something like:

//For performance, the index-list should be ordered on input, be padding between elements instead of indexes or be ordered when entering the function
seq {10 .. 20} |> Seq.takeIndexes [0;5;10] 
Result: 10,15,20

I could make this by using seq { yield… } and have a index-counter to tick when some element should be passed out but if F# offers a nice standard way I would rather use that.

Thanks :)…

Addition: I have made the following. It works but ain’t pretty. Suggestions is welcomed

let seqTakeIndexes (indexes : int list) (xs : seq<int>) =
    seq {
        //Assume indexes is sorted
        let e = xs.GetEnumerator()
        let i = ref indexes 
        let curr = ref 0

        while e.MoveNext() && not (!i).IsEmpty do
            if !curr = List.head !i then
                i := (!i).Tail
                yield e.Current

            curr := !curr + 1
    }

Answer 1

When you want to access elements by index, then using sequences isn’t as good idea. Sequences are designed to allow sequential iteration. I would convert the necessary part of the sequence to an array and then pick the elements by index:

let takeIndexes ns input = 
  // Take only elements that we need to access (sequence could be infinite)
  let arr = input |> Seq.take (1 + Seq.max ns) |> Array.ofSeq
  // Simply pick elements at the specified indices from the array
  seq { for index in ns -> arr.[index] }

seq [10 .. 20] |> takeIndexes [0;5;10]  

Regarding your implementation – I don’t think it can be made significantly more elegant. This is a general problem when implementing functions that need to take values from multiple sources in an interleaved fashion – there is just no elegant way of writing those!

However, you can write this in a functional way using recursion like this:

let takeIndexes indices (xs:seq<int>) = 
  // Iterates over the list of indices recursively
  let rec loop (xe:IEnumerator<_>) idx indices = seq {
    let next = loop xe (idx + 1)
    // If the sequence ends, then end as well
    if xe.MoveNext() then
      match indices with
      | i::indices when idx = i -> 
        // We're passing the specified index 
        yield xe.Current
        yield! next indices
      | _ -> 
        // Keep waiting for the first index from the list
        yield! next indices }
  seq {
    // Note: 'use' guarantees proper disposal of the source sequence
    use xe = xs.GetEnumerator()
    yield! loop xe 0 indices }

seq [10 .. 20] |> takeIndexes [0;5;10]