path: root/system/doc/efficiency_guide/listhandling.xml

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<!DOCTYPE chapter SYSTEM "chapter.dtd">

<chapter>
  <header>
    <copyright>
      <year>2001</year><year>2009</year>
      <holder>Ericsson AB. All Rights Reserved.</holder>
    </copyright>
    <legalnotice>
      The contents of this file are subject to the Erlang Public License,
      Version 1.1, (the "License"); you may not use this file except in
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      basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See
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    </legalnotice>

    <title>List handling</title>
    <prepared>Bjorn Gustavsson</prepared>
    <docno></docno>
    <date>2007-11-16</date>
    <rev></rev>
    <file>listHandling.xml</file>
  </header>

  <section>
    <title>Creating a list</title>
    
    <p>Lists can only be built starting from the end and attaching
    list elements at the beginning. If you use the <c>++</c> operator
    like this</p>

    <code type="erl">
List1 ++ List2</code>

    <p>you will create a new list which is copy of the elements in <c>List1</c>,
    followed by <c>List2</c>. Looking at how <c>lists:append/1</c> or <c>++</c> would be
    implemented in plain Erlang, it can be seen clearly that the first list
    is copied:</p>

    <code type="erl">
append([H|T], Tail) ->
    [H|append(T, Tail)];
append([], Tail) ->
    Tail.</code>

    <p>So the important thing when recursing and building a list is to
    make sure that you attach the new elements to the beginning of the list,
    so that you build <em>a</em> list, and not hundreds or thousands of
    copies of the growing result list.</p>

    <p>Let us first look at how it should not be done:</p>

    <p><em>DO NOT</em></p>
    <code type="erl"><![CDATA[
bad_fib(N) ->
    bad_fib(N, 0, 1, []).

bad_fib(0, _Current, _Next, Fibs) ->
    Fibs;
bad_fib(N, Current, Next, Fibs) -> 
    bad_fib(N - 1, Next, Current + Next, Fibs ++ [Current]).]]></code>

    <p>Here we are not a building a list; in each iteration step we
    create a new list that is one element longer than the new previous list.</p>

    <p>To avoid copying the result in each iteration, we must build the list in
    reverse order and reverse the list when we are done:</p>

    <p><em>DO</em></p>
    <code type="erl"><![CDATA[
tail_recursive_fib(N) ->
    tail_recursive_fib(N, 0, 1, []).

tail_recursive_fib(0, _Current, _Next, Fibs) ->
    lists:reverse(Fibs);
tail_recursive_fib(N, Current, Next, Fibs) -> 
    tail_recursive_fib(N - 1, Next, Current + Next, [Current|Fibs]).]]></code>

  </section>

  <section>
    <title>List comprehensions</title>

    <p>Lists comprehensions still have a reputation for being slow.
    They used to be implemented using funs, which used to be slow.</p>

    <p>In recent Erlang/OTP releases (including R12B), a list comprehension</p>

    <code type="erl"><![CDATA[
[Expr(E) || E <- List]]]></code>

    <p>is basically translated to a local function</p>

    <code type="erl">
'lc^0'([E|Tail], Expr) ->
    [Expr(E)|'lc^0'(Tail, Expr)];
'lc^0'([], _Expr) -> [].</code>

    <p>In R12B, if the result of the list comprehension will <em>obviously</em> not be used,
    a list will not be constructed. For instance, in this code</p>
    
    <code type="erl"><![CDATA[
[io:put_chars(E) || E <- List],
ok.]]></code>
 
    <p>or in this code</p>
   
    <code type="erl"><![CDATA[
.
.
.
case Var of
    ... ->
        [io:put_chars(E) || E <- List];
    ... ->
end,
some_function(...),
.
.
.]]></code>
    
    <p>the value is neither assigned to a variable, nor passed to another function,
    nor returned, so there is no need to construct a list and the compiler will simplify
    the code for the list comprehension to</p>

    <code type="erl">
'lc^0'([E|Tail], Expr) ->
    Expr(E),
    'lc^0'(Tail, Expr);
'lc^0'([], _Expr) -> [].</code>

  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Deep and flat lists</title>

    <p><seealso marker="stdlib:lists#flatten/1">lists:flatten/1</seealso>
    builds an entirely new list. Therefore, it is expensive, and even
    <em>more</em> expensive than the <c>++</c> (which copies its left argument,
    but not its right argument).</p>

    <p>In the following situations, you can easily avoid calling <c>lists:flatten/1</c>:</p>

    <list type="bulleted">
      <item>When sending data to a port. Ports understand deep lists
       so there is no reason to flatten the list before sending it to
       the port.</item>
      <item>When calling BIFs that accept deep lists, such as
      <seealso marker="erts:erlang#list_to_binary/1">list_to_binary/1</seealso> or
      <seealso marker="erts:erlang#iolist_to_binary/1">iolist_to_binary/1</seealso>.</item>
      <item>When you know that your list is only one level deep, you can can use
      <seealso marker="stdlib:lists#append/1">lists:append/1</seealso>.</item>
    </list>

    <p><em>Port example</em></p>
    <p><em>DO</em></p>
    <pre>
      ...
      port_command(Port, DeepList)
      ...</pre>
    <p><em>DO NOT</em></p>
    <pre>
      ...
      port_command(Port, lists:flatten(DeepList))
      ...</pre>

    <p>A common way to send a zero-terminated string to a port is the following:</p>

    <p><em>DO NOT</em></p>
    <pre>
      ...
      TerminatedStr = String ++ [0], % String="foo" => [$f, $o, $o, 0]
      port_command(Port, TerminatedStr)
      ...</pre>

    <p>Instead do like this:</p>

    <p><em>DO</em></p>
    <pre>
      ...
      TerminatedStr = [String, 0], % String="foo" => [[$f, $o, $o], 0]
      port_command(Port, TerminatedStr) 
      ...</pre>

    <p><em>Append example</em></p>
    <p><em>DO</em></p>
    <pre>
      > lists:append([[1], [2], [3]]).
      [1,2,3]
      ></pre>
    <p><em>DO NOT</em></p>
    <pre>
      > lists:flatten([[1], [2], [3]]).
      [1,2,3]
      ></pre>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Why you should not worry about recursive lists functions</title>

    <p>In the performance myth chapter, the following myth was exposed:
    <seealso marker="myths#tail_recursive">Tail-recursive functions
    are MUCH faster than recursive functions</seealso>.</p>

    <p>To summarize, in R12B there is usually not much difference between
    a body-recursive list function and tail-recursive function that reverses
    the list at the end. Therefore, concentrate on writing beautiful code
    and forget about the performance of your list functions. In the time-critical
    parts of your code (and only there), <em>measure</em> before rewriting
    your code.</p>

    <p><em>Important note</em>: This section talks about lists functions that
    <em>construct</em> lists. A tail-recursive function that does not construct
    a list runs in constant space, while the corresponding body-recursive
    function uses stack space proportional to the length of the list.
    For instance, a function that sums a list of integers, should <em>not</em> be
    written like this</p>
    
    <p><em>DO NOT</em></p>
    <code type="erl">
recursive_sum([H|T]) -> H+recursive_sum(T);
recursive_sum([])    -> 0.</code>

    <p>but like this</p>

    <p><em>DO</em></p>
    <code type="erl">
sum(L) -> sum(L, 0).

sum([H|T], Sum) -> sum(T, Sum + H);
sum([], Sum)    -> Sum.</code>
  </section>
</chapter>