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RE: Re: "misbehaving" Union function

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg24128] RE: [mg24096] Re: [mg24075] "misbehaving" Union function
  • From: Felix Farkas <farkas at ica.epfl.ch>
  • Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 02:11:47 -0400 (EDT)
  • Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

Dear Wolf,

Thank you very much for your answer. 
These hints help me a lot. 
For a beginner is pretty difficult to take advantage of all the subtleties
of Mathematica if moreover he is not familiar with functional programming.

best regards,
	Felix  Farkas


> [Wolf Hartmut]  
> 
> Dear Felix,
> 
> Andrzej's explanation is correct, I just want to show how you would have
> avoided the problems in first place. Essentially this is because after
> 
>   bytes += rate*duration; bytes - rate*duration
> 
> you don't get the old value for bytes, since the numerics isn't accurate.
> You just have to avoid this operation of "looking back". For a short fix,
> you can accumulate bytes only where it is needed, so 
> 
> Genpoints2[events_] := 
>   Module[{ev = events, rate, duration, time, burst, bytes = 0, points = {}},
> 
>     rate := ee[[3]];
>     duration := ee[[2]];
>     time := ee[[1]];
>     burst := ee[[4]];
>     While[Length[ev] != 0, ee = First[ev];
>       ev = Rest[ev];
>       points = 
>         Union[points, 
>           If[rate == -1,(*then*) {{time, bytes}, {time, bytes += burst}},
>             (*else*)
>             Print[{{time, bytes}, {time + duration, bytes +
> rate*duration}}];
>             {{time, bytes}, {time + duration, bytes += rate*duration}}]]];
>     points]
> 
> will not disturb you. However this programm makes very inefficient use of
> Union, furthermore you make multiple access to the components of the event,
> so I might propose you an alternative
> 
> Genpoints3[events_] := 
>   Union @@ Block[{time, duration, rate, burst, scrap1, scrap2, bytes = 0}, 
>       Function[ee, {time, duration, rate, burst, scrap1, scrap2} = ee; 
>           If[rate == -1,(*then*) {{time, bytes}, {time, bytes += burst}},
>             (*else*)
>             Print[{{time, bytes}, {time + duration, bytes +
> rate*duration}}];
>             {{time, bytes}, {time + duration, bytes += rate*duration}}]] /@ 
>         events] 
> 
> Kind regards, Hartmut 
> 
> 



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