toy list processing problem: collect similar terms

Xah Lee xahlee at gmail.com
Sun Sep 26 00:05:13 EDT 2010


here's a interesting toy list processing problem.

I have a list of lists, where each sublist is labelled by
a number. I need to collect together the contents of all sublists
sharing
the same label. So if I have the list

((0 a b) (1 c d) (2 e f) (3 g h) (1 i j) (2 k l) (4 m n) (2 o p) (4 q
r) (5 s t))

where the first element of each sublist is the label, I need to
produce:

output:
((a b) (c d i j) (e f k l o p) (g h) (m n q r) (s t))

a Mathematica solution is here:
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/notations_mma.html

R5RS Scheme lisp solution:
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/Sourav_Mukherjee_sourav.work_gmail.scm
by Sourav Mukherjee

also, a Common Lisp solution can be found here:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/browse_frm/thread/5d1ded8824bc750b?

anyone care to give a solution in Python, Perl, javascript, or other
lang? am guessing the scheme solution can be much improved... perhaps
using some lib but that seems to show scheme is pretty weak if the lib
is non-standard.

 Xah ∑ xahlee.org ☄



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