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I'm learning F# and I'm trying the following exercise (exercise 4.10 of Functional Programming Using F#).

Declare an F# function prefix: 'a list -> 'a list -> bool when a:equality. The value of the expression prefix[x_0;x_1;...;x_m] [y_0;y_1;...;y_n] is true if m<=n and x_i=y_i for 0<=i<=m, and false otherwise.

I wanted to use pattern matching on the two inputs, but wasn't sure how to do this with a curried function (as opposed to a function taking a 2-tuple). So I wrote:

let rec prefix a b = (function
    | ([], _) -> true
    | (_, []) -> false
    | (x0::xst,y0::yst) -> x0 = y0 && prefix xst yst) (a,b);;

I wasn't very happy with this, because I thought it would be better (clearer and more efficient) if the inner function called itself, so I tried declaring the inner function locally.

let prefix a b =
    let rec prefixt = function
        | ([], _) -> true
        | (_, []) -> false
        | (x0::xst,y0::yst) -> x0 = y0 && prefixt (xst,yst)
    prefixt (a,b);;

Is this the right way to approach such a problem in F#?

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1 Answer

up vote 1 down vote accepted

You can use the match … with … syntax:

let rec prefix a b =
    match (a, b) with
    | ([], _) -> true
    | (_, []) -> false
    | (x0::xst,y0::yst) -> x0 = y0 && prefix xst yst
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