how to increment a variable in functional programming

Question

How do you increment a variable in a functional programming language?

For example, I want to do:

main :: IO ()
main = do
    let i = 0
    i = i + 1
         


        

Answer 1

As a general rule, you don't (and you don't need to). However, in the interests of completeness.

import Data.IORef
main = do
    i <- newIORef 0       -- new IORef i
    modifyIORef i (+1)    -- increase it by 1
    readIORef i >>= print -- print it

However, any answer that says you need to use something like MVar, IORef, STRef etc. is wrong. There is a purely functional way to do this, which in this small rapidly written example doesn't really look very nice.

import Control.Monad.State
type Lens a b = ((a -> b -> a), (a -> b))
setL = fst
getL = snd
modifyL :: Lens a b -> a -> (b -> b) -> a
modifyL lens x f = setL lens x (f (getL lens x))
lensComp :: Lens b c -> Lens a b -> Lens a c
lensComp (set1, get1) (set2, get2) =         -- Compose two lenses
    (\s x -> set2 s (set1 (get2 s) x)        -- Not needed here
     , get1 . get2)                          -- But added for completeness

(+=) :: (Num b) => Lens a b -> Lens a b -> State a ()
x += y = do
    s <- get
    put (modifyL x s (+ (getL y s)))

swap :: Lens a b -> Lens a b -> State a ()
swap x y = do
    s <- get
    let x' = getL x s
    let y' = getL y s
    put (setL y (setL x s y') x')

nFibs :: Int -> Int
nFibs n = evalState (nFibs_ n) (0,1)

nFibs_ :: Int -> State (Int,Int) Int
nFibs_ 0 = fmap snd get -- The second Int is our result
nFibs_ n = do
    x += y       -- Add y to x
    swap x y     -- Swap them
    nFibs_ (n-1) -- Repeat
  where x = ((\(x,y) x' -> (x', y)), fst)
        y = ((\(x,y) y' -> (x, y')), snd)