Merge two lists

Question

I am looking to merge 2 lists in F# in a purely functional way. I am having a hard time understanding the syntax.

Let say I have a tuple ([5;3;8],[2;9;4])

Answer 1

Since F# 4.5 (I think), assuming you want to continue yielding elements from the longer sequence when the shorter is exhausted, you can just do:

let interleave = Seq.transpose >> Seq.concat >> Seq.toList

> interleave [ [5;3;8]; [2;9;4] ];;
val it : int list = [5; 2; 3; 9; 8; 4]

> interleave [ [1;2;3]; [4;5]; [6;7;8;9] ];; // also works for any number of lists
val it : int list = [1; 4; 6; 2; 5; 7; 3; 8; 9]

(Note List.transpose throws if the sequences are of differing length but Seq.transpose does not, so you need to use the latter.)