I am trying to create a function which interleaves a pair of triples such as ((6, 3, 2), ( 4, 5 ,1)) and create a 6-tuple out of this interleaving. I made some research but could understand how interleaving is supposed to work so I tried something on my own end ended up with a code that is creating a 6-tuple but not in the right interleaved way. This is my code
let interleave ((a, b, c), (a', b', c')) =
let sort2 (a, b) = if a > b then (a, b) else (b, a) in
let sort3 (a, b, c) =
let (a, b) = sort2 (a, b) in
let (b, c) = sort2 (b, c) in
let (a, b) = sort2 (a, b) in
(a, b, c) in
let touch ((x), (y)) =
let (x) = sort3 (x) in
let (y) = sort3 (y) in
((x),(y)) in
let ((a, b, c), (a', b', c')) =
touch ((a, b, c), (a', b', c')) in
(a, b', a', b, c, c');;
Can someone please explain to me how with what functions I can achieve a proper form of interleaving. I haven't learned about recursions and lists in case you would ask why I am trying to do it this way. Thank you already.
The problem statement uses the word "max" without defining it. If you use the built-in compare function of OCaml as your definition, it uses lexicographic order. So you want the largest value (of the 6 values) in the first position in the 6-tuple, the second largest value next, and so on.
This should be pretty easy given your previously established skill with the sorting of tuples.
For what it's worth, there doesn't seem to be much value in preserving the identities of the two 3-tuples. Once inside the outermost function you can just work with the 6 values as a 6-tuple. Or so it would seem to me.
Update
From your example (should probably have given it at the beginning :-) it's pretty clear what you're being asked to do. You want to end up with a sequence in which the elements of the original tuples are in their original order, but they can be interleaved arbitrarily. This is often called a "shuffle" (or a merge). You have to find the shuffle that has the maximum value lexicographically.
If you reason this out, it amounts to taking whichever value is largest from the front of the two tuples and putting it next in the output.
This is much easier to do with lists.