How about a Python solution to the Scheme problem? Of course, I made a more general solution allowing any number of "f"s :)
class f:
def __init__(self, s):
self.s = s
def __add__(self, other):
return Merge(self, other)
def __getitem__(self, i):
return self.s[i]
class Merge:
def __init__(self, left, right):
self.left = left
self.right = right
def __getitem__(self, i):
return self.left[i] + self.right[i]
def __len__(self):
return min(len(self.left), len(self.right))
def __str__(self):
s = ""
for i in range(len(self)):
s = s + self[i]
return s
__repr__ = __str__
def __add__(self, other):
return Merge(self, other)
>>> f("Js nte ceeWnae")+f("utAohrShm anbe")
Just Another Scheme Wannabee
>>> f("123") + f("ABC") + f("abc") + f("!@#")
1Aa!2Bb@3Cc#
>>>
This uses Python 1.5.2. With Python 2.0 I would probably do
class f(UserString.UserString):
def __add__(self, other):
return Merge(self, other)
An uglier version of __str__ using 2.0 tricks is
def __str__(self):
return "".join(x[0]+x[1] for x in \
zip(self.left, self.right))
I could probably cut the line count in half if I got rid of the generality, so no fair doing a direct line count comparison between this and the Scheme solutions!