Information Retrieval and Web Search

Vasile Rus, PhD vrus@memphis.edu www.cs.memphis.edu/~vrus/teaching/ir-websearch/ Information Retrieval and Web Search

Announcements Introduction to Perl Outline

Announcements • Assignment #2

1987 Larry Wall Develops PERL 1989 October 18 Perl 3.0 is released under the GNU Protection License 1991 March 21 Perl 4.0 is released under the GPL and the new Perl Artistic License Now Perl 6 About Perl PERL is not officially a Programming Language per se. Wall’s original intent was to develop a scripting language more powerful than Unix Shell Scripting, but not as tedious as C. PERL is an interpreted language. That means that there is no explicitly separate compilation step. Rather, the processor reads the whole file, converts it to an internal form and executes it immediately. P.E.R.L. = Practical Extraction and Report Language

Learning Perl by Randal L. Schwartz and Tom Phoenix, ISBN 0-596-00132-0 O’Reilly, Llama book Online: http://www.cclabs.missouri.edu/things/instruction/perl (OBSOLETE; check the class website for a local copy) Recommended Readings

Problem: Substitute Text In Multiple Files perl -e 's/andrew/andy/gi' -p -i.bak *.txt g: globally i: ignoring cases next slide presents a procedural equivalent to the same problem Taste of Perl

$original=‘andrew'; $replacement=“andy"; $nchanges = 0; undef $/; # no record separator, meaning the default ‘\n’ will not be used; an entire file is read at once below # as one record foreach $file (@ARGV) { if (! open(INPUT,"<$file") ) { print STDERR "Can't open input file $file\n"; next; } # Read input file as one long record. $data=<INPUT>; close INPUT; if ($data =~ s/$original/$replacement/gi) { $bakfile = "$file.bak"; # Abort if can't backup original or output. if (! rename($file,$bakfile)) { die "Can't rename $file $!"; } if (! open(OUTPUT,">$file") ) { die "Can't open output file $file\n"; } print OUTPUT $data; close OUTPUT; print STDERR "$file changed\n"; $nchanges++; } else { print STDERR "$file not changed\n"; } } print STDERR "$nchanges files changed.\n"; exit(0); Taste of Perl

A variable is a name of a place where some information is stored. For example: $yearOfBirth = 1976; $currentYear = 2000; $age = $currentYear-$yearOfBirth; print $age; The variables in the example program can be identified as such because their names start with a dollar ($). Perl uses different prefix characters for structure names in programs. Here is an overview: $: variable containing scalar values such as a number or a string @: variable containing a list with numeric keys %: variable containing a list with strings as keys &: subroutine *: matches all structures with the associated name Variables

Perl contains the following arithmetic operators: +: sum -: subtraction *: product /: division %: modulo division **: exponent Apart from these operators, Perl contains some built-in arithmetic functions. Some of these are mentioned in the following list: abs($x): absolute value int($x): integer part rand(): random number between 0 and 1 sqrt($x): square root Operations on numbers

# age calculator print "Please enter your birth year "; $yearOfBirth = <>; chomp($yearOfBirth); print "Your age is ",2007-$yearOfBirth,".\n"; # count the number of lines in a file open (INPUTFILE, “<$myfile”) || die “Could not open the file $myfile\n”; $count = 0; while($line = <INPUTFILE>) { $count++; } print “$count lines in file $myfile\n”; # open for writing open OUTPUTFILE, “>$myfile”; Input and output

# determine whether number is odd or even print "Enter number: "; $number = <>; chomp($number); if ($number-2*int($number/2) == 0) { print "$number is even\n"; } elsif (abs($number-2*int($number/2)) == 1) { print "$number is odd\n"; } else { print "Something strange has happened!\n"; } Conditional structures

An overview of the numeric test operators: ==: equal !=: not equal <: less than <=: less than or equal to >: greater than >=: greater than or equal to All these operators can be used for comparing two numeric values in an if condition. Truth expressions: three logical operators: and: and (alternative: &&) or: or (alternative: ||) not: not (alternative: !) Numeric test operators

#print numbers 1-10 in three different ways $i = 1; while ($i<=10) { print "$i\n"; $i++; } for ($i=1;$i<=10;$i++) { print "$i\n"; } foreach $i (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10) { print "$i\n"; } Stop a loop, or force continuation: last; # C break next; # C continue; Exercise: Read ten numbers and print the largest, the smallest and a count representing how many of them are divisible by three. if (not(defined($largest)) or $number > $largest) { $largest = $number; } if (not(defined($smallest)) or $number < $smallest) { $smallest = $number; } if ($number-3*int($number/3) == 0) { $count3++; } Iterative structures

There is more than one way to do it If you want to shoot yourself in the foot, who am I to stop you? And a comment: DO write comments in your Perl programs! A parenthesis: PERL philosophy(ies)

strings are stored in the same type of variables we use for storing numbers string values can be specified between double and single quotes !!! in the former specification variables will be evaluated, in the latter they will not. Comparison operators for strings eq: equal ne: not equal lt: less than le: less than or equal to gt: greater than ge: greater than or equal to Examples: if ($a eq $b) { …. } Basic string operations

The power of Perl! The s/// operator modifies sequences of characters The tr/// operator changes individual characters. The m///operator checks for matching (or in short //) the first part between the first two slashes contains a search pattern the second part between the final two slashes contains the replacement behind the final slash we can put characters to modify the behavior of the commands By default s/// only replaces the first occurrence of the search pattern append a g to the operator to replace every occurrence append an i to the operator, to have the search case insensitive The tr/// operator allows modification of characters c (replace the complement of the search class) d (delete characters of the search class that are not replaced) s (squeeze sequences of identical replaced characters to one character) String substitution and string matching

# replace first occurrence of "bug" $text =~ s/bug/feature/; # replace all occurrences of "bug" $text =~ s/bug/feature/g; # convert to lower case $text =~ tr/[A-Z]/[a-z]/; # delete vowels $text =~ tr/AEIOUaeiou//d; # replace nonnumber sequences with x $text =~ tr/[0-9]/x/cs; # replace all capital characters by CAPS $text =~ s/[A-Z]/CAPS/g; Examples

Simple example: Print all lines from a file that include a given sequence of characters [emulate grep behavior] Regular Expression: is a template for strings In Perl a regular expression is like a predicate: Returns true if a string matches the regular expression False, otherwise Grep with Perl $_ = “pattern matching”; if ( /pattern/ ){ # equivalent to ($_ =~ /pattern/) print “matching”; } else { print “not matching”; }

\b: word boundaries \d: digits \n: newline \r: carriage return \s: white space characters \t: tab \w: alphanumeric characters ^: beginning of string $: end of string .: any character [bdkp]: characters b, d, k and p [a-f]: characters a to f [^a-f]: all characters except a to f (abc|def): string abc or string def (used to indicate alternatives or as memory; it stores matched strings in \1, \2, … and $1, $2, …) Regular expressions Examples: 1. Clean an HTML formatted text 2. Grab URLs from a Web page 3. Transform all lines from a file into lower case

*: zero or more times +: one or more times ?: zero or one time {p,q}: at least p times and at most q times {p,}: at least p times {p}: exactly p times More on Regular Exp

Scalar: elementary data numbers or strings (in Perl) List = ordered collection of scalars Array = variable that contains a list Element of a list or array is an independent scalar Lists and Arrays

@a = (); # empty list @b = (1,2,3); # three numbers @c = ("Jan","Piet","Marie"); # three strings @d = ("Dirk",1.92,46,"20-03-1977"); # a mixed list Variables and sublists are interpolated in a list @b = ($a,$a+1,$a+2); # variable interpolation, assume $a = 1 @c = ("Jan",("Piet","Marie")); # list interpolation @d = ("Dirk",1.92,46,(),"20-03-1977"); # empty list interpolation @e = ( @b, @c ); # same as (1,2,3,"Jan","Piet","Marie") Practical construction operators ($x..$y) @x = (1..6) # same as (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) @y = (1.2..5.2) # same as (1.2, 2.2, 3.2, 4.2, 5.2) @z = (2..5,8,11..13) # same as (2,3,4,5,8,11,12,13) qw() ("quote word") function qw(Jan Piet Marie) is a shorter notation for ("Jan","Piet","Marie"). Lists and Arrays

$string = "Jan Piet\nMarie \tDirk"; @list = split /\s+/, $string; # yields ( "Jan","Piet","Marie","Dirk" ) $string = " Jan Piet\nMarie \tDirk\n"; # watch out, empty string at the begin and end!!! @list = split /\s+/, $string; # yields ( "", "Jan","Piet","Marie","Dirk", "" ) $string = "Jan:Piet;Marie---Dirk"; # use any regular expression... @list = split /[:;]|---/, $string; # yields ( "Jan","Piet","Marie","Dirk" ) $string = "Jan Piet"; # use an empty regular expression to split on letters @letters= split //, $string; # yields ( "J","a","n"," ","P","i","e","t") Split function

Example: 1. Separate simple punctuation from words in a text (, . ; ! ? ( ) ) 2. Add all the digits in a number Split Function - Example

@array = ("an","bert","cindy","dirk"); $length = @array; # $length now has the value 4 @array = ("an","bert","cindy","dirk"); $length = @array; print $length; # prints 4 print $#array; # prints 3 print $array[$#array] # prints "dirk" print scalar(@array) # prints 4 More about Arrays

($a, $b) = ("one","two"); ($onething, @manythings) = (1,2,3,4,5,6) # now $onething equals 1 # and # @manythings = (2,3,4,5,6) ($array[0],$array[1]) = ($array[1],$array[0]); # swap the first two Pay attention to the fact that assignment to a variable first evaluates the right hand-side of the expression, and then makes a copy of the result @array = ("an","bert","cindy","dirk"); @copyarray = @array; # makes a copy $copyarray[2] = "XXXXX"; More about Arrays

push ARRAY LIST appends the list to the end of the array. if the second argument is a scalar rather than a list, it appends it as the last item of the array. @array = ("an","bert","cindy","dirk"); @brray = ("evelien","frank"); push @array, @brray; # @array is ("an","bert","cindy","dirk","evelien","frank") push @brray, "gerben"; # @brray is ("evelien","frank","gerben") Manipulating Lists and Their Elements

pop ARRAY does the opposite of push. it removes the last item of its argument list and returns it. if the list is empty it returns undef. @array = ("an","bert","cindy","dirk"); $item = pop @array; # $item is "dirk" and @array is ( "an","bert","cindy") shift ARRAY works on the left end of the list, but is otherwise the same as pop. unshift ARRAY LIST puts stuff on the left side of the list, just as push does for the right side. Manipulating Lists and Their Elements

Convert lists to strings @array = ("an","bert","cindy","dirk"); print "The array contains $array[0] $array[1] $array[2] $array[3]"; # interpolate print "The array contains @array"; function join STRING LIST. $string = join ":", @array; # $string now has the value "an:bert:cindy:dirk" $string = join "+", "", @array; # $string now has the value "+an+bert+cindy+dirk" Working with lists

Iteration over lists for( $i=0 ; $i<=$#array; $i++){ $item = $array[$i]; $item =~ tr/a-z/A-Z/; print "$item "; } foreach $item (@array){ $item =~ tr/a-z/A-Z/; print "$item "; # prints a capitalized version of each item } Working with lists

grep CONDITION LIST returns a list of all items from list that satisfy some condition. For example: @large = grep $_ > 10, (1,2,4,8,16,25); # returns (16,25) @i_names = grep /i/, @array; # returns ("cindy","dirk") map OPERATION LIST is an extension of grep, and performs an arbitrary operation on each element of a list. For example: @more = map $_ + 3, (1,2,4,8,16,25); # returns (4,5,7,11,19,28) @initials = map substr($_,0,1), @array; # returns ("a","b","c","d") Grep and map

associate (non-numeric) keys with values allows for almost instantaneous lookup of a value that is associated with some particular key Existing, Defined and true. If the value for a key does not exist in the hash, the access to it returns the undef value. special test function exists(HASHENTRY) returns true if the hash key exists in the hash if($hash{$key}){...}, or if(defined($hash{$key})){...} return false if the key $key has no associated value Hashes (Associative Arrays)

Examples $wordfrequency{"the"} = 12731; # creates key "the", value 12731 $phonenumber{“John Smith"} = "+1-901-678-5259"; $index{$word} = $nwords; $occurrences{$a}++; # if this is the first reference, # the value associated with $a will # be increased from 0 to 1 %birthdays = ("An","25-02-1975","Bert","12-10-1953","Cindy","23-05-1969","Dirk","01-04-1961"); # fill the hash %birthdays = (An => "25-02-1975", Bert => "12-10-1953", Cindy => "23-05-1969", Dirk => "01-04-1961" ); # fill the hash; the same as above, but more explicit @list = %birthdays; # make a list of the key/value pairs %copy_of_bdays = %birthdays; # copy a hash Hashes (cont’d)

keys HASH returns a list with only the keys in the hash. As with any list, using it in a scalar context returns the number of keys in that list. values HASH returns a list with only the values in the hash, in the same order as the keys returned by keys. foreach $key (sort keys %hash ){ push @sortedlist, ($key , $hash{$key} ); print "Key $key has value $hash{$key}\n"; } Operations on Hashes

reverse the direction of the mapping, i.e. construct a hash with keys and values swapped: %backwards = reverse %forward; (if %forward has two identical values associated with different keys, those will end up as only a single element in %backwards) hash slice @birthdays{"An","Bert","Cindy","Dirk"} = ("25-02-1975","12-10-1953","23-05-1969","01-04-1961"); each( HASH ) – traverse a hash while (($name,$date) = each(%birthdays)) { print "$name's birthday is $date\n"; } # alternative: foreach $key (keys %birthdays)… Operations on Hashes

Perl does not really have multi-dimensional data structures, but a nice way of emulating them, using references $matrix[$i][$j] = $x; $lexicon1{"word"}[0] = $partofspeech; $lexicon2{"word"}{"noun"} = $frequency; Array of arrays @matrix = ( # an array of references to anonymous arrays [1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6], [7, 8, 9] ); Multidimensional Data Structures

Hash of arrays %lexicon1 = ( # a hash from strings to anonymous arrays the => [ "Det", 12731 ], man => [ "Noun", 658 ], with => [ "Prep", 3482 ] ); Hash of hashes %lexicon2 = ( # a hash from strings to anonymous hashes of # strings to numbers the => { Det => 12731 }, man => { Noun => 658 , Verb => 12 }, with => { Prep => 3482 } ); Multidimensional Structures

A program that reads lines of text, gives a unique index number to each word, and counts the word frequencies #!/usr/local/bin/perl # read all lines in the input $nwords = 0; while(defined($line = <>)){ # cut off leading and trailing whitespace $line =~ s/^\s*//; $line =~ s/\s*$//; # and put the words in an array @words = split /\s+/, $line; if(!@words){ # there are no words? next; } # process each word... while($word = pop @words){ # if it's unknown assign a new index if(!exists($index{$word})){ $index{$word} = $nwords++; } # always update the frequency $frequency{$word}++; } } # now we print the words sorted foreach $word ( sort keys %index ){ print "$word has frequency $frequency{$word} and index $index{$word}\n"; } Programming Example

If we would like to have the words sorted by their frequency instead of by alphabet, we need a construct that imposes a different sort order. sort function can use any sort order that is provided as an expression. the usual alphabetical sort order: sort { $a cmp $b } @list; !! $a and $b are placeholders for the two items from the list that are to be compared. Do not attempt to replace them with other variable names. Using $x and $y instead will not provide the same effect a numerical sort order: sort { $a <=> $b } @list; for a reverse sort, change the order of the arguments: sort { $b <=> $a } @list; to sort the keys of a hash by their value instead of by their own identity, substitute the values for the arguments of sort: sort { $hash{$b} <=> $hash{$a} } ( keys %hash ) A note on sorting

Calls to subroutines can be recognized because subroutine names often start with the special character &. sub askForInput { print "Please enter something: "; } # function call &askForInput(); Tip: put related subroutines in a file (usually with the extention .pm = perl module) and include the file with the command require: # files with subroutines are stored here use lib "C:\PERL\MYLIBS"; # we will use this file require “ir"; Basics about Subroutines

A variable $a is used both in the subroutine and in the main part of the program. $a = 0; print "$a\n"; sub changeA { $a = 1; } print "$a\n"; &changeA(); print "$a\n"; The value of $a is printed three times. Can you guess what values are printed? $a is a global variable. Variables Scope

Hide variables from the rest of the program using “my”. my $a = 0; print "$a\n"; sub changeA { my $a = 1; } print "$a\n"; &changeA(); print "$a\n"; What values are printed now? Variables Scope

Provide the arguments of the subroutine call: &doSomething(2,"a",$abc). Perl converts all arguments to a flat list. This means that &doSomething((2,"a"),$abc) will result in the same list of arguments as the earlier example. Access the argument values inside the procedure with the special list @_. E.g. my($number, $letter, $string) = @_; # reads the parameters from @_ A tricky problem is passing two or more lists as arguments of a subroutine. &sub(@a,@b)  the subroutine receives the two list as one big list and it will be unable to determine where the first ends and where the second starts. pass the lists as reference arguments: &sub(\@a,\@b). Communication between subroutines and programs

Subroutines also use a list as output. # the return statement from a subroutine return (1,2); # or simply (1,2) # read the return values from the subroutine ($a,$b) = &subr(). Read the main program arguments using $ARGC and @ARGV (same as in C) Communication between subroutines and programs

open(INFILE,"myfile"): reading open(OUTFILE,">myfile"): writing open(OUTFILE,">>myfile"): appending open(INFILE,"someprogram |"): reading from program open(OUTFILE,"| someprogram"): writing to program opendir(DIR,"mydirectory"): open directory Operations on an open file handle $a = <INFILE>: read a line from INFILE into $a @a = <INFILE>: read all lines from INFILE into @a $a = readdir(DIR): read a filename from DIR into $a @a = readdir(DIR): read all filenames from DIR into @a read(INFILE,$a,$length): read $length characters from INFILE into $a print OUTFILE "text": write some text in OUTFILE Close files/directories close(FILE): close a file closedir(DIR): close a directory More about File Management

binmode(HANDLE): change file mode from text to binary unlink("myfile"): delete file myfile rename("file1","file2"): change name of file file1 to file2 mkdir("mydir"): create directory mydir rmdir("mydir"): delete directory mydir chdir("mydir"): change the current directory to mydir system("command"): execute command command die("message"): exit program with message message warn("message"): warn user about problem message Example open(INFILE,"myfile") or die("cannot open myfile!"); Other File Management Commands

About $_: Holds the content of the current variable Examples: while(<INFILE>) # $_ contains the current line read foreach (@array) # $_ contains the current element in @array Other

Introduction to Perl Assignment #2 Summary

Information Retrieval and Web Search