Towers of Hanoi

Next, allow me to present a Haskell version of Towers of Hanoi:

-- hanoi_v1.1.hs
-- Haskell function to compute the Towers of Hanoi problem recursively
-- 
-- Usage: putStr (hanoi_shower (hanoi 1 2 3 n)), or 
--        putStr (hanoi_shower (hanoi 'a' 'b' 'c' n)), 
--        where the first three arguments of hanoi may be polymorphic types
--        (i.e., Chars, Ints, or any other suitable type), and n is the number
--        of discs to move from the source peg to the destination peg
-- 
-- Copyright(c) April 16, 2008, at 14:17, 
-- by Benjamin L. Russell
-- 
-- Update History:
-- 
-- Version 1.0.1
-- Changed program name in comments:
-- "Hanoi.hs" -> "hanoi.hs"
-- 
-- Version 1.0.2
-- Corrected copyright date: April 17 -> April 16
-- 
-- Update History:
-- 
-- Version 1.1
-- Added usage information.
-- October 17, 2008, at 14:45

hanoi :: a -> a -> a -> Int -> [(a, a)]
hanoi source using dest n
    | n == 0 = []
    | n == 1 = [(source, dest)]
    | otherwise = hanoi source dest using (n-1)
                  ++ hanoi source using dest 1
                         ++ hanoi using source dest (n-1)

hanoi_shower :: Show a => [(a, a)] -> String
hanoi_shower [] = ""
hanoi_shower ((a, b):moves) = unlines ["Move " ++ show a ++ " to "++ show b ++ "."] ++ hanoi_shower moves

To run the Haskell source code above, simply type:

putStr (hanoi_shower (hanoi 'a' 'b' 'c' 3))

You shall be rewarded with:

Move 'a' to 'c'.
Move 'a' to 'b'.
Move 'c' to 'b'.
Move 'a' to 'c'.
Move 'b' to 'a'.
Move 'b' to 'c'.
Move 'a' to 'c'.

Beautiful, isn’t it?

So much for now.  Until next time….

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