Lisp - Flag(bandera) don't funtion - loops

Question

I'm trying to write a function to determine whether a word is palindrome or not. I make this but it always returns "Is not a palindrome". I don't know what is happening.
(defun palindromo (X)
(setq i 0)
(setq j (- (length X) 1))
(setq bandera 0)
(loop while (< j i)
do
(when (char= (char X i) (char X j))
(+ i 1)
(- j 1)
(setq bandera 1))
(unless (char/= (char X i) (char X j))
(setq bandera 0)
)
)
(cond
((equal 0 bandera) (write "Is not a palindrome"))
((equal 1 bandera) (write "Is a palindrome"))
)
)
How can I fix this?

Answer 1

 Loop problem
Your loop termination test is while (< j i), but you previously set i and j to respectively the index of the first and last character. That means that (<= i j). You never execute the body of the loop, and bandera is never modified from its initial value, 0.
Infinite loop problem
But suppose you fix your test so that it becomes (< i j), then your loop becomes an infinite loop, because you never mutates either i nor j in the body of your loop. The two expressions (+ i 1) and (- j 1) only computes the next indices, but do not change existing bindings. You would have to use setq, just as you did above.
Invalid use of SETQ
By the way, you cannot introduce variables with setq: it is undefined what happens when trying to set a variable that is not defined. You can introduce global variables with defvar, defparameter, and local variables with, among others, let, let* and the loop keyword with.
I assume your Common Lisp implementation implicitly defined global variables when you executed or compiled (setq i 0) and other assignments. But this is far from ideal since now your function depends on the global state and is not reentrant. If you called palindromo from different threads, all global variables would be modified concurrently, which would give incorrect results. Better use local variables.
Boolean logic
Do not use 0 and 1 for your flag, Lisp uses nil as false and everything else as true for its boolean operators.
Confusing tests
In the loop body, you first write:
(when (char= (char X i) (char X j)) ...)
Then you write:
(unless (char/= (char X i) (char X j)) ...)
Both test the same thing, and the second one involves a double-negation (unless not equal), which is hard to read.
Style
You generally do not want to print things from utility functions.
You should probably only return a boolean result.
The name of X is a little bit unclear, I'd would have used string.
Try to use the conventional way of formatting your Lisp code. It helps to use an editor which auto-indents your code (e.g. Emacs). Also, do not leave dangling parentheses on their own lines.
Rewrite
(defun palindromep (string)
(loop with max = (1- (length string))
for i from 0
for j downfrom max
while (< i j)
always (char= (char string i)
(char string j))))
I added a p to palindrome by convention, because it is a predicate.
The with max = ... in the loop defines a loop variable which holds the index of the last character (or -1 if string is empty).
i is a loop variable which increments, starting from 0
j is a loop variable which decrements, starting from max
the whileis a termination test
always evaluates a form at each execution of the loop, and check whether it is always true (non-nil).

Answer 2

Actually, no externally defined loop is needed for finding out, whether a string is palindromic or not. [ Remark: well, I thought that in the beginning. But as #coredump and #jkiiski pointed out, the reverse function slows down the procedure, since it copies the entire string once. ]
Use:
(defun palindromep (s)
(string= s (reverse s)))
[ This function will be way more efficient than your code
and it returns T if s is palindromic, else NIL.] (Not true, it only saves you writing effort, but it is less efficient than the procedure using loop.)
A verbose version would be:
(defun palindromep (s)
(let ((result (string= s (reverse s))))
(write (if result
"Is a palindrome"
"Is not a palindrome"))
result))
Writes the answer you wish but returns T or NIL.
The naming convention for a test function returning T or NIL is to end the name with p for 'predicate'.
The reverse function is less performant than the while loop suggested by #coredump
This was my beginner attempt to test the speed [not recommendable]:
;; Improved loop version by #coredump:
(defun palindromep-loop (string)
(loop with max = (1- (length string))
for i from 0
for j downfrom max
while (< i j)
always (char= (char string i)
(char string j))))
;; the solution with reverse
(defun palindromep (s)
(string= s (reverse s)))
;; the test functions test over and over the same string "abcdefggfedcba"
;; 10000 times over and over again
;; I did the repeats so that the measuring comes at least to the milliseconds
;; range ... (but it was too few repeats still. See below.)
(defun test-palindrome-loop ()
(loop repeat 10000
do (palindromep-loop "abcdefggfedcba")))
(time (test-palindrome-loop))
(defun test-palindrome-p ()
(loop repeat 10000
do (palindromep "abcdefggfedcba")))
(time (test-palindrome-p))
;; run on SBCL
[55]> (time (test-palindrome-loop))
Real time: 0.152438 sec.
Run time: 0.152 sec.
Space: 0 Bytes
NIL
[56]> (time (test-palindrome-p))
Real time: 0.019284 sec.
Run time: 0.02 sec.
Space: 240000 Bytes
NIL
;; note: this is the worst case that the string is a palindrome
;; for `palindrome-p` it would break much earlier when a string is
;; not a palindrome!
And this is #coredump's attempt to test the speed of the functions:
(lisp-implementation-type)
"SBCL"
(lisp-implementation-version)
"1.4.0.75.release.1710-6a36da1"
(machine-type)
"X86-64"
(defun palindromep-loop (string)
(loop with max = (1- (length string))
for i from 0
for j downfrom max
while (< i j)
always (char= (char string i)
(char string j))))
(defun palindromep (s)
(string= s (reverse s)))
(defun test-palindrome-loop (s)
(sb-ext:gc :full t)
(time
(loop repeat 10000000
do (palindromep-loop s))))
(defun test-palindrome-p (s)
(sb-ext:gc :full t)
(time
(loop repeat 10000000
do (palindromep s))))
(defun rand-char ()
(code-char
(+ #.(char-code #\a)
(random #.(- (char-code #\z) (char-code #\a))))))
(defun generate-palindrome (n &optional oddp)
(let ((left (coerce (loop repeat n collect (rand-char)) 'string)))
(concatenate 'string
left
(and oddp (list (rand-char)))
(reverse left))))
(let ((s (generate-palindrome 20)))
(test-palindrome-p s)
(test-palindrome-loop s))
Evaluation took:
4.093 seconds of real time
4.100000 seconds of total run time (4.068000 user, 0.032000 system)
[ Run times consist of 0.124 seconds GC time, and 3.976 seconds non-GC time. ]
100.17% CPU
9,800,692,770 processor cycles
1,919,983,328 bytes consed
Evaluation took:
2.353 seconds of real time
2.352000 seconds of total run time (2.352000 user, 0.000000 system)
99.96% CPU
5,633,385,408 processor cycles
0 bytes consed
What I have learned from that:
- Test more rigorously, repeat as often as necessary (range of seconds)
- do random generation and then test in parallel
Thank you very much for the nice example #coredump! And for the remark #jkiiski!