distress

n 1: psychological suffering; "the death of his wife caused him

great distress" [syn: {hurt}, {suffering}]

2: a state of adversity (danger or affliction or need); "in

trouble with the police"; "he wanted to cure the ills of

all mankind"; "she was the classic maiden in distress"

[syn: {trouble}, {ill}]

3: a strong feeling of anxiety; "his distress as the prospect

of being fired"; "it is not work but worry that kills";

"he wanted to die and end his troubles" [syn: {worry}, {trouble}]

4: the seizure and holding of property as security for payment

of a debt or satisfaction of a claim [syn: {distraint}]

v : cause mental pain to

listless

In {functional programming}, a property of a

{function} which allows it to be combined with other functions

in a way that eliminates intermediate data structures,

especially lists.

{Phil Wadler}'s thesis gives the conditions for a function to

be in listless form: each input list is traversed only once,

one element at a time, from left to right. Each output list

is generated once, one element at a time, from left to right.

No other lists are generated or traversed.

Not all functions can be expressed in listless form

(e.g. reverse).

(1995-02-22)