A set in F# is just a container for items. Sets do not preserve the order in which items are inserted, nor do they allow duplicate entries to be inserted into the collection.
The Set module contains a useful function Set.empty which returns an empty set to start with and you can add an item to that empty set using the Add function.
let set1 = Set.empty.Add('a').Add('b').Add('c')
Console.WriteLine(set1)
Conveniently, all instances of sets have an Add function. The Add returns a new set containing a new item making it easy to add items together in this fashion.
You can convert lists and sequences into sets using use Set.ofList and Set.ofSeq to convert an entire collection into a set.
let months = Set.ofList ["January"; "February"; "March"; "April"; "May"; "June"; "July"; "August"; "September"; "October"; "November"; "December"]
let numbers = Set.ofSeq [ 1 .. 2.. 10 ]
The FSharp.Collections.Set module contains a variety of useful methods for working with sets.
| Function | Description |
|---|---|
| Add | Add the value to the set. |
| Contains | Returns True if the set contains a value, otherwise False. |
| Count | The number of elements in the set. |
| IsEmpty | Returns True if the set is empty, otherwise False. |
| IsProperSubsetOf | Evaluates to true if all elements of the first set are in the second, and at least one element of the second is not in the first. |
| IsProperSupersetOf | Evaluates to true if all elements of the second set are in the first, and at least one element of the first is not in the second. |
| IsSubsetOf | Evaluates to true if all elements of the first set are in the second. |
| IsSupersetOf | Evaluates to true if all elements of the second set are in the first. |
| MaximumElement | Returns the highest element in the set according to the ordering being used for the set. |
| MinimumElement | Returns the lowest element in the set according to the ordering being used for the set. |
| Remove | Remove the value from the set. |
The following example shows some of the methods.
let a = Set.ofSeq [ 1 .. 10 ]
let b = Set.ofSeq [ 5 .. 15 ]
let c = Set.intersect a b
let d = Set.union a b
let e = Set.difference a b