Task

Provide code that produces a list of numbers which is the   nth  order forward difference, given a non-negative integer (specifying the order) and a list of numbers.



The first-order forward difference of a list of numbers   A   is a new list   B,   where   Bn = An+1 - An.

List   B   should have one fewer element as a result.

The second-order forward difference of   A   will be:

tdefmodule Diff do
	def forward(arr,i\\1) do
		forward(arr,[],i)
	end

	def forward([_|[]],diffs,i) do
		if i == 1 do
			IO.inspect diffs
		else 
			forward(diffs,[],i-1)
		end
	end

	def forward([val1|[val2|vals]],diffs,i) do
		forward([val2|vals],diffs++[val2-val1],i) 
	end
end 

The same as the first-order forward difference of   B.

That new list will have two fewer elements than   A   and one less than   B.

The goal of this task is to repeat this process up to the desired order.

For a more formal description, see the related   Mathworld article.



Algorithmic options

 Iterate through all previous forward differences and re-calculate a new array each time.
 Use this formula (from Wikipedia):


 




Δ

n


[
f
]
(
x
)
=

∑

k
=
0


n





(


n
k


)



(
−
1

)

n
−
k


f
(
x
+
k
)


{\displaystyle \Delta ^{n}[f](x)=\sum _{k=0}^{n}{n \choose k}(-1)^{n-k}f(x+k)}




 (Pascal's Triangle   may be useful for this option.)


 
#DEFINE CTAB CHR(9)
LOCAL lcList As String, i As Integer, n As Integer
n = 10
LOCAL ARRAY aa[n]
CLEAR
lcList = "90,47,58,29,22,32,55,5,55,73"
FOR i = 1 TO n
    aa[i] = VAL(GETWORDNUM(lcList, i, ","))
ENDFOR
ShowOutput("Original", @aa)
k = n - 1
FOR i = 1 TO n - 1
    ForwardDiff(@aa)
    ShowOutput("Difference " + TRANSFORM(i), @aa)
ENDFOR
 
PROCEDURE ForwardDiff(a)
LOCAL i As Integer, n As Integer
n = ALEN(a)
LOCAL ARRAY b[n-1]
FOR i = 1 TO n - 1
    b[i] = a[i+1] - a[i]
ENDFOR
DIMENSION a[n-1]
ACOPY(b, a)
ENDPROC 
 
PROCEDURE ShowOutput(lcLabel, zz)
LOCAL i As Integer, n As Integer, lcTxt As String
n = ALEN(zz)
lcTxt = lcLabel + ":" + CTAB
FOR i = 1 TO n
    lcTxt = lcTxt + TRANSFORM(zz[i]) + CTAB
ENDFOR
lcTxt = LEFT(lcTxt, LEN(lcTxt) - 1)
? lcTxt
ENDPROC	
 