Haskell allows you to create infinite lists, that are mutually recursive. Let's take an advantage of this.
First let's create a helper function that divides a number by another as much as possible. We'll need it, once we find a factor, to completely eliminate it from a number.
import Data.Maybe (mapMaybe)
-- Divide the first argument as many times as possible by the second one.
divFully :: Integer -> Integer -> Integer
divFully n q | n `mod` q == 0 = divFully (n `div` q) q
| otherwise = n
Next, assuming we have somewhere the list of all primes, we can easily find factors of a numbers by dividing it by all primes less than the square root of the number, and if the number is divisible, noting the prime number.
-- | A lazy infinite list of non-trivial factors of all numbers.
factors :: [(Integer, [Integer])]
factors = (1, []) : (2, [2]) : map (\n -> (n, divisors primes n)) [3..]
where
divisors :: [Integer] -> Integer -> [Integer]
divisors _ 1 = [] -- no more divisors
divisors (p:ps) n
| p^2 > n = [n] -- no more divisors, `n` must be prime
| n' < n = p : divisors ps n' -- divides
| otherwise = divisors ps n' -- doesn't divide
where
n' = divFully n p
Conversely, when we have the list of all factors of numbers, it's easy to find primes: They are exactly those numbers, whose only prime factor is the number itself.
-- | A lazy infinite list of primes.
primes :: [Integer]
primes = mapMaybe isPrime factors
where
-- | A number is prime if it's only prime factor is the number itself.
isPrime (n, [p]) | n == p = Just p
isPrime _ = Nothing
The trick is that we start the list of factors manually, and that to determine the list of prime factors of a number we only need primes less then its square root. Let's see what happens when we consume the list of factors a bit and we're trying to compute the list of factors of 3. We're consuming the list of primes, taking 2 (which can be computed from what we've given manually). We see that it doesn't divide 3 and that since it's greater than the square root of 3, there are no more possible divisors of 3. Therefore the list of factors for 3 is [3]
. From this, we can compute that 3 is another prime. Etc.