PureScript - Using Fat Arrow instead of Thin Arrow - purescript

Consider the following PureScript code, a slightly modified version of an example from the handbook:
module ArrayRecursion where
import Prelude (discard, Unit)
import Data.Array (null, tail)
import Data.Maybe (fromMaybe)
length :: forall a. Array a => Int
length arr =
if null arr then
0
else
1 + ( length $ fromMaybe [] $ tail arr)
Compiling this code produces the following error
Unknown type class Array
So the code won't compile.
The questions:
From where is the type class Array imported? It does not seem to be imported from Prelude or Data.Array.
How does one go about finding where to import PureScript type classes? In this case, searching Pursuit for "Array" yields hundreds of results, creating a needle-in-haystack problem.

Array is not a type class, but a type.
You accidentally put a fat arrow after Array a instead of a thin arrow, making it look like you were declaring a value of type Int with a constraint Array a rather than a function that takes an Array a as a parameter and returns an Int. This is how it should look:
length :: forall a. Array a -> Int
Normally you don't import the Array type. It's in the module called Prim, which is always implicitly imported.
As for finding out - yes, search on Pursuit. If you carefully look at the search results, you will notice that only one of them (the first one) is actually a type. All the other ones are either functions or ADT cases.
Another way to search for things (especially things in the standard libraries) is your IDE integration. These days I almost never actually have to manually add an import at the top of my files. I just start typing the name of whatever it is I need, and the IDE support offers me some options, waits for me to choose, and automatically adds an import. 10/10 recommend.

Related

numba error with tuple sorting containing numpy arrays

I have a (working) function that uses the heapq module to build a priority queue of tuples and I would like to compile it with numba, however I get a very long and unclear error. It seems to boil down to a problem with tuple order comparison needed for the queue. The tuples have a fixed format, where the first item is a a floating point number (whose order I care about) and then a numpy array, which I need for computation but never get compared when running normally. This is intended because comparison on numpy arrays yields an array which cannot be used in conditionals and raises an exception. However, I guess numba needs a scalar yielding comparison to be at least defined for all items in the tuple, and hence the numba error.
I have a very minimal example:
#numba.njit
def f():
return 1 if (1, numpy.arange(3)) < (2, numpy.arange(3)) else 2
f()
where the numba compilation fails (without numba it works since it never needs to actually compare the arrays, as in the original code).
Here is a slightly less minimal but maybe clearer example, which shows what I am actually doing:
from heapq import heappush
import numpy
import numba
#numba.njit
def f(n):
heap = [(1, 0, numpy.random.rand(2, 3))]
for unique_id in range(n):
order = numpy.random.rand()
data = numpy.random.rand(2, 3)
heappush(heap, (order, unique_id, data))
return heap[0]
f(100)
Here order is the variable whose order I care about in the queue, unique_id is a trick to avoid that when order is the same the comparison goes on to data and throws an exception.
I tried to bypass the problem converting the numpy array to a list when in the tuple and back to array for computation, but while this compiles, the numba version is slower than the interpreted one, even thought the array is quite small (usually 2x3). Without converting I would need to rewrite the code as loops which I would prefer to avoid (but is doable).
Is there a better alternative to get this working with numba, hopefully running faster than the python interpreter?
I'll try to respond based on the minimal example you provided.
I think that the problem here is not related to the ability of numba to perform comparison between all the elements of the tuple, but rather on where to store the result of such a comparison. This is stated in the error log returned when trying to execute your example:
cannot store {i8*, i8*, i64, i64, i8*, [1 x i64], [1 x i64]} to i1*: mismatching types
Basically, you are trying to store the result of a comparison between a pair of floats and a pair of arrays into a single boolean, and numba doesn't know how to do that.
If you are only interested in comparing the first elements of the tuples, the quickest workaround I can think of is forcing the comparison to happen only on the first elements, e.g.
#numba.njit
def f():
return 1 if (1, numpy.arange(3))[0] < (2, numpy.arange(3))[0] else 2
f()
If this is not applicable to your use case, please provide more details about it.
EDIT
According to the further information you provided, I think the best way to solve this is avoiding pushing the numpy arrays to the heap. Since you're only interested in the ordering properties of the heap, you can just push the keys to the heap and store the corresponding numpy arrays in a separate dictionary, using as keys the same values you push in the heap.
As a sidenote, when you use standard library functions in nopython-jitted functions, you are resorting on specific numba's re-implementation of those functions rather then the "original" python's ones. A comprehensive list of the available python's features in numba can be found here.
Ok, I found a solution to the problem: since storing the array in the heap tuple is the cause of the numba error, it is enough to store it in a separate dictionary with an unique key and store only the key in the heap tuple. For instance, using an integer as the key:
from heapq import heappush
import numpy
import numba
#numba.njit
def f(n):
key = 0
array_storage = {key: numpy.random.rand(2, 3)}
heap = [(1.0, key)]
for _ in range(n):
order = numpy.random.rand()
data = numpy.random.rand(2, 3)
key += 1
heappush(heap, (order, key))
array_storage[key] = data
return heap[0]
f(100)
Now the tuples in the heap can be compared yielding a boolean value and I still get to associate the data with its tuple. I am not completely satisfied since it seems a workaround, but it works pretty well and it is not overly complicated. If anyone has a better one please let me know!

getElementById in Purescript

I am very new to Purescript so this might be a naive question.
I want to write a Purescript function that reads input from HTML input elements on the browser and writes some output to another HTML input element.
With plain Javascript it's as simple as document.getElementById('output').value = myFun(document.getElementById('input'));. How do I do this with just Purescript?
EDIT:
I've noticed that my answer doesn't meet the requirements - I'm only setting up an element value. If I find more time I probably add also reading from element value piece but you should be able to guess how to do this from the hints provided already :-)
In general when using PureScript you want to use some high level framework to manipulate the DOM like: halogen, react-basic, concur, spork, elmish, flare, hedwig, flame (for sure I've missed some others - sorry about that).
But if you really want to mutate the DOM by hand please don't be surprised that it is not as pleasant experience as in imperative JavaScript. It is on purpose - PureScript has the power to separate effects from pure functions and we have to work with Effect in every step here. On the other hand this gives us an unique ability to reason about the code and be sure where side effects can happen and which parts of our program are pure.
So let's use low level purescript-web-html. This library is low level but provides strict types around DOM API so like I said it requires quite a lot of manual value passing:
module Main where
import Prelude
import Data.Maybe (Maybe(..))
import Effect (Effect)
import Web.DOM.Document (toNonElementParentNode)
import Web.DOM.Element (setAttribute)
import Web.DOM.NonElementParentNode (getElementById)
import Web.HTML (window)
import Web.HTML.HTMLDocument (toDocument)
import Web.HTML.Window (document)
main :: Effect Unit
main = do
w ← window
d ← document w
maybeElement ← getElementById "test-input" $ toNonElementParentNode $ toDocument d
case maybeElement of
Nothing → pure unit
Just elem → do
setAttribute "value" "new-value" elem
This can be written a bit shorter using point free style so avoiding intermediate variables:
main :: Effect Unit
main = window >>= document >>= toDocument >>> toNonElementParentNode >>> getElementById "test-input" >>= case _ of
Nothing → pure unit
Just elem → setAttribute "value" "new-value" elem
Direct DOM manipulation is probably not the best way to start building a larger project or beginning the adventure with this really wonderful language. On the other hand it can be useful from time to time ;-)
I used Foreign Function Interface (FFI) feature of Purescript as follows.
Define your Purescript module with imports of foreign functions you want to use. Here we have imported two functions.
-- Main.purs
foreign import getElementById :: String -> Effect String
foreign import setElementById :: String -> String -> Effect Unit
Now create a Javascript file with the same name but .js extension. We will export JS functions from here for use in Purescript.
// Main.js
"use strict";
exports.getElementById = function(id) {
return document.getElementById(id).value;
};
exports.setElementById = function(id) {
return function(value) {
document.getElementById(id).value = value;
};
};
Now we can call getElementById and setElementById functions in our Purescript files.

How do purely functional compilers annotate the AST with type info?

In the syntax analysis phase, an imperative compiler can build an AST out of nodes that already contain a type field that is set to null during construction, and then later, in the semantic analysis phase, fill in the types by assigning the declared/inferred types into the type fields.
How do purely functional languages handle this, where you do not have the luxury of assignment? Is the type-less AST mapped to a different kind of type-enriched AST? Does that mean I need to define two types per AST node, one for the syntax phase, and one for the semantic phase?
Are there purely functional programming tricks that help the compiler writer with this problem?
I usually rewrite a source (or an already several steps lowered) AST into a new form, replacing each expression node with a pair (tag, expression).
Tags are unique numbers or symbols which are then used by the next pass which derives type equations from the AST. E.g., a + b will yield something like { numeric(Tag_a). numeric(Tag_b). equals(Tag_a, Tag_b). equals(Tag_e, Tag_a).}.
Then types equations are solved (e.g., by simply running them as a Prolog program), and, if successful, all the tags (which are variables in this program) are now bound to concrete types, and if not, they're left as type parameters.
In a next step, our previous AST is rewritten again, this time replacing tags with all the inferred type information.
The whole process is a sequence of pure rewrites, no need to replace anything in your AST destructively. A typical compilation pipeline may take a couple of dozens of rewrites, some of them changing the AST datatype.
There are several options to model this. You may use the same kind of nullable data fields as in your imperative case:
data Exp = Var Name (Maybe Type) | ...
parse :: String -> Maybe Exp -- types are Nothings here
typeCheck :: Exp -> Maybe Exp -- turns Nothings into Justs
or even, using a more precise type
data Exp ty = Var Name ty | ...
parse :: String -> Maybe (Exp ())
typeCheck :: Exp () -> Maybe (Exp Type)
I cant speak for how it is supposed to be done, but I did do this in F# for a C# compiler here
The approach was basically - build an AST from the source, leaving things like type information unconstrained - So AST.fs basically is the AST which strings for the type names, function names, etc.
As the AST starts to be compiled to (in this case) .NET IL, we end up with more type information (we create the types in the source - lets call these type-stubs). This then gives us the information needed to created method-stubs (the code may have signatures that include type-stubs as well as built in types). From here we now have enough type information to resolve any of the type names, or method signatures in the code.
I store that in the file TypedAST.fs. I do this in a single pass, however the approach may be naive.
Now we have a fully typed AST you could then do things like compile it, fully analyze it, or whatever you like with it.
So in answer to the question "Does that mean I need to define two types per AST node, one for the syntax phase, and one for the semantic phase?", I cant say definitively that this is the case, but it is certainly what I did, and it appears to be what MS have done with Roslyn (although they have essentially decorated the original tree with type info IIRC)
"Are there purely functional programming tricks that help the compiler writer with this problem?"
Given the ASTs are essentially mirrored in my case, it would be possible to make it generic and transform the tree, but the code may end up (more) horrendous.
i.e.
type 'type AST;
| MethodInvoke of 'type * Name * 'type list
| ....
Like in the case when dealing with relational databases, in functional programming it is often a good idea not to put everything in a single data structure.
In particular, there may not be a data structure that is "the AST".
Most probably, there will be data structures that represent parsed expressions. One possible way to deal with type information is to assign a unique identifier (like an integer) to each node of the tree already during parsing and have some suitable data structure (like a hash map) that associates those node-ids with types. The job of the type inference pass, then, would be just to create this map.

A way to prepend letters to each imported class

Is there a way to import all classes from a package and rename them all by prepending some text? A construct
import packages.{_ => Abc_}
compiles but seems not to be doing that thing.
It's not exactly what you're after, but if you can put up with an extra . character, you could write
import com.{packages=>Abc}
val x:Abc.Whatever = new Abc.Whatever(...)
No, no way to do such a thing.
"Programming in Scala, 2nd Edition" 13.3, which is 2.9 based, defines the rules. I don't recall anything in the changes for 2.10 that alters the import mechanism.
Given import package.{selector}, selector may be one of:
x, a simple name
x => y, renaming x to y
x -> _, hiding x - excludes from names imported
_, the catch-all - import all names.
That's it. Your variant looks interesting, but isn't in that list. It is interesting that {_ => ...} compiles for various values of ..., but it's not clear that the effect is any different than _ for the few trials I ran.

How can I reuse definition (AST) subtrees in a macro?

I am working in a Scala embedded DSL and macros are becoming a main tool for achieving my purposes. I am getting an error while trying to reuse a subtree from the incoming macro expression into the resulting one. The situation is quite complex, but (I hope) I have simplified it for its understanding.
Suppose we have this code:
val y = transform {
val x = 3
x
}
println(y) // prints 3
where 'transform' is the involved macro. Although it could seem it does absolutely nothing, it is really transforming the shown block into this expression:
3 match { case x => x }
It is done with this macro implementation:
def transform(c: Context)(block: c.Expr[Int]): c.Expr[Int] = {
import c.universe._
import definitions._
block.tree match {
/* {
* val xNam = xVal
* xExp
* }
*/
case Block(List(ValDef(_, xNam, _, xVal)), xExp) =>
println("# " + showRaw(xExp)) // prints Ident(newTermName("x"))
c.Expr(
Match(
xVal,
List(CaseDef(
Bind(xNam, Ident(newTermName("_"))),
EmptyTree,
/* xExp */ Ident(newTermName("x")) ))))
case _ =>
c.error(c.enclosingPosition, "Can't transform block to function")
block // keep original expression
}
}
Notice that xNam corresponds with the variable name, xVal corresponds with its associated value and finally xExp corresponds with the expression containing the variable. Well, if I print the xExp raw tree I get Ident(newTermName("x")), and that is exactly what is set in the case RHS. Since the expression could be modified (for instance x+2 instead of x), this is not a valid solution for me. What I want to do is to reuse the xExp tree (see the xExp comment) while altering the 'x' meaning (it is a definition in the input expression but will be a case LHS variable in the output one), but it launches a long error summarized in:
symbol value x does not exist in org.habla.main.Main$delayedInit$body.apply); see the error output for details.
My current solution consists on the parsing of the xExp to sustitute all the Idents with new ones, but it is totally dependent on the compiler internals, and so, a temporal workaround. It is obvious that the xExp comes along with more information that the offered by showRaw. How can I clean that xExp for allowing 'x' to role the case variable? Can anyone explain the whole picture of this error?
PS: I have been trying unsuccessfully to use the substitute* method family from the TreeApi but I am missing the basics to understand its implications.
Disassembling input expressions and reassembling them in a different fashion is an important scenario in macrology (this is what we do internally in the reify macro). But unfortunately, it's not particularly easy at the moment.
The problem is that input arguments of the macro reach macro implementation being already typechecked. This is both a blessing and a curse.
Of particular interest for us is the fact that variable bindings in the trees corresponding to the arguments are already established. This means that all Ident and Select nodes have their sym fields filled in, pointing to the definitions these nodes refer to.
Here is an example of how symbols work. I'll copy/paste a printout from one of my talks (I don't give a link here, because most of the info in my talks is deprecated by now, but this particular printout has everlasting usefulness):
>cat Foo.scala
def foo[T: TypeTag](x: Any) = x.asInstanceOf[T]
foo[Long](42)
>scalac -Xprint:typer -uniqid Foo.scala
[[syntax trees at end of typer]]// Scala source: Foo.scala
def foo#8339
[T#8340 >: Nothing#4658 <: Any#4657]
(x#9529: Any#4657)
(implicit evidence$1#9530: TypeTag#7861[T#8341])
: T#8340 =
x#9529.asInstanceOf#6023[T#8341];
Test#14.this.foo#8339[Long#1641](42)(scala#29.reflect#2514.`package`#3414.mirror#3463.TypeTag#10351.Long#10361)
To recap, we write a small snippet and then compile it with scalac, asking the compiler to dump the trees after the typer phase, printing unique ids of the symbols assigned to trees (if any).
In the resulting printout we can see that identifiers have been linked to corresponding definitions. For example, on the one hand, the ValDef("x", ...), which represents the parameter of the method foo, defines a method symbol with id=9529. On the other hand, the Ident("x") in the body of the method got its sym field set to the same symbol, which establishes the binding.
Okay, we've seen how bindings work in scalac, and now is the perfect time to introduce a fundamental fact.
If a symbol has been assigned to an AST node,
then subsequent typechecks will never reassign it.
This is why reify is hygienic. You can take a result of reify and insert it into an arbitrary tree (that possibly defines variables with conflicting names) - the original bindings will remain intact. This works because reify preserves the original symbols, so subsequent typechecks won't rebind reified AST nodes.
Now we're all set to explain the error you're facing:
symbol value x does not exist in org.habla.main.Main$delayedInit$body.apply); see the error output for details.
The argument of the transform macro contains both a definition and a reference to a variable x. As we've just learned, this means that the corresponding ValDef and Ident will have their sym fields synchronized. So far, so good.
However unfortunately the macro corrupts the established binding. It recreates the ValDef, but doesn't clean up the sym field of the corresponding Ident. Subsequent typecheck assigns a fresh symbol to the newly created ValDef, but doesn't touch the original Ident that is copied to the result verbatim.
After the typecheck, the original Ident points to a symbol that no longer exists (this is exactly what the error message was saying :)), which leads to a crash during bytecode generation.
So how do we fix the error? Unfortunately there is no easy answer.
One option would be to utilize c.resetLocalAttrs, which recursively erases all symbols in a given AST node. Subsequent typecheck will then reestablish the bindings granted that the code you generated doesn't mess with them (if, for example, you wrap xExp in a block that itself defines a value named x, then you're in trouble).
Another option is to fiddle with symbols. For example, you could write your own resetLocalAttrs that only erases corrupted bindings and doesn't touch the valid ones. You could also try and assign symbols by yourself, but that's a short road to madness, though sometimes one is forced to walk it.
Not cool at all, I agree. We're aware of that and intend to try and fix this fundamental issue sometimes. However right now our hands are full with bugfixing before the final 2.10.0 release, so we won't be able to address the problem in the nearest future. upd. See https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/scala-internals/rIyJ4yHdPDU for some additional information.
Bottom line. Bad things happen, because bindings get messed up. Try resetLocalAttrs first, and if it doesn't work, prepare yourself for a chore.