Using Option in functional way to avoid if-else - scala

I have an Option instance, say O, which contains an instance of a class, say A, and A itself has some Options inside it.
I have to achieve something like this, expressed in pseudo code as:
if(A.x exists) {
if(A.y exists) {
//extract values from some another Option Z embedded in A
} else {
// return Option of some default value
}
}
So I try this:
O.filter(some filter condition to have only some specific types of A).filter(!A.x.isEmpty).filter(!A.y.isEmpty).flatMap(_.z.somevalue).orElse(Some("Some default value"))
Is this the correct way, OR do I need to use pattern matching at some point?
Edit: Result should be an Option[String].O si an Option[A]. A is a class with fields x,y,z, and all three are Option of String.

This looks like a good use case for pattern matching.
For what I understood of your question you want something like this:
(if not, the code should be easy to adjust)
final case class A(x: Option[String], x: Option[String], x: Option[String])
def getData(oa: Option[A]): Option[String] = oa match {
case Some(A(Some(_), Some(_), z)) => z
case None => None
case _ => Some("Default Value")
}

The cleanest expression of this would be
A.x.map(x => A.y.fold(default_value)(y => calculation_using_y))

Related

scala directly map fields of sequence elements

I have a collection with elements that have a field field1. I want to get all field1s that are options of type MyType.
Currently this is my code.
elems.map(_.field1).map {case Some(found: MyType) => found}
I'm sure this can be done in a much nicer way.. It bugs me that I need to use map twice. Is there a way to do this with only one map/collect ?
EDIT: My code works. I'm just wondering if it can be done in a better (i.e. shorter or prettier way).
elems.flatMap(_.field1.collect { case x: MyType => x })
I believe utilising .flatMap may solve this issue for you
elems.flatMap(_.field1 match {
case myType: MyType => Some(myType)
case _ => None
}
Calling iterator before transforming the collection accumulates all the transformations into a single one so perhaps try
elems
.iterator
.flatMap(_.field1)
.collect { case v: MyType => v }
.toList
if your Seq type is case class you can use pattern matching with one collect function like so (see actual seq):
case class MyTypeWrapper(field1: Option[MyType])
case class MyType(x: String)
val elems = Seq.empty[MyTypeWrapper]
val expected: Seq[MyType] = elems.map(_.field1).map{ case Some(found: MyType) => found }
val actual: Seq[MyType] = elems.collect{ case MyTypeWrapper(Some(mt: MyType)) => mt }
// expected and actual should contains the same elements

Do something when exactly one option is non-empty

I want to compute something if exactly one of two options is non-empty. Obviously this could be done by a pattern match, but is there some better way?
(o1, o2) match {
case (Some(o), None) => Some(compute(o))
case (None, Some(o)) => Some(compute(o))
case _ => None
}
You could do something like this:
if (o1.isEmpty ^ o2.isEmpty)
List(o1,o2).flatMap(_.map(x=>Some(compute(x)))).head
else
None
But pattern matching is probably the better way to go.
Thanks to helpful comments from #Suma, I came up with another solutions in addition to the current ones:
Since the inputs are always in the form of Option(x):
Iterator(Seq(o1,o2).filter(_!=None))
.takeWhile(_.length==1)
.map( x => compute(x.head.get))
.toSeq.headOption
Using iterator also allows for a sequence of values to be passed to the input. The final mapping will be done if and only if one value in the sequence is defined.
Inspired by now deleted answer of pedrofurla, which was attempting to use o1 orElse o2 map { compute }, one possibility is to define xorElse, the rest is easy with it:
implicit class XorElse[T](o1: Option[T]) {
def xorElse[A >: T](o2: Option[A]): Option[A] = {
if (o1.isDefined != o2.isDefined) o1 orElse o2
else None
}
}
(o1 xorElse o2).map(compute)
Another possibility I have found is using a pattern match, but using Seq concatenation so that both cases are handled with the same code. The advantage of this approach is it can be extended to any number of options, it will always evaluate when there is exactly one:
o1.toSeq ++ o2 match {
case Seq(one) => Some(compute(one))
case _ => None
}
Just initialize a sequence and then flatten
Seq(o1, o2).flatten match {
case Seq(o) => Some(compute(o))
case _ => None
}

How to map an Option case class

Say, there is a case class
case class MyCaseClass(a: Int, b: String)
and an Option[MyCaseClass] variable
val myOption: Option[MyCaseClass] = someFunctionReturnOption()
Now, I want to map this Option variable like this:
myOption map {
case MyCaseClass(a, b) => do some thing
}
It seems the compiler reports error like It needs Option[MyCaseClass], BUT I gave her MyCaseClass, bla bla... How to use pattern match in Optional case class ?
Consider extracting the Option value like this,
myOption map {
case Some(MyCaseClass(a, b)) => do some thing
case None => do something else
}
or else use collect for a partial function, like this
myOption collect {
case Some(MyCaseClass(a, b)) => do some thing
}
Update
Please note that as commented, the OP code is correct, this answer addresses strictly the last question How to use pattern match in Optional case class ?
MyOption match {
Some(class) => // do something
None => // do something.
}
Or
MyOption map (class =>//do something)

Implementing ifTrue, ifFalse, ifSome, ifNone, etc. in Scala to avoid if(...) and simple pattern matching

In Scala, I have progressively lost my Java/C habit of thinking in a control-flow oriented way, and got used to go ahead and get the object I'm interested in first, and then usually apply something like a match or a map() or foreach() for collections. I like it a lot, since it now feels like a more natural and more to-the-point way of structuring my code.
Little by little, I've wished I could program the same way for conditions; i.e., obtain a Boolean value first, and then match it to do various things. A full-blown match, however, does seem a bit overkill for this task.
Compare:
obj.isSomethingValid match {
case true => doX
case false => doY
}
vs. what I would write with style closer to Java:
if (obj.isSomethingValid)
doX
else
doY
Then I remembered Smalltalk's ifTrue: and ifFalse: messages (and variants thereof). Would it be possible to write something like this in Scala?
obj.isSomethingValid ifTrue doX else doY
with variants:
val v = obj.isSomethingValid ifTrue someVal else someOtherVal
// with side effects
obj.isSomethingValid ifFalse {
numInvalid += 1
println("not valid")
}
Furthermore, could this style be made available to simple, two-state types like Option? I know the more idiomatic way to use Option is to treat it as a collection and call filter(), map(), exists() on it, but often, at the end, I find that I want to perform some doX if it is defined, and some doY if it isn't. Something like:
val ok = resultOpt ifSome { result =>
println("Obtained: " + result)
updateUIWith(result) // returns Boolean
} else {
numInvalid += 1
println("missing end result")
false
}
To me, this (still?) looks better than a full-blown match.
I am providing a base implementation I came up with; general comments on this style/technique and/or better implementations are welcome!
First: we probably cannot reuse else, as it is a keyword, and using the backticks to force it to be seen as an identifier is rather ugly, so I'll use otherwise instead.
Here's an implementation attempt. First, use the pimp-my-library pattern to add ifTrue and ifFalse to Boolean. They are parametrized on the return type R and accept a single by-name parameter, which should be evaluated if the specified condition is realized. But in doing so, we must allow for an otherwise call. So we return a new object called Otherwise0 (why 0 is explained later), which stores a possible intermediate result as a Option[R]. It is defined if the current condition (ifTrue or ifFalse) is realized, and is empty otherwise.
class BooleanWrapper(b: Boolean) {
def ifTrue[R](f: => R) = new Otherwise0[R](if (b) Some(f) else None)
def ifFalse[R](f: => R) = new Otherwise0[R](if (b) None else Some(f))
}
implicit def extendBoolean(b: Boolean): BooleanWrapper = new BooleanWrapper(b)
For now, this works and lets me write
someTest ifTrue {
println("OK")
}
But, without the following otherwise clause, it cannot return a value of type R, of course. So here's the definition of Otherwise0:
class Otherwise0[R](intermediateResult: Option[R]) {
def otherwise[S >: R](f: => S) = intermediateResult.getOrElse(f)
def apply[S >: R](f: => S) = otherwise(f)
}
It evaluates its passed named argument if and only if the intermediate result it got from the preceding ifTrue or ifFalse is undefined, which is exactly what is wanted. The type parametrization [S >: R] has the effect that S is inferred to be the most specific common supertype of the actual type of the named parameters, such that for instance, r in this snippet has an inferred type Fruit:
class Fruit
class Apple extends Fruit
class Orange extends Fruit
val r = someTest ifTrue {
new Apple
} otherwise {
new Orange
}
The apply() alias even allows you to skip the otherwise method name altogether for short chunks of code:
someTest.ifTrue(10).otherwise(3)
// equivalently:
someTest.ifTrue(10)(3)
Finally, here's the corresponding pimp for Option:
class OptionExt[A](option: Option[A]) {
def ifNone[R](f: => R) = new Otherwise1(option match {
case None => Some(f)
case Some(_) => None
}, option.get)
def ifSome[R](f: A => R) = new Otherwise0(option match {
case Some(value) => Some(f(value))
case None => None
})
}
implicit def extendOption[A](opt: Option[A]): OptionExt[A] = new OptionExt[A](opt)
class Otherwise1[R, A1](intermediateResult: Option[R], arg1: => A1) {
def otherwise[S >: R](f: A1 => S) = intermediateResult.getOrElse(f(arg1))
def apply[S >: R](f: A1 => S) = otherwise(f)
}
Note that we now also need Otherwise1 so that we can conveniently passed the unwrapped value not only to the ifSome function argument, but also to the function argument of an otherwise following an ifNone.
You may be looking at the problem too specifically. You would probably be better off with the pipe operator:
class Piping[A](a: A) { def |>[B](f: A => B) = f(a) }
implicit def pipe_everything[A](a: A) = new Piping(a)
Now you can
("fish".length > 5) |> (if (_) println("Hi") else println("Ho"))
which, admittedly, is not quite as elegant as what you're trying to achieve, but it has the great advantage of being amazingly versatile--any time you want to put an argument first (not just with booleans), you can use it.
Also, you already can use options the way you want:
Option("fish").filter(_.length > 5).
map (_ => println("Hi")).
getOrElse(println("Ho"))
Just because these things could take a return value doesn't mean you have to avoid them. It does take a little getting used to the syntax; this may be a valid reason to create your own implicits. But the core functionality is there. (If you do create your own, consider fold[B](f: A => B)(g: => B) instead; once you're used to it the lack of the intervening keyword is actually rather nice.)
Edit: Although the |> notation for pipe is somewhat standard, I actually prefer use as the method name, because then def reuse[B,C](f: A => B)(g: (A,B) => C) = g(a,f(a)) seems more natural.
Why don't just use it like this:
val idiomaticVariable = if (condition) {
firstExpression
} else {
secondExpression
}
?
IMO, its very idiomatic! :)

Scala: short form of pattern matching that returns Boolean

I found myself writing something like this quite often:
a match {
case `b` => // do stuff
case _ => // do nothing
}
Is there a shorter way to check if some value matches a pattern? I mean, in this case I could just write if (a == b) // do stuff, but what if the pattern is more complex? Like when matching against a list or any pattern of arbitrary complexity. I'd like to be able to write something like this:
if (a matches b) // do stuff
I'm relatively new to Scala, so please pardon, if I'm missing something big :)
This is exactly why I wrote these functions, which are apparently impressively obscure since nobody has mentioned them.
scala> import PartialFunction._
import PartialFunction._
scala> cond("abc") { case "def" => true }
res0: Boolean = false
scala> condOpt("abc") { case x if x.length == 3 => x + x }
res1: Option[java.lang.String] = Some(abcabc)
scala> condOpt("abc") { case x if x.length == 4 => x + x }
res2: Option[java.lang.String] = None
The match operator in Scala is most powerful when used in functional style. This means, rather than "doing something" in the case statements, you would return a useful value. Here is an example for an imperative style:
var value:Int = 23
val command:String = ... // we get this from somewhere
command match {
case "duplicate" => value = value * 2
case "negate" => value = -value
case "increment" => value = value + 1
// etc.
case _ => // do nothing
}
println("Result: " + value)
It is very understandable that the "do nothing" above hurts a little, because it seems superflous. However, this is due to the fact that the above is written in imperative style. While constructs like these may sometimes be necessary, in many cases you can refactor your code to functional style:
val value:Int = 23
val command:String = ... // we get this from somewhere
val result:Int = command match {
case "duplicate" => value * 2
case "negate" => -value
case "increment" => value + 1
// etc.
case _ => value
}
println("Result: " + result)
In this case, you use the whole match statement as a value that you can, for example, assign to a variable. And it is also much more obvious that the match statement must return a value in any case; if the last case would be missing, the compiler could not just make something up.
It is a question of taste, but some developers consider this style to be more transparent and easier to handle in more real-world examples. I would bet that the inventors of the Scala programming language had a more functional use in mind for match, and indeed the if statement makes more sense if you only need to decide whether or not a certain action needs to be taken. (On the other hand, you can also use if in the functional way, because it also has a return value...)
This might help:
class Matches(m: Any) {
def matches[R](f: PartialFunction[Any, R]) { if (f.isDefinedAt(m)) f(m) }
}
implicit def any2matches(m: Any) = new Matches(m)
scala> 'c' matches { case x: Int => println("Int") }
scala> 2 matches { case x: Int => println("Int") }
Int
Now, some explanation on the general nature of the problem.
Where may a match happen?
There are three places where pattern matching might happen: val, case and for. The rules for them are:
// throws an exception if it fails
val pattern = value
// filters for pattern, but pattern cannot be "identifier: Type",
// though that can be replaced by "id1 # (id2: Type)" for the same effect
for (pattern <- object providing map/flatMap/filter/withFilter/foreach) ...
// throws an exception if none of the cases match
value match { case ... => ... }
There is, however, another situation where case might appear, which is function and partial function literals. For example:
val f: Any => Unit = { case i: Int => println(i) }
val pf: PartialFunction[Any, Unit] = { case i: Int => println(i) }
Both functions and partial functions will throw an exception if called with an argument that doesn't match any of the case statements. However, partial functions also provide a method called isDefinedAt which can test whether a match can be made or not, as well as a method called lift, which will turn a PartialFunction[T, R] into a Function[T, Option[R]], which means non-matching values will result in None instead of throwing an exception.
What is a match?
A match is a combination of many different tests:
// assign anything to x
case x
// only accepts values of type X
case x: X
// only accepts values matches by pattern
case x # pattern
// only accepts a value equal to the value X (upper case here makes a difference)
case X
// only accepts a value equal to the value of x
case `x`
// only accept a tuple of the same arity
case (x, y, ..., z)
// only accepts if extractor(value) returns true of Some(Seq()) (some empty sequence)
case extractor()
// only accepts if extractor(value) returns Some something
case extractor(x)
// only accepts if extractor(value) returns Some Seq or Tuple of the same arity
case extractor(x, y, ..., z)
// only accepts if extractor(value) returns Some Tuple2 or Some Seq with arity 2
case x extractor y
// accepts if any of the patterns is accepted (patterns may not contain assignable identifiers)
case x | y | ... | z
Now, extractors are the methods unapply or unapplySeq, the first returning Boolean or Option[T], and the second returning Option[Seq[T]], where None means no match is made, and Some(result) will try to match result as described above.
So there are all kinds of syntactic alternatives here, which just aren't possible without the use of one of the three constructions where pattern matches may happen. You may able to emulate some of the features, like value equality and extractors, but not all of them.
Patterns can also be used in for expressions. Your code sample
a match {
case b => // do stuff
case _ => // do nothing
}
can then be expressed as
for(b <- Some(a)) //do stuff
The trick is to wrap a to make it a valid enumerator. E.g. List(a) would also work, but I think Some(a) is closest to your intended meaning.
The best I can come up with is this:
def matches[A](a:A)(f:PartialFunction[A, Unit]) = f.isDefinedAt(a)
if (matches(a){case ... =>}) {
//do stuff
}
This won't win you any style points though.
Kim's answer can be “improved” to better match your requirement:
class AnyWrapper[A](wrapped: A) {
def matches(f: PartialFunction[A, Unit]) = f.isDefinedAt(wrapped)
}
implicit def any2wrapper[A](wrapped: A) = new AnyWrapper(wrapped)
then:
val a = "a" :: Nil
if (a matches { case "a" :: Nil => }) {
println("match")
}
I wouldn't do it, however. The => }) { sequence is really ugly here, and the whole code looks much less clear than a normal match. Plus, you get the compile-time overhead of looking up the implicit conversion, and the run-time overhead of wrapping the match in a PartialFunction (not counting the conflicts you could get with other, already defined matches methods, like the one in String).
To look a little bit better (and be less verbose), you could add this def to AnyWrapper:
def ifMatch(f: PartialFunction[A, Unit]): Unit = if (f.isDefinedAt(wrapped)) f(wrapped)
and use it like this:
a ifMatch { case "a" :: Nil => println("match") }
which saves you your case _ => line, but requires double braces if you want a block instead of a single statement... Not so nice.
Note that this construct is not really in the spirit of functional programming, as it can only be used to execute something that has side effects. We can't easily use it to return a value (therefore the Unit return value), as the function is partial — we'd need a default value, or we could return an Option instance. But here again, we would probably unwrap it with a match, so we'd gain nothing.
Frankly, you're better off getting used to seeing and using those match frequently, and moving away from this kind of imperative-style constructs (following Madoc's nice explanation).