I'm trying to create an instance of a trait using this method
val inst = new Object with MyTrait
This works well, but I'd like to move this creation in to a generator function, ie.
object Creator {
def create[T] : T = new Object with T
}
I'm obviously going to need the manifest to somehow fix the type erasure problems, but before I get to this, I run in to 2 questions :
Even with an implicit manifest, Scala still demands that T be a trait. How do I add a restriction to create[T] so that T is a trait?
If I chose to use the Class.newInstance method to create the instance dynamically rather than using "new", how would I specify the "with" in "new Object with T"? Is it possible to dynamically create new concrete mixin types at runtime?
I'm not sure what the motivation is for your question, but you could consider passing a factory for T as an implicit parameter. This is known as using type classes or ad-hoc polymorphism.
object Test extends Application {
trait Factory[T] {
def apply: T
}
object Factory {
/**
* Construct a factory for type `T` that creates a new instance by
* invoking the by-name parameter `t`
*/
def apply[T](t: => T): Factory[T] = new Factory[T] {
def apply = t
}
}
// define a few traits...
trait T1
trait T2
// ...and corresponding instances of the `Factory` type class.
implicit val T1Factory: Factory[T1] = Factory(new T1{})
implicit val T2Factory: Factory[T2] = Factory(new T2{})
// Use a context bound to restrict type parameter T
// by requiring an implicit parameter of type `Factory[T]`
def create[T: Factory]: T = implicitly[Factory[T]].apply
create[T1]
create[T2]
}
At the other end of the spectrum, you could invoke the compiler at runtime, as detailed in this answer to the question "Dynamic mixin in Scala - is it possible?".
You can't do this (even with a Manifest). The code new Object with T involves creating a new anonymous class representing the combination of Object with T. To pass this to your create function, you would have to generate this new class (with new bytecode) at runtime, and Scala has no facilities for generating a new class at runtime.
One strategy might be to try to transfer the special functionality of the factory method into the class's constructor instead, and then use the constructor directly.
Another possible strategy is to create conversion functions (implicit or otherwise) to the traits you're interested in using with this class.
Related
Does scala provide a default apply method for a class?
I have a class:
class Player(tea: String, sal: Int = 0) {
val team = tea
private val salary = sal
}
So no apply method here, and I haven't defined any companion object for it, so no apply method from there too.
But I am able to do:
val player = Player("AAAA", 1000)
With no 'new' operator used, I understand that this line of code must invoke some apply method. But there is none defined by me. So how does it work?
Yes, since Scala 3, as described in the docs:
Scala case classes generate apply methods, so that values of case classes can be created using simple function application, without needing to write new.
Scala 3 generalizes this scheme to all concrete classes. Example:
class StringBuilder(s: String):
def this() = this("")
StringBuilder("abc") // old: new StringBuilder("abc")
StringBuilder() // old: new StringBuilder()
This works since a companion object with two apply methods is generated together with the class. The object looks like this:
object StringBuilder:
inline def apply(s: String): StringBuilder = new StringBuilder(s)
inline def apply(): StringBuilder = new StringBuilder()
The synthetic object StringBuilder and its apply methods are called constructor proxies. Constructor proxies are generated even for Java classes and classes coming from Scala 2. The precise rules are as follows:
A constructor proxy companion object object C is created for a concrete class C, provided the class does not have already a companion, and there is also no other value or method named C defined or inherited in the scope where C is defined.
Constructor proxy apply methods are generated for a concrete class provided
the class has a companion object (which might have been generated in step 1), and
that companion object does not already define a member named apply.
Each generated apply method forwards to one constructor of the class. It has the same type and value parameters as the constructor.
An easy thing to do in many languages but not in Scala is:
Define archetype 'Super', such that all implementations of 'Super' has to define a constructor 'create()'.
I found this constraint very important and is able to identify a lot of problems before runtime. However this feature is only partially enforced in Java (by defining an 'abstract' static method that always throws an error) and completely missing in Scala (companion object is completely detached from class and cannot be enforced in archetype).
is there a macro or tool that allows me to do this?
UPDATE Sorry my question was missing context and examples. Here is a formal use case in scala:
In project A, we define an interface that can be extended by all subprojects:
trait AbstractFoo {}
This interface should always have a default 0-parameter builder/constructor, so project A can initialize it on-demand, however, the implementation of each constructor is unknown to project A:
object AbstractFoo {
def default[T <: AbstractFoo: ClassTag](): T
}
So the problem becomes: How to rigorously define AbstractFoo, such that for all subprojects of A, any implementation(s) of AbstractFoo:
case class Foo(...) extends AbstractFoo
must satisfy:
'Foo' must have a 0-parameter builder/constructor defined (presumably in its companion object)
calling AbstractFoo.defaultFoo can invoke this 0-parameter builder/constructor
It should be noted that in an alternative conditions, a solution exists which is to define every companion object as an implicit type class:
trait FooBuilder[T <: AbstractFoo] {
def default(): T
}
object AbstractFoo {
implicit object Foo extends FooBuilder[Foo] {
def default() = {...}
}
def default[T <: AbstractFoo: FooBuilder](): T = {
implicitly[FooBuilder[T]].default
}
}
Such that if the implicit object is undefined the compiler will give an implicit not found error (my code snippet may have some syntax error, the idea is from http://www.cakesolutions.net/teamblogs/demystifying-implicits-and-typeclasses-in-scala)
Unfortunately it's not always convenient, because this subproject of A is usually unknown to project A. Yet the default implicit builder cannot be redefined, this makes every invocation of default() more covoluted.
I believe scala is a very extendable language, so there should be at least 1 way to enforce it whether if using macro, annotation or other metaprogramming techniques. Is my question clear enough now?
UPDATE2: I believe I found the solution after carefully study Scaladoc, there is a comment hidden in a corner:
if there are several eligible arguments which match the implicit parameter’s type, a most specific one will be chosen using the rules of static overloading resolution (see Scala Specification §6.26.4):
...
Implicit scope of type arguments (2.8.0)
...
So all I need is to write an implicit function in FooBuilder:
trait FooBuilder[T <: AbstractFoo] {
def default(): T
implicit def self = this
}
object Foo extends FooBuilder[Foo]
So everytime someone call:
default[Foo]
scala will refer to the scope of class Foo, which include object Foo, which contains the implicit value Foo, and eventually find the 0-parameter constructor.
I think this definition is better than defining it under object FooBuilder, since you can only define FooBuilder once, thus its not quite extendable. Would you agree with me? If so, could you please revise your answer so I can award you point?
I don't understand why an abstract class or even a Trait won't allow this to be done?
abstract class DefineCreate{
def create(): Unit
}
case class Foo(one: Int)
object Foo extends DefineCreate{
def create(): Unit = { Console.out.println("side-effect") }
}
Thus I force a user to make a create method on the object in question because all implementations of DefineCreate must do so in order to compile.
Update Following Comments
Well, without having to resort to macros and the like, you could achieve the same sort of thing with type classes:
trait Constructor[A]{
def create(): A
}
object Construct{
def create[A](implicit cr: Constructor[A]): A = cr.create()
}
Which doesn't explicitly force the companion object to sprout methods but it does force a user to make the type class if they want to use the Constructor.create[Foo] pattern.
I want to call a constructor of a generic type T, but I also want it to have a specific constructor with only one Int argument:
class Class1[T] {
def method1(i: Int) = {
val instance = new T(i) //ops!
i
}
}
How do I specify this requirement?
UPDATE:
How acceptable (flexible, etc) is it to use something like this? That's a template method pattern.
abstract class Class1[T] {
def creator: Int => T
def method1(i: Int) = {
val instance = creator(i) //seems ok
i
}
}
Scala doesn't allow you to specify the constructor's signature in a type constraint (as e.g. C#).
However Scala does allow you to achieve something equivalent by using the type class pattern. This is more flexible, but requires writing a bit more boilerplate code.
First, define a trait which will be an interface for creating a T given an Int.
trait Factory[T] {
def fromInt(i: Int): T
}
Then, define an implicit instance for any type you want. Let's say you have some class Foo with an appropriate constructor.
implicit val FooFactory = new Factory[Foo] {
def fromInt(i: Int) = new Foo(i)
}
Now, you can specify a context bound for the type parameter T in the signature of Class1:
class Class1[T : Factory] {
def method1(i: Int) = {
val instance = implicitly[Factory[T]].fromInt(i)
// ...
}
}
The constraint T : Factory says that there must be an implicit Factory[T] in scope. When you need to use the instance, you grab it from implicit scope using the implicitly method.
Alternatively, you could specify the factory as an implicit parameter to the method that requires it.
class Class1[T] {
def method1(i: Int)(implicit factory: Factory[T]) = {
val instance = factory.fromInt(i)
// ...
}
}
This is more flexible than putting the constraint in the class signature, because it means you could have other methods on Class1 that don't require a Factory[T]. In that case, the compiler will not enforce that there is a Factory[T] unless you call one of the methods that requires it.
In response to your update (with the abstract creator method), this is a perfectly reasonable way to do it, as long as you don't mind creating a subtype of Class1 for every T. Also note that T will need to be a concrete type at any point that you want to create an instance of Class1, because you will need to provide a concrete implementation for the abstract method.
Consider trying to create an instance of Class1 inside another generic method. When using the type class pattern, you can extend the necessary type constraint to the type signature of that method, in order to make this compile:
def instantiateClass1[T : Factory] = new Class1[T]
If you don't need to do this, then you might not need the full power of the type class pattern.
When you create a generic class or trait, the class does not gain special access to the methods of whatever actual class you might parameterise it with. When you say
class Class1[T]
You are saying
This is a class which will work with unspecified type T.
Most of its methods will take instances of type T as a parameter or return T.
Any variance annotations or type bounds attached to the type parameter will be applied whenever it appears as a parameter of one of Class1's methods.
There is no such thing as type "Class1" but there may be an arbitrary number of derived classes of type "Class1[something]"
That's all. You get no special access to T from within Class1, because Scala does not know what T is. If you wanted Class1 to have access to T's fields and methods, you should have extended it or mixed it in.
If you want access to the methods of T (without using reflection), you can only do that from within one of Class1's methods which accepts a parameter of type T. And then you will get whichever version of the method belongs to the specific type of the actual object which is passed.
(You can work around this with reflection, but that is a runtime solution and absolutely not typesafe).
Look at what you are trying to do in your original code snippet...
You have specified that Class1 can be parameterised with any arbitrary type.
You want to invoke T with a constructor which takes a single Int parameter
But what have you done to promise the Scala compiler that T will have such a constructor? Nothing at all. So how can the compiler trust this? Well, it can't.
Even if you added an upper type bound, requiring that T be a subclass of some class which does have such a constructor, that doesn't help; T might be a subclass which has a more complex constructor, which calls back to the simpler constructor. So at the point where Class1 is defined, the compiler can have no confidence about the safety of constructing T with that simple method. So that call cannot be type-safe.
Class-based OO isn't about conjuring unknown types out of the ether; it doesn't let you plunge your hand into a top-hat-shaped class loader and pull out a surprise. It allows you to handle arbitrary already-created instances of some general type without knowing their specific type. At the point where those objects are created, there's no ambiguity at all.
There seems to be a lot of enthusiasm among Scala bloggers lately for the type classes pattern, in which a simple class has functionality added to it by an additional class conforming to some trait or pattern. As a vastly oversimplified example, the simple class:
case class Wotsit (value: Int)
can be adapted to the Foo trait:
trait Foo[T] {
def write (t: T): Unit
}
with the help of this type class:
implicit object WotsitIsFoo extends Foo[Wotsit] {
def write (wotsit: Wotsit) = println(wotsit.value)
}
The type class is typically captured at compile time with implicts, allowing both the Wotsit and its type class to be passed together into a higher order function:
def writeAll[T] (items: List[T])(implicit tc: Foo[T]) =
items.foreach(w => tc.write(w))
writeAll(wotsits)
(before you correct me, I said it was an oversimplified example)
However, the use of implicits assumes that the precise type of the items is known at compile time. I find in my code this often isn't the case: I will have a list of some type of item List[T], and need to discover the correct type class to work on them.
The suggested approach of Scala would appear to be to add the typeclass argument at all points in the call hierarchy. This can get annoying as an the code scales and these dependencies need to be passed down increasingly long chains, through methods to which they are increasingly irrelevant. This makes the code cluttered and harder to maintain, the opposite of what Scala is for.
Typically this is where dependency injection would step in, using a library to supply the desired object at the point it's needed. Details vary with the library chosen for DI - I've written my own in Java in the past - but typically the point of injection needs to define precisely the object desired.
Trouble is, in the case of a type class the precise value isn't known at compile time. It must be selected based on a polymorphic description. And crucially, the type information has been erased by the compiler. Manifests are Scala's solution to type erasure, but it's far from clear to me how to use them to address this issue.
What techniques and dependency injection libraries for Scala would people suggest as a way of tackling this? Am I missing a trick? The perfect DI library? Or is this really the sticking point it seems?
Clarification
I think there are really two aspects to this. In the first case, the point where the type class is needed is reached by direct function calls from the point where the exact type of its operand is known, and so sufficient type wrangling and syntactic sugar can allow the type class to be passed to the point it's needed.
In the second case, the two points are separated by a barrier - such as an API that can't be altered, or being stored in a database or object store, or serialised and send to another computer - that means the type class can't be passed along with its operand. In this case, given an object whose type and value are known only at runtime, the type class needs somehow to be discovered.
I think functional programmers have a habit of assuming the first case - that with a sufficiently advanced language, the type of the operand will always be knowable. David and mkniessl provided good answers for this, and I certainly don't want to criticise those. But the second case definitely does exist, and that's why I brought dependency injection into the question.
A fair amount of the tediousness of passing down those implicit dependencies can be alleviated by using the new context bound syntax. Your example becomes
def writeAll[T:Foo] (items: List[T]) =
items.foreach(w => implicitly[Foo[T]].write(w))
which compiles identically but makes for nice and clear signatures and has fewer "noise" variables floating around.
Not a great answer, but the alternatives probably involve reflection, and I don't know of any library that will just make this automatically work.
(I have substituted the names in the question, they did not help me think about the problem)
I'll attack the problem in two steps. First I show how nested scopes avoid having to declare the type class parameter all the way down its usage. Then I'll show a variant, where the type class instance is "dependency injected".
Type class instance as class parameter
To avoid having to declare the type class instance as implicit parameter in all intermediate calls, you can declare the type class instance in a class defining a scope where the specific type class instance should be available. I'm using the shortcut syntax ("context bound") for the definition of the class parameter.
object TypeClassDI1 {
// The type class
trait ATypeClass[T] {
def typeClassMethod(t: T): Unit
}
// Some data type
case class Something (value: Int)
// The type class instance as implicit
implicit object SomethingInstance extends ATypeClass[Something] {
def typeClassMethod(s: Something): Unit =
println("SomthingInstance " + s.value)
}
// A method directly using the type class
def writeAll[T:ATypeClass](items: List[T]) =
items.foreach(w => implicitly[ATypeClass[T]].typeClassMethod(w))
// A class defining a scope with a type class instance known to be available
class ATypeClassUser[T:ATypeClass] {
// bar only indirectly uses the type class via writeAll
// and does not declare an implicit parameter for it.
def bar(items: List[T]) {
// (here the evidence class parameter defined
// with the context bound is used for writeAll)
writeAll(items)
}
}
def main(args: Array[String]) {
val aTypeClassUser = new ATypeClassUser[Something]
aTypeClassUser.bar(List(Something(42), Something(4711)))
}
}
Type class instance as writable field (setter injection)
A variant of the above which would be usable using setter injection. This time the type class instance is passed via a setter call to the bean using the type class.
object TypeClassDI2 {
// The type class
trait ATypeClass[T] {
def typeClassMethod(t: T): Unit
}
// Some data type
case class Something (value: Int)
// The type class instance (not implicit here)
object SomethingInstance extends ATypeClass[Something] {
def typeClassMethod(s: Something): Unit =
println("SomthingInstance " + s.value)
}
// A method directly using the type class
def writeAll[T:ATypeClass](items: List[T]) =
items.foreach(w => implicitly[ATypeClass[T]].typeClassMethod(w))
// A "service bean" class defining a scope with a type class instance.
// Setter based injection style for simplicity.
class ATypeClassBean[T] {
implicit var aTypeClassInstance: ATypeClass[T] = _
// bar only indirectly uses the type class via writeAll
// and does not declare an implicit parameter for it.
def bar(items: List[T]) {
// (here the implicit var is used for writeAll)
writeAll(items)
}
}
def main(args: Array[String]) {
val aTypeClassBean = new ATypeClassBean[Something]()
// "inject" the type class instance
aTypeClassBean.aTypeClassInstance = SomethingInstance
aTypeClassBean.bar(List(Something(42), Something(4711)))
}
}
Note that the second solution has the common flaw of setter based injection that you can forget to set the dependency and get a nice NullPointerException upon use...
The argument against type classes as dependency injection here is that with type classes the "precise type of the items is known at compile time" whereas with dependency injection, they are not. You might be interested in this Scala project rewrite effort where I moved from the cake pattern to type classes for dependency injection. Take a look at this file where the implicit declarations are made. Notice how the use of environment variables determines the precise type? That is how you can reconcile the compile time requirements of type classes with the run time needs of dependency injection.
I'm trying to create an instance of a trait using this method
val inst = new Object with MyTrait
This works well, but I'd like to move this creation in to a generator function, ie.
object Creator {
def create[T] : T = new Object with T
}
I'm obviously going to need the manifest to somehow fix the type erasure problems, but before I get to this, I run in to 2 questions :
Even with an implicit manifest, Scala still demands that T be a trait. How do I add a restriction to create[T] so that T is a trait?
If I chose to use the Class.newInstance method to create the instance dynamically rather than using "new", how would I specify the "with" in "new Object with T"? Is it possible to dynamically create new concrete mixin types at runtime?
I'm not sure what the motivation is for your question, but you could consider passing a factory for T as an implicit parameter. This is known as using type classes or ad-hoc polymorphism.
object Test extends Application {
trait Factory[T] {
def apply: T
}
object Factory {
/**
* Construct a factory for type `T` that creates a new instance by
* invoking the by-name parameter `t`
*/
def apply[T](t: => T): Factory[T] = new Factory[T] {
def apply = t
}
}
// define a few traits...
trait T1
trait T2
// ...and corresponding instances of the `Factory` type class.
implicit val T1Factory: Factory[T1] = Factory(new T1{})
implicit val T2Factory: Factory[T2] = Factory(new T2{})
// Use a context bound to restrict type parameter T
// by requiring an implicit parameter of type `Factory[T]`
def create[T: Factory]: T = implicitly[Factory[T]].apply
create[T1]
create[T2]
}
At the other end of the spectrum, you could invoke the compiler at runtime, as detailed in this answer to the question "Dynamic mixin in Scala - is it possible?".
You can't do this (even with a Manifest). The code new Object with T involves creating a new anonymous class representing the combination of Object with T. To pass this to your create function, you would have to generate this new class (with new bytecode) at runtime, and Scala has no facilities for generating a new class at runtime.
One strategy might be to try to transfer the special functionality of the factory method into the class's constructor instead, and then use the constructor directly.
Another possible strategy is to create conversion functions (implicit or otherwise) to the traits you're interested in using with this class.