FS2 Stream with StateT[IO, _, _], periodically dumping state - scala

Question

I have a program which consumes an infinite stream of data. Along the way I'd like to record some metrics, which form a monoid since they're just simple sums and averages. Periodically, I want to write out these metrics somewhere, clear them, and return to accumulating them. I have essentially:
object Foo {
type MetricsIO[A] = StateT[IO, MetricData, A]
def recordMetric(m: MetricData): MetricsIO[Unit] = {
StateT.modify(_.combine(m))
}
def sendMetrics: MetricsIO[Unit] = {
StateT.modifyF { s =>
val write: IO[Unit] = writeMetrics(s)
write.attempt.map {
case Left(_) => s
case Right(_) => Monoid[MetricData].empty
}
}
}
}
So most of the execution uses IO directly and lifts using StateT.liftF. And in certain situations, I include some calls to recordMetric. At the end of it I've got a stream:
val mainStream: Stream[MetricsIO, Bar] = ...
And I want to periodically, say every minute or so, dump the metrics, so I tried:
val scheduler: Scheduler = ...
val sendStream =
scheduler
.awakeEvery[MetricsIO](FiniteDuration(1, TimeUnit.Minutes))
.evalMap(_ => Foo.sendMetrics)
val result = mainStream.concurrently(sendStream).compile.drain
And then I do the usual top level program stuff of calling run with the start state and then calling unsafeRunSync.
The issue is, I only ever see empty metrics! I suspect it's something to with my monoid implicitly providing empty metrics to sendStream but I can't quite figure out why that should be or how to fix it. Maybe there's a way I can "interleave" these sendMetrics calls into the main stream instead?
Edit: here's a minimal complete runnable example:
import fs2._
import cats.implicits._
import cats.data._
import cats.effect._
import java.util.concurrent.Executors
import scala.concurrent.ExecutionContext
import scala.concurrent.duration._
val sec = Executors.newScheduledThreadPool(4)
implicit val ec = ExecutionContext.fromExecutorService(sec)
type F[A] = StateT[IO, List[String], A]
val slowInts = Stream.unfoldEval[F, Int, Int](1) { n =>
StateT(state => IO {
Thread.sleep(500)
val message = s"hello $n"
val newState = message :: state
val result = Some((n, n + 1))
(newState, result)
})
}
val ticks = Scheduler.fromScheduledExecutorService(sec).fixedDelay[F](FiniteDuration(1, SECONDS))
val slowIntsPeriodicallyClearedState = slowInts.either(ticks).evalMap[Int] {
case Left(n) => StateT.liftF(IO(n))
case Right(_) => StateT(state => IO {
println(state)
(List.empty, -1)
})
}
Now if I do:
slowInts.take(10).compile.drain.run(List.empty).unsafeRunSync
Then I get the expected result - the state properly accumulates into the output. But if I do:
slowIntsPeriodicallyClearedState.take(10).compile.drain.run(List.empty).unsafeRunSync
Then I see an empty list consistently printed out. I would have expected partial lists (approx. 2 elements) printed out.

Answer 1

StateT is not safe to use with effect types, because it's not safe in the face of concurrent access. Instead, consider using a Ref (from either fs2 or cats-effect, depending what version).
Something like this:
def slowInts(ref: Ref[IO, Int]) = Stream.unfoldEval[F, Int, Int](1) { n =>
val message = s"hello $n"
ref.modify(message :: _) *> IO {
Thread.sleep(500)
val result = Some((n, n + 1))
result
}
}
val ticks = Scheduler.fromScheduledExecutorService(sec).fixedDelay[IO](FiniteDuration(1, SECONDS))
def slowIntsPeriodicallyClearedState(ref: Ref[IO, Int] =
slowInts.either(ticks).evalMap[Int] {
case Left(n) => IO.pure(n)
case Right(_) =>
ref.modify(_ => Nil).flatMap { case Change(previous, now) =>
IO(println(now)).as(-1)
}
}