Should 'require' go inside or outside of the Future? - scala

How do I replace my first conditional with the require function in the context of a Future? Should I wrap the entire inRange method in a Future, and if I do that, how do I handle the last Future so that it doesn't return a Future[Future[List[UserId]], or is there a better way?
I have a block of code that looks something like this:
class RetrieveHomeownersDefault(depA: DependencyA, depB: DependencyB) extends RetrieveHomeowners {
def inRange(range: GpsRange): Future[List[UserId]] = {
// I would like to replace this conditional with `require(count >= 0, "The offset…`
if (count < 0) {
Future.failed(new IllegalArgumentException("The offset must be a positive integer.")
} else {
val retrieveUsers: Future[List[UserId]] = depA.inRange(range)
for (
userIds <- retrieveUsers
homes <- depB.homesForUsers(userIds)
) yield FilterUsers.withoutHomes(userIds, homes)
}
}
}
I started using the require function in other areas of my code, but when I tried to use it in the context of Futures I ran into some hiccups.
class RetrieveHomeownersDefault(depA: DependencyA, depB: DependencyB) extends RetrieveHomeowners {
// Wrapped the entire method with Future, but is that the correct approach?
def inRange(range: GpsRange): Future[List[UserId]] = Future {
require(count >= 0, "The offset must be a positive integer.")
val retrieveUsers: Future[List[UserId]] = depA.inRange(range)
// Now I get Future[Future[List[UserId]]] error in the compiler.
for (
userIds <- retrieveUsers
homes <- depB.homesForUsers(userIds)
) yield FilterUsers.withoutHomes(userIds, homes)
}
}
Any tips, feedback, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I'm just getting started with Futures and still having a tough time wrapping my head around many concepts.
Thanks a bunch!

Just remove the outer Future {...} wrapper. It's not necessary. There's no good reason for the require call to go inside the Future. It's actually better outside since then it will report immediately (in the same thread) to the caller that the argument is invalid.
By the way, the original code is wrong too. The Future.failed(...) is created but not returned. So essentially it didn't do anything.

Related

Filtering a collection of IO's: List[IO[Page]] scala

I am refactoring a scala http4s application to remove some pesky side effects causing my app to block. I'm replacing .unsafeRunSync with cats.effect.IO. The problem is as follows:
I have 2 lists: alreadyAccessible: IO[List[Page]] and pages: List[Page]
I need to filter out the pages that are not contained in alreadyAccessible.
Then map over the resulting list to "grant Access" in the database to these pages. (e.g. call another method that hits the database and returns an IO[Page].
val addable: List[Page] = pages.filter(p => !alreadyAccessible.contains(p))
val added: List[Page] = addable.map((p: Page) => {
pageModel.grantAccess(roleLst.head.id, p.id) match {
case Right(p) => p
}
})
This is close to what I want; However, it does not work because filter requires a function that returns a Boolean but alreadyAccessible is of type IO[List[Page]] which precludes you from removing anything from the IO monad. I understand you can't remove data from the IO so maybe transform it:
val added: List[IO[Page]] = for(page <- pages) {
val granted = alreadyAccessible.flatMap((aa: List[Page]) => {
if (!aa.contains(page))
pageModel.grantAccess(roleLst.head.id, page.id) match { case Right(p) => p }
else null
})
} yield granted
this unfortunately does not work with the following error:
Error:(62, 7) ';' expected but 'yield' found.
} yield granted
I think because I am somehow mistreating the for comprehension syntax, I just don't understand why I cannot do what I'm doing.
I know there must be a straight forward solution to such a problem, so any input or advice is greatly appreciates. Thank you for your time in reading this!
granted is going to be an IO[List[Page]]. There's no particular point in having IO inside anything else unless you truly are going to treat the actions like values and reorder them/filter them etc.
val granted: IO[List[Page]] = for {
How do you compute it? Well, the first step is to execute alreadyAccessible to get the actual list. In fact, alreadyAccessible is misnamed. It is not the list of accessible pages; it is an action that gets the list of accessible pages. I would recommend you rename it getAlreadyAccessible.
alreadyAccessible <- getAlreadyAccessible
Then you filter pages with it
val required = pages.filterNot(alreadyAccessible.contains)
Now, I cannot decipher what you're doing to these pages. I'm just going to assume you have some kind of function grantAccess: Page => IO[Page]. If you map this function over required, you will get a List[IO[Page]], which is not desirable. Instead, we should traverse with grantAccess, which will produce a IO[List[Page]] that executes each IO[Page] and then assembles all the results into a List[Page].
granted <- required.traverse(grantAccess)
And we're done
} yield granted

Creating Seq after waiting for all results from map/foreach in Scala

I am trying to loop over inputs and process them to produce scores.
Just for the first input, I want to do some processing that takes a while.
The function ends up returning just the values from the 'else' part. The 'if' part is done executing after the function returns the value.
I am new to Scala and understand the behavior but not sure how to fix it.
I've tried inputs.zipWithIndex.map instead of foreach but the result is the same.
def getscores(
inputs: inputs
): Future[Seq[scoreInfo]] = {
var scores: Seq[scoreInfo] = Seq()
inputs.zipWithIndex.foreach {
case (f, i) => {
if (i == 0) {
// long operation that returns Future[Option[scoreInfo]]
getgeoscore(f).foreach(gso => {
gso.foreach(score => {
scores = scores.:+(score)
})
})
} else {
scores = scores.:+(
scoreInfo(
id = "",
score = 5
)
)
}
}
}
Future {
scores
}
}
For what you need, I would drop the mutable variable and replace foreach with map to obtain an immutable list of Futures and recover to handle exceptions, followed by a sequence like below:
def getScores(inputs: Inputs): Future[List[ScoreInfo]] = Future.sequence(
inputs.zipWithIndex.map{ case (input, idx) =>
if (idx == 0)
getGeoScore(input).map(_.getOrElse(defaultScore)).recover{ case e => errorHandling(e) }
else
Future.successful(ScoreInfo("", 5))
})
To capture/print the result, one way is to use onComplete:
getScores(inputs).onComplete(println)
The part your missing is understanding a tricky element of concurrency, and that is that the order of execution when using multiple futures is not guaranteed.
If your block here is long running, it will take a while before appending the score to scores
// long operation that returns Future[Option[scoreInfo]]
getgeoscore(f).foreach(gso => {
gso.foreach(score => {
// stick a println("here") in here to see what happens, for demonstration purposes only
scores = scores.:+(score)
})
})
Since that executes concurrently, your getscores function will also simultaneously continue its work iterating over the rest of inputs in your zipWithindex. This iteration, especially since it's trivial work, likely finishes well before the long-running getgeoscore(f) completes the execution of the Future it scheduled, and the code will exit the function, moving on to whatever code is next after you called getscores
val futureScores: Future[Seq[scoreInfo]] = getScores(inputs)
futureScores.onComplete{
case Success(scoreInfoSeq) => println(s"Here's the scores: ${scoreInfoSeq.mkString(",")}"
}
//a this point the call to getgeoscore(f) could still be running and finish later, but you will never know
doSomeOtherWork()
Now to clean this up, since you can run a zipWithIndex on your inputs parameter, I assume you mean it's something like a inputs:Seq[Input]. If all you want to do is operate on the first input, then use the head function to only retrieve the first option, so getgeoscores(inputs.head) , you don't need the rest of the code you have there.
Also, as a note, if using Scala, get out of the habit of using mutable vars, especially if you're working with concurrency. Scala is built around supporting immutability, so if you find yourself wanting to use a var , try using a val and look up how to work with the Scala's collection library to make it work.
In general, that is when you have several concurrent futures, I would say Leo's answer describes the right way to do it. However, you want only the first element transformed by a long running operation. So you can use the future return by the respective function and append the other elements when the long running call returns by mapping the future result:
def getscores(inputs: Inputs): Future[Seq[ScoreInfo]] =
getgeoscore(inputs.head)
.map { optInfo =>
optInfo ++ inputs.tail.map(_ => scoreInfo(id = "", score = 5))
}
So you neither need zipWithIndex nor do you need an additional future or join the results of several futures with sequence. Mapping the future just gives you a new future with the result transformed by the function passed to .map().

Recursion in scala wont stop

I have a method which helps me to solve a knight's tour. I want my recursion to stop as soon as I have found a solution however It keeps going on and on.
At the end it returns nearly 20 different solutions. I have added my code below, Can Someone please point out what is wrong here?
def myRecursion(dimension: Int, solution: Solution) : Option[Solution] = {
if ( dimension * dimension == solution.size) {
println("Stop it now")
Some(solution)
} else {
val movesAvailable = possibleMoves(dimension, solution, solution.head)
val bestm = bestMoves(movesAvailable)
if ( bestm.isDefined ) {
myRecursion(dimension, bestm.get ::: solution)
} else {
movesAvailable.foreach{ x =>
if(myRecursion(dimension, x:: solution).isDefined){
x::solution;
}
}
None
}
}
}
movesAvailable.foreach{ x =>
if(myRecursion(dimension, x:: solution).isDefined){
x::solution;
}
}
None
Thats probably your issue. You're calling your function recursively in a loop, but you don't actually exit the loop if its successful. You could probably switch that around to a takeWhile that keeps going while myRecursions returns None.
Also, that chunk of code isn't doing anything right now - You've got an if statement that evaluates to something, but then you return None no matter what.

How to indiciate a failure for a function with a void result

I have a function in scala which has no return-value (so unit). This function can sometimes fail (if the user provided parameters are not valid). If I were on java, I would simply throw an exception. But on scala (although the same thing is possible), it is suggested to not use exceptions.
I perfectly know how to use Option or Try, but they all only make sense if you have something valid to return.
For example, think of a (imaginary) addPrintJob(printJob: printJob): Unit command which adds a print job to a printer. The job definition could now be invalid and the user should be notified of this.
I see the following two alternatives:
Use exceptions anyway
Return something from the method (like a "print job identifier") and then return a Option/Either/Try of that type. But this means adding a return value just for the sake of error handling.
What are the best practices here?
You are too deep into FP :-)
You want to know whether the method is successful or not - return a Boolean!
According to this Throwing exceptions in Scala, what is the "official rule" Throwing exceptions in scala is not advised as because it breaks the control flow. In my opinion you should throw an exception in scala only when something significant has gone wrong and normal flow should not be continued.
For all other cases it generally better to return the status/result of the operation that was performed. scala Option and Either serve this purpose. imho A function which does not return any value is a bad practice.
For the given example of the addPrintJob I would return an job identifier (as suggested by #marstran in comments), if this is not possible the status of addPrintJob.
The problem is that usually when you have to model things for a specific method it is not about having success or failure ( true or false ) or ( 0 or 1 - Unit exit codes wise ) or ( 0 or 1 - true or false interpolation wise ) , but about returning status info and a msg , thus the most simplest technique I use ( whenever code review naysayers/dickheads/besserwissers are not around ) is that
val msg = "unknown error has occurred during ..."
val ret = 1 // defined in the beginning of the method, means "unknown error"
.... // action
ret = 0 // when you finally succeeded to implement FULLY what THIS method was supposed to to
msg = "" // you could say something like ok , but usually end-users are not interested in your ok msgs , they want the stuff to work ...
at the end always return a tuple
return ( ret , msg )
or if you have a data as well ( lets say a spark data frame )
return ( ret , msg , Some(df))
Using return is more obvious, although not required ( for the purists ) ...
Now because ret is just a stupid int, you could quickly turn more complex status codes into more complex Enums , objects or whatnot , but the point is that you should not introduce more complexity than it is needed into your code in the beginning , let it grow organically ...
and of course the caller would call like
( ret , msg , mayBeDf ) = myFancyFunc(someparam, etc)
Thus exceptions would mean truly error situations and you will avoid messy try catch jungles ...
I know this answer WILL GET down-voted , because well there are too much guys from universities with however bright resumes writing whatever brilliant algos and stuff ending-up into the spagetti code we all are sick of and not something as simple as possible but not simpler and of course something that WORKS.
BUT, if you need only ok/nok control flow and chaining, here is bit more elaborated ok,nok example, which does really throw exception, which of course you would have to trap on an upper level , which works for spark:
/**
* a not so fancy way of failing asap, on first failing link in the control chain
* #return true if valid, false if not
*/
def isValid(): Boolean = {
val lst = List(
isValidForEmptyDF() _,
isValidForFoo() _,
isValidForBar() _
)
!lst.exists(!_()) // and fail asap ...
}
def isValidForEmptyDF()(): Boolean = {
val specsAreMatched: Boolean = true
try {
if (df.rdd.isEmpty) {
msg = "the file: " + uri + " is empty"
!specsAreMatched
} else {
specsAreMatched
}
} catch {
case jle: java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException => {
msg = msg + jle.getMessage
return false
}
case e: Exception => {
msg = msg + e.getMessage()
return false
}
}
}
Disclaimer: my colleague helped me with the fancy functions syntax ...

How does the following Java "continue" code translate to Scala?

for (String stock : allStocks) {
Quote quote = getQuote(...);
if (null == quoteLast) {
continue;
}
Price price = quote.getPrice();
if (null == price) {
continue;
}
}
I don't necessarily need a line by line translation, but I'm looking for the "Scala way" to handle this type of problem.
You don't need continue or breakable or anything like that in cases like this: Options and for comprehensions do the trick very nicely,
val stocksWithPrices =
for {
stock <- allStocks
quote <- Option(getQuote(...))
price <- Option(quote.getPrice())
} yield (stock, quote, price);
Generally you try to avoid those situations to begin with by filtering before you even start:
val goodStocks = allStocks.view.
map(stock => (stock, stock.getQuote)).filter(_._2 != null).
map { case (stock, quote) => (stock,quote, quote.getPrice) }.filter(_._3 != null)
(this example showing how you'd carry along partial results if you need them). I've used a view so that results will be computed as-needed, instead of creating a bunch of new collections at each step.
Actually, you'd probably have the quotes and such return options--look around on StackOverflow for examples of how to use those instead of null return values.
But, anyway, if that sort of thing doesn't work so well (e.g. because you are generating too many intermediate results that you need to keep, or you are relying on updating mutable variables and you want to keep the evaluation pattern simple so you know what's happening when) and you can't conceive of the problem in a different, possibly more robust way, then you can
import scala.util.control.Breaks._
for (stock <- allStocks) {
breakable {
val quote = getQuote(...)
if (quoteLast eq null) break;
...
}
}
The breakable construct specifies where breaks should take you to. If you put breakable outside a for loop, it works like a standard Java-style break. If you put it inside, it acts like continue.
Of course, if you have a very small number of conditions, you don't need the continue at all; just use the else of the if-statement.
Your control structure here can be mapped very idiomatically into the following for loop, and your code demonstrates the kind of filtering that Scala's for loop was designed for.
for {stock <- allStocks.view
quote = getQuote(...)
if quoteLast != null
price = quote.getPrice
if null != price
}{
// whatever comes after all of the null tests
}
By the way, Scala will automatically desugar this into the code from Rex Kerr's solution
val goodStocks = allStocks.view.
map(stock => (stock, stock.getQuote)).filter(_._2 != null).
map { case (stock, quote) => (stock,quote, quote.getPrice) }.filter(_._3 != null)
This solution probably doesn't work in general for all different kinds of more complex flows that might use continue, but it does address a lot of common ones.
If the focus is really on the continue and not on the null handling, just define an inner method (the null handling part is a different idiom in scala):
def handleStock(stock: String): Unit {
val quote = getQuote(...)
if (null == quoteLast) {
return
}
val price = quote.getPrice();
if (null == price) {
return
}
}
for (stock <- allStocks) {
handleStock(stock)
}
The simplest way is to embed the skipped-over code in an if with reversed-sense to what you have.
See http://www.scala-lang.org/node/257