Understanding FoldLeft in ScalaZ - scala

Question

I'm reading some articles about ScalaZ and have a question about understanding it. In this article, we generalize the sum function, to abstract away the type to be summed.
def sum[T](xs: List[T])(implicit m: Monoid[T]) = //...
Where
trait Monoid[A] is defined as follows:
trait Monoid[A] {
def mappend(a1: A, a2: A): A
def mzero: A
}
Yes, this is pretty clear. Monoid here corresponds to the algebraic monoid structure. Now in this article it abstracts over lists. To do this we define the following trait:
trait FoldLeft[F[_]] {
def foldLeft[A, B](xs: F[A], b: B, f: (B, A) => B): B
}
object FoldLeft {
implicit val FoldLeftList: FoldLeft[List] = new FoldLeft[List] {
def foldLeft[A, B](xs: List[A], b: B, f: (B, A) => B) = xs.foldLeft(b)(f)
}
}
So now we can define the sum function as follows:
def sum[M[_]: FoldLeft, A: Monoid](xs: M[A]): A = {
val m = implicitly[Monoid[A]]
val fl = implicitly[FoldLeft[M]]
fl.foldLeft(xs, m.mzero, m.mappend)
}
I'm not a theory category expert, but it looks like Applicative functor to me. Is that correct? Can we provide such similarity to category theory.

Answer 1

Applicative functor is a type class with two operations: A => F[A] and F[A => B] => F[A] => F[B]. None of operations you mentioned has such signature. FoldLeft is more like Foldable. It's a different type class, a parent of Traversable (aka Traverse). And Traversable is connected with Applicative.
trait Functor[F[_]] {
def fmap[A, B](f: A => B)(fa: F[A]): F[B]
}
trait Applicative[F[_]] extends Functor[F] {
def pure[A](a: A): F[A]
def ap[A, B](ff: F[A => B])(fa: F[A]): F[B]
override def fmap[A, B](f: A => B)(fa: F[A]): F[B] = ap(pure(f))(fa)
}
trait Foldable[T[_]] {
def foldr[A, B](op: A => B => B)(seed: B)(ta: T[A]): B =
(foldMap(op)(ta) _)(seed)
def foldMap[A, M](f: A => M)(ta: T[A])(implicit monoid: Monoid[M]): M =
foldr[A, M](a => m => monoid.append(f(a), m))(monoid.empty)(ta)
}
trait Traversable[T[_]] extends Functor[T] with Foldable[T] {
def traverse[F[_]: Applicative, A, B](k: A => F[B])(ta: T[A]): F[T[B]] =
sequence[F, B](fmap[A, F[B]](k)(ta))
def sequence[F[_]: Applicative, A](tfa: T[F[A]]): F[T[A]] =
traverse[F, F[A], A](fa => fa)(tfa)
override def fmap[A, B](f: A => B)(ta: T[A]): T[B] = traverse[Id, A, B](f)(ta)
override def foldr[A, B](op: A => B => B)(seed: B)(ta: T[A]): B =
(traverse[Const[B => B]#λ, A, B](op)(ta) _)(seed)
override def foldMap[A, M: Monoid](f: A => M)(ta: T[A]): M =
traverse[Const[M]#λ, A, M](f)(ta)
}
type Id[A] = A
trait Const[C] {
type λ[A] = C
}
Type class Functor means you have a "container" F[_] and you know how to apply function f: A => B inside this container. Type class Applicative means you know how to pack a value a: A inside this container and how to apply a "function" F[A => B] to a "value" F[A]. Foldable means you know how to fold your container using binary operation A => B => B and starting value B and receiving result B. Traversable means you know how to traverse your container executing applicative effect A => F[B] in every "node".