Does this specific exercise lend itself well to a 'functional style' design pattern? - scala

Question

Say we have an array of one dimensional javascript objects contained in a file Array.json for which the key schema isn't known, that is the keys aren't known until the file is read.
Then we wish to output a CSV file with a header or first entry which is a comma delimited set of keys from all of the objects.
Each next line of the file should contain the comma separated values which correspond to each key from the file.
Array.json
[
abc:123,
xy:"yz",
s12:13,
],
...
[
abc:1
s:133,
]
A valid output:
abc,xy,s12,s
123,yz,13,
1,,,133
I'm teaching myself 'functional style' programming but I'm thinking that this problem doesn't lend itself well to a functional solution.
I believe that this problem requires some state to be kept for the output header and that subsequently each line depends on that header.
I'm looking to solve the problem in a single pass. My goals are efficiency for a large data set, minimal traversals, and if possible, parallelizability. If this isn't possible then can you give a proof or reasoning to explain why?
EDIT: Is there a way to solve the problem like this functionally?:
Say you pass through the array once, in some particular order. Then
from the start the header set looks like abc,xy,s12 for the first
object. With CSV entry 123,yz,13 . Then on the next object we add an
additional key to the header set so abc,xy,s12,s would be the header
and the CSV entry would be 1,,,133 . In the end we wouldn't need to
pass through the data set a second time. We could just append extra
commas to the result set. This is one way we could approach a single
pass....
Are there functional tools ( functions ) designed to solve problems like this, and what should I be considering? [ By functional tools I mean Monads,FlatMap, Filters, etc. ] . Alternatively, should I be considering things like Futures ?
Currently I've been trying to approach this using Java8, but am open to solutions from Scala, etc. Ideally I would be able to determine if Java8s' functional approach can solve the problem since that's the language I'm currently working in.

Answer 1

Since the csv output will change with every new line of input, you must hold that in memory before writing it out. If you consider creating an output text format from an internal representation of a csv file another "pass" over the data (the internal representation of the csv is practically a Map[String,List[String]] which you must traverse to convert it to text) then it's not possible to do this in a single pass.
If, however, this is acceptable, then you can use a Stream to read a single item from your json file, merge that into the csv file, and do this until the stream is empty.
Assuming, that the internal representation of the csv file is
trait CsvFile {
def merge(line: Map[String, String]): CsvFile
}
And you can represent a single item as
trait Item {
def asMap: Map[String, String]
}
You can implement it using foldLeft:
def toCsv(items: Stream[Item]): CsvFile =
items.foldLeft(CsvFile(Map()))((csv, item) => csv.merge(item.asMap))
or use recursion to get the same result
#tailrec def toCsv(items: Stream[Item], prevCsv: CsvFile): CsvFile =
items match {
case Stream.Empty => prevCsv
case item #:: rest =>
val newCsv = prevCsv.merge(item.asMap)
toCsv(rest, newCsv)
}
Note: Of course you don't have to create types for CsvFile or Item, you can use Map[String,List[String]] and Map[String,String] respectively
UPDATE:
As more detail was requested for the CsvFile trait/class, here's an example implementation:
case class CsvFile(lines: Map[String, List[String]], rowCount: Int = 0) {
def merge(line: Map[String, String]): CsvFile = {
val orig = lines.withDefaultValue(List.fill(rowCount)(""))
val current = line.withDefaultValue("")
val newLines = (lines.keySet ++ line.keySet) map {
k => (k, orig(k) :+ current(k))
}
CsvFile(newLines.toMap, rowCount + 1)
}
}

Answer 2

This could be one approach:
val arr = Array(Map("abc" -> 123, "xy" -> "yz", "s12" -> 13), Map("abc" -> 1, "s" -> 133))
val keys = arr.flatMap(_.keys).distinct // get the distinct keys for header
arr.map(x => keys.map(y => x.getOrElse(y,""))) // get an array of rows

Answer 3

Its completely OK to have state in functional programming. But having mutable state or mutating state is not allowed in functional programming.
Functional programming advocates creating new changed state instead of mutating the state in place.
So, its Ok to read and access state created in the program until and unless you are mutating or side effecting.
Coming to the point.
val list = List(List("abc" -> "123", "xy" -> "yz"), List("abc" -> "1"))
list.map { inner => inner.map { case (k, v) => k}}.flatten
list.map { inner => inner.map { case (k, v) => v}}.flatten
REPL
scala> val list = List(List("abc" -> "123", "xy" -> "yz"), List("abc" -> "1"))
list: List[List[(String, String)]] = List(List((abc,123), (xy,yz)), List((abc,1)))
scala> list.map { inner => inner.map { case (k, v) => k}}.flatten
res1: List[String] = List(abc, xy, abc)
scala> list.map { inner => inner.map { case (k, v) => v}}.flatten
res2: List[String] = List(123, yz, 1)
or use flatMap instead of map and flatten
val list = List(List("abc" -> "123", "xy" -> "yz"), List("abc" -> "1"))
list.flatMap { inner => inner.map { case (k, v) => k}}
list.flatMap { inner => inner.map { case (k, v) => v}}

Answer 4

In functional programming, mutable state is not allowed. But immutable states/values are fine.
Assuming that you have read your json file in to a value input:List[Map[String,String]], the codes below will solve your problem:
val input = List(Map("abc"->"123", "xy"->"yz" , "s12"->"13"), Map("abc"->"1", "s"->"33"))
val keys = input.map(_.keys).flatten.toSet
val keyvalues = input.map(kvs => keys.map(k => (k->kvs.getOrElse(k,""))).toMap)
val values = keyvalues.map(_.values)
val result = keys.mkString(",") + "\n" + values.map(_.mkString(",")).mkString("\n")