== for case class and "non-case" class in Scala - scala

I am studying Scala and ran into the following puzzle.
I can define the following case classes:
abstract class Expr
case class Number(n: Int) extends Expr
When I create two instances from the class Number and compare them
val x1 = Number(1)
val x2 = Number(1)
x1 == x2
I have the following result:
x1: Number = Number(1)
x2: Number = Number(1)
res0: Boolean = true
So x1 and x2 are the same.
However, if I drop the case modifier in the Number class definition, i.e.
abstract class Expr
class Number(n: Int) extends Expr
and then compare two instances from the Number class in the same way
val x1 = new Number(1)
val x2 = new Number(1)
x1 == x2
I have the following output:
x1: Number = Number#1175e2db
x2: Number = Number#61064425
res0: Boolean = false
It says that this time x1 and x2 are different.
Could you tell me why is this? What difference does case make in terms of comparing two instances?
Thanks,
Pan

When you define a case class in Scala, the compiler generates an equals method which checks for deep equality (i.e., the contents of the class).
From: http://www.scala-lang.org/old/node/107
For every case class the Scala compiler generates equals method which implements structural equality and a toString method.
When you drop the case keyword, you generate regular classes, and doing an == on them checks for reference (shallow) equality. Since you're comparing two unique instances of the class, they fail reference equality even though their contents are the same.
For difference between shallow and deep equality, see:
What is the difference between being shallowly and deeply equal? How is this applied to caching?

Related

how to normalize a `scala.reflect.api.Types.Type`

How to implement the function normalize(type: Type): Type such that:
A =:= B if and only if normalize(A) == normalize(B) and normalize(A).hashCode == normalize(B).hashCode.
In other words, normalize must return equal results for all equivalent Type instances; and not equal nor equivalent results for all pair of non equivalent inputs.
There is a deprecated method called normalize in the TypeApi, but it does not the same.
In my particular case I only need to normalize types that represent a class or a trait (tpe.typeSymbol.isClass == true).
Edit 1: The fist comment suggests that such a function might not be possible to implement in general. But perhaps it is possible if we add another constraint:
B is obtained by navigating from A.
In the next example fooType would be A, and nextAppliedType would be B:
import scala.reflect.runtime.universe._
sealed trait Foo[V]
case class FooImpl[V](next: Foo[V]) extends Foo[V]
scala> val fooType = typeOf[Foo[Int]]
val fooType: reflect.runtime.universe.Type = Foo[Int]
scala> val nextType = fooType.typeSymbol.asClass.knownDirectSubclasses.iterator.next().asClass.primaryConstructor.typeSignature.paramLists(0)(0).typeSignature
val nextType: reflect.runtime.universe.Type = Foo[V]
scala> val nextAppliedType = appliedType(nextType.typeConstructor, fooType.typeArgs)
val nextAppliedType: reflect.runtime.universe.Type = Foo[Int]
scala> println(fooType =:= nextAppliedType)
true
scala> println(fooType == nextAppliedType)
false
Inspecting the Type instances with showRaw shows why they are not equal (at least when Foo and FooImpl are members of an object, in this example, the jsfacile.test.RecursionTest object):
scala> showRaw(fooType)
val res2: String = TypeRef(SingleType(SingleType(SingleType(ThisType(<root>), jsfacile), jsfacile.test), jsfacile.test.RecursionTest), jsfacile.test.RecursionTest.Foo, List(TypeRef(ThisType(scala), scala.Int, List())))
scala> showRaw(nextAppliedType)
val res3: String = TypeRef(ThisType(jsfacile.test.RecursionTest), jsfacile.test.RecursionTest.Foo, List(TypeRef(ThisType(scala), scala.Int, List())))
The reason I need this is difficult to explain. Let's try:
I am developing this JSON library which works fine except when there is a recursive type reference. For example:
sealed trait Foo[V]
case class FooImpl[V](next: Foo[V]) extends Foo[V]
That happens because the parser/appender it uses to parse and format are type classes that are materialized by an implicit macro. And when an implicit parameter is recursive the compiler complains with a divergence error.
I tried to solve that using by-name implicit parameter but it not only didn't solve the recursion problem, but also makes many non recursive algebraic data type to fail.
So, now I am trying to solve this problem by storing the resolved materializations in a map, which also would improve the compilation speed. And that map key is of type Type. So I need to normalize the Type instances, not only to be usable as key of a map, but also to equalize the values generated from them.
If I understood you well, any equivalence class would be fine. There is no preference.
I suspect you didn't. At least "any equivalence class would be fine", "There is no preference" do not sound good. I'll try to elaborate.
In math there is such construction as factorization. If you have a set A and equivalence relation ~ on this set (relation means that for any pair of elements from A we know whether they are related a1 ~ a2 or not, equivalence means symmetricity a1 ~ a2 => a2 ~ a1, reflexivity a ~ a, transitivity a1 ~ a2, a2 ~ a3 => a1 ~ a3) then you can consider the factor-set A/~ whose elements are all equivalence classes A/~ = { [a] | a ∈ A} (the equivalence class
[a] = {b ∈ A | b ~ a}
of an element a is a set consisting of all elements equivalent (i.e. ~-related) to a).
The axiom of choice says that there is a map (function) from A/~ to A i.e. we can select a representative in every equivalence class and in such way form a subset of A (this is true if we accept the axiom of choice, if we don't then it's not clear whether we get a set in such way). But even if we accept the axiom of choice and therefore there is a function A/~ -> A this doesn't mean we can construct such function.
Simple example. Let's consider the set of all real numbers R and the following equivalence relation: two real numbers are equivalent r1 ~ r2 if their difference is a rational number
r2 - r1 = p/q ∈ Q
(p, q≠0 are arbitrary integers). This is an equivalence relation. So it's known that there is a function selecting a single real number from any equivalence class but how to define this function explicitly for a specific input? For example what is the output of this function for the input being the equivalence class of 0 or 1 or π or e or √2 or log 2...?
Similarly, =:= is an equivalence relation on types, so it's known that there is a function normalize (maybe there are even many such functions) selecting a representative in every equivalence class but how to prefer a specific one (how to define or construct the output explicitly for any specific input)?
Regarding your struggle against implicit divergence. It's not necessary that you've selected the best possible approach. Sounds like you're doing some compiler work manually. How do other json libraries solve the issue? For example Circe? Besides by-name implicits => there is also shapeless.Lazy / shapeless.Strict (not equivalent to by-name implicits). If you have specific question about deriving type classes, overcoming implicit divergence maybe you should start a different question about that?
Regarding your approach with HashMap with Type keys. I'm still reminding that we're not supposed to rely on == for Types, correct comparison is =:=. So you should build your HashMap using =:= rather than ==. Search at SO for something like: hashmap custom equals.
Actually I guess your normalize sounds like you want some caching. You should have a type cache. Then if you asked to calculate normalize(typ) you should check whether in the cache there is already a t such that t =:= typ. If so you should return t, otherwise you should add typ to the cache and return typ.
This satisfies your requirement: A =:= B if and only if normalize(A) == normalize(B) (normalize(A).hashCode == normalize(B).hashCode should follow from normalize(A) == normalize(B)).
Regarding transformation of fooType into nextAppliedType try
def normalize(typ: Type): Type = typ match {
case TypeRef(pre, sym, args) =>
internal.typeRef(internal.thisType(pre.typeSymbol), sym, args)
}
Then normalize(fooType) == nextAppliedType should be true.

Achieving compile safe indexing with Shapeless

Problem: Let val v = List(0.5, 1.2, 0.3) model a realisation of some vector v = (v_1, v_2, v_3). The index j in v_j is implied by the element's position in the list. A lot of boilerplate and bugs have been due to tracking these indices, eg, when creating modified lists from the original. (How to make sure (in compile-time) that collection wasn't reordered? seems related.)
General question: What could be a good way to ensure correct indexing at compile time? (I assume that performance is not essential.)
My plan is to use subclasses of Nat in shapeless to model the indices as (explicit) types. The current solution is
import shapeless._
import Nat._
trait Elem[+A, +N<:Nat]{
val v: A
val ind: N}
case class DecElem[N<:Nat](v: BigDecimal, ind: N) extends Elem[BigDecimal, N]
object Decimals {
type One = DecElem[ _0]:: HNil
type Two = DecElem[ _0]:: DecElem[_1] :: HNil
//...
}
case class Scalar(v: Decimals.One)
case class VecTwo(v: Decimals.Two)
This, however, gets tedious in larger dimensions.
Another question is how to approach the generic case in trait Elem[+A, +N<:Nat]. As a start, I defined case class ElemVector[A, M<:Nat](vs: Sized[List[Elem[A, Nat]], M]), which loses the specific index type in Elem. What might be a strategy to circumvent this difficulty?
(Note: A better design may be to wrap List[A] by attaching explicit indices and deal with wrapper class. This, however, does not essentially change the question.)
UPDATE Here's is a trivial illustration of accidental swapping of vector elements.
import shapeless.Nat._
import shapeless.{Sized, nat}
type VectorTwo = Sized[IndexedSeq[Double], nat._2]
val f = (p: VectorTwo, x: Double) => {
val V = p(_0)
val K = p(_1)
V * x/(K + x)
}
val V : Double = 500
val K : Double = 1
val correct: VectorTwo = Sized(V, K)
val wrong: VectorTwo = Sized(K, V) //Compiles!
f(correct, 10) // = 454.54
f(wrong, 10) // = 0.02
I'd like to enlist the compiler to prevent such errors in vectors with many elements, and wonder if there could be an elegant solution with Shapeless.

Define equality/ordering implicitly for collections

Is it possible to define my own notion of equality or ordering for the collections in Scala? Overriding equals and hashCode doesn't work in this case because I'd like to have more than one instance.
Here is roughly what I had in mind: (ignore the invalidity of this code)
implicit val customEq1(x: Int, y: Int) = x % 8 == y % 8
val customEq2(x: Int, y: Int) = x.toString == y.toString.take(2)
val union = Set(1,15,3).union(Set(3,7,8)) // => Set(1,3,8)
I'd imagine equality/ordering being a typeclass, but the functions like e.g. diff, union, intersect don't seem to offer any such functionality.
If you have multiple different implementations for comparison, you can create a class for each with the appropriate overrides, then coerce the type of the set with implicit conversion, something like this:
class MyCompInt { overrides... }
val union = Set[MyCompInt](1, 15, 3).union(...)

How to avoid lazy vals when using cross dependent traits in cake pattern without additional traits

Suppose we have
scala> trait A { val y: Int; val x = 1; val y2 = y + 1 }
scala> trait B { val y: Int = 1; val x: Int; val x2 = x + 1 }
scala> class C extends A with B
Then both y2 and x2 should end up with value 2 in C. Now if we mixin A then B then y2 has value 1 since the value of y is the default 0. Similarly x2 will have value 1 if we mixin B then A. Furthermore if these things where Objects rather than Ints then we could end up with a NullPointerException.
What I want, in an ideal world, is the initialisation to NOT be lazy, but the order of initialisation to be automagically implied by the dependency graph of the values. I.e. a way of telling the compiler to reshuffle initialisation order rather than using default values. Moreover I do NOT want to refactor the traits into smaller traits and then work out the correct mixin order myself (in a huge project when sometimes I have to mixin 5 traits, this is painful to work out).
UPDATE: To put it another way ... when we mixin traits we imagine overlaying the traits on top of each other, but it doesn't really work like this when it comes to vals ... how to make it work like this
UPDATE: If it really isn't possible, I'd be happy if someone could share a link to any already existing feature request tickets for typesafe along the lines of adding a keyword to scala called "overlay" which could be used along the lines of:
scala> class C overlay A overlay B
You can't. Traits are initialized in the order they're given and that's what it has to be - anything else would be impossible to reason about, it's more important that the initialization order is predictable than that it is optimal. Your only choices are to use lazy (or to use def rather than val), or not to use traits for this.

Curried update method

I'm trying to have curried apply and update methods like this:
def apply(i: Int)(j: Int) = matrix(i)(j)
def update(i: Int, j: Int, value: Int) =
new Matrix(n, m, (x, y) => if ((i,j) == (x,y)) value else matrix(x)(y))
Apply method works correctly, but update method complains:
scala> matrix(2)(1) = 1
<console>:16: error: missing arguments for method apply in class Matrix;
follow this method with `_' if you want to treat it as a partially applied function
matrix(2)(1) = 1
Calling directly update(2)(1)(1) works, so it is a conversion to update method that doesn't work properly. Where is my mistake?
The desugaring of assignment syntax into invocations of update maps the concatenation of a single argument list on the LHS of the assignment with the value on the RHS of the assignment to the first parameter block of the update method definition, irrespective of how many other parameter blocks the update method definition has. Whilst this transformation in a sense splits a single parameter block into two (one on the LHS, one on the RHS of the assignment), it will not further split the left parameter block in the way that you want.
I also think you're mistaken about the example of the explicit invocation of update that you show. This doesn't compile with the definition of update that you've given,
scala> class Matrix { def update(i: Int, j: Int, value: Int) = (i, j, value) }
defined class Matrix
scala> val m = new Matrix
m: Matrix = Matrix#37176bc4
scala> m.update(1)(2)(3)
<console>:10: error: not enough arguments for method update: (i: Int, j: Int, value: Int)(Int, Int, Int).
Unspecified value parameters j, value.
m.update(1)(2)(3)
^
I suspect that during your experimentation you actually defined update like so,
scala> class Matrix { def update(i: Int)(j: Int)(value: Int) = (i, j, value) }
defined class Matrix
The update desugaring does apply to this definition, but probably not in the way that you expect: as described above, it only applies to the first argument list, which leads to constructs like,
scala> val m = new Matrix
m: Matrix = Matrix#39741f43
scala> (m() = 1)(2)(3)
res0: (Int, Int, Int) = (1,2,3)
Here the initial one-place parameter block is split to an empty parameter block on the LHS of the assignment (ie. the ()) and a one argument parameter block on the RHS (ie. the 1). The remainder of the parameter blocks from the original definition then follow.
If you're surprised by this behaviour you won't be the first.
The syntax you're after is achievable via a slightly different route,
scala> class Matrix {
| class MatrixAux(i : Int) {
| def apply(j : Int) = 23
| def update(j: Int, value: Int) = (i, j, value)
| }
|
| def apply(i: Int) = new MatrixAux(i)
| }
defined class Matrix
scala> val m = new Matrix
m: Matrix = Matrix#3af30087
scala> m(1)(2) // invokes MatrixAux.apply
res0: Int = 23
scala> m(1)(2) = 3 // invokes MatrixAux.update
res1: (Int, Int, Int) = (1,2,3)
My guess is, that it is simply not supported. Probably not due to an explicit design decision, because I don't see why it shouldn't work in principle.
The translation concerned with apply, i.e., the one performed when converting m(i)(j) into m.apply(i, j) seems to be able to cope with currying. Run scala -print on your program to see the code resulting from the translation.
The translation concerned with update, on the other hand, doesn't seem to be able to cope with currying. Since the error message is missing arguments for method apply, it even looks as if the currying confuses the translator such that it tries to translate m(i)(j) = v into m.apply, but then screws up the number of required arguments. scala -print unfortunately won't help here, because the type checker terminates the translation too early.
Here is what the language specs (Scala 2.9, "6.15 Assignments") say about assignments. Since currying is not mentioned, I assume that it is not explicitly supported. I couldn't find the corresponding paragraph for apply, but I guess it is purely coincidental that currying works there.
An assignment f(args) = e with a function application to the left of
the ‘=’ operator is interpreted as f.update(args, e), i.e. the
invocation of an update function defined by f.