Resolving Effects and Maybes - purescript

spec = describe "Router" $ do
let sampleRoutes = [( Tuple "/" "views/index.yaml" ),
( Tuple "/foo" "views/foo.yaml" ),
( Tuple "/bar" "views/bar.yaml" )]
it "should default to the first of the list" $ do
r <- fst <$> head sampleRoutes
fprint r
The above throws the following error:
Error in declaration spec
Cannot unify Data.Maybe.Maybe with Control.Monad.Eff.Eff u4505.
I believe its because it is expect a second argument that is of type Eff, but because of
the use of Maybe introduced by head the second arguments ends up being of type Maybe instead.
it :: forall e a. String -> Eff e a -> Eff (it :: It | e) Unit
The problem is, I have no idea how to resolve this. Can I not have a Maybe instead an effectful block of code?

Maybe can be used in a do block, but all of the actions in the block have to be of type Maybe a for some a.
The same is true for Eff eff - you can use Eff eff with do, but all actions have to be of type Eff eff a for some a.
You can't mix and match the two types of effects within a do block.
It looks like you want to use a value of type Maybe a inside a do block whose monad is Eff eff. You have a couple of options:
Use Data.Array.Unsafe.head which will give you an unwrapped Tuple, which you can call fst on directly.
Pattern match on the Maybe value to decide the course of action in the Eff monad:
it "should default to the first of the list" $ do
case head sampleRoutes of
Nothing -> ... -- Handle empty array
Just tuple -> fprint (fst tuple) -- Print the first component
.. rest of do block ..

In this example, it's also possible to make use of traverse_ from Data.Foldable.
Since you're working with a Maybe (Tuple String String), Maybe has a Foldable instance, and Eff e has an applicative instance, you can use traverse_ rather than (<$>).
You just need to supply a function Tuple String String -> Eff e a for some a. If you compose fst and fprint, you get exactly that.
Your example becomes
spec = describe "Router" $ do
let sampleRoutes = [( Tuple "/" "views/index.yaml" ),
( Tuple "/foo" "views/foo.yaml" ),
( Tuple "/bar" "views/bar.yaml" )]
it "should default to the first of the list" $
traverse_ (fst >>> fprint) $ head sampleRoutes

Related

Similar record types in a list/array in purescript

Is there any way to do something like
first = {x:0}
second = {x:1,y:1}
both = [first, second]
such that both is inferred as {x::Int | r} or something like that?
I've tried a few things:
[{x:3}] :: Array(forall r. {x::Int|r}) -- nope
test = Nil :: List(forall r. {x::Int|r})
{x:1} : test -- nope
type X r = {x::Int | r}
test = Nil :: List(X) -- nope
test = Nil :: List(X())
{x:1} : test
{x:1, y:1} : test -- nope
Everything I can think of seems to tell me that combining records like this into a collection is not supported. Kind of like, a function can be polymorphic but a list cannot. Is that the correct interpretation? It reminds me a bit of the F# "value restriction" problem, though I thought that was just because of CLR restrictions whereas JS should not have that issue. But maybe it's unrelated.
Is there any way to declare the list/array to support this?
What you're looking for is "existential types", and PureScript just doesn't support those at the syntax level the way Haskell does. But you can roll your own :-)
One way to go is "data abstraction" - i.e. encode the data in terms of operations you'll want to perform on it. For example, let's say you'll want to get the value of x out of them at some point. In that case, make an array of these:
type RecordRep = Unit -> Int
toRecordRep :: forall r. { x :: Int | r } -> RecordRep
toRecordRep {x} _ = x
-- Construct the array using `toRecordRep`
test :: Array RecordRep
test = [ toRecordRep {x:1}, toRecordRep {x:1, y:1} ]
-- Later use the operation
allTheXs :: Array Int
allTheXs = test <#> \r -> r unit
If you have multiple such operations, you can always make a record of them:
type RecordRep =
{ getX :: Unit -> Int
, show :: Unit -> String
, toJavaScript :: Unit -> Foreign.Object
}
toRecordRep r =
{ getX: const r.x
, show: const $ show r.x
, toJavaScript: const $ unsafeCoerce r
}
(note the Unit arguments in every function - they're there for the laziness, assuming each operation could be expensive)
But if you really need the type machinery, you can do what I call "poor man's existential type". If you look closely, existential types are nothing more than "deferred" type checks - deferred to the point where you'll need to see the type. And what's a mechanism to defer something in an ML language? That's right - a function! :-)
newtype RecordRep = RecordRep (forall a. (forall r. {x::Int|r} -> a) -> a)
toRecordRep :: forall r. {x::Int|r} -> RecordRep
toRecordRep r = RecordRep \f -> f r
test :: Array RecordRep
test = [toRecordRep {x:1}, toRecordRep {x:1, y:1}]
allTheXs = test <#> \(RecordRep r) -> r _.x
The way this works is that RecordRep wraps a function, which takes another function, which is polymorphic in r - that is, if you're looking at a RecordRep, you must be prepared to give it a function that can work with any r. toRecordRep wraps the record in such a way that its precise type is not visible on the outside, but it will be used to instantiate the generic function, which you will eventually provide. In my example such function is _.x.
Note, however, that herein lies the problem: the row r is literally not known when you get to work with an element of the array, so you can't do anything with it. Like, at all. All you can do is get the x field, because its existence is hardcoded in the signatures, but besides the x - you just don't know. And that's by design: if you want to put anything into the array, you must be prepared to get anything out of it.
Now, if you do want to do something with the values after all, you'll have to explain that by constraining r, for example:
newtype RecordRep = RecordRep (forall a. (forall r. Show {x::Int|r} => {x::Int|r} -> a) -> a)
toRecordRep :: forall r. Show {x::Int|r} => {x::Int|r} -> RecordRep
toRecordRep r = RecordRep \f -> f r
test :: Array RecordRep
test = [toRecordRep {x:1}, toRecordRep {x:1, y:1}]
showAll = test <#> \(RecordRep r) -> r show
Passing the show function like this works, because we have constrained the row r in such a way that Show {x::Int|r} must exist, and therefore, applying show to {x::Int|r} must work. Repeat for your own type classes as needed.
And here's the interesting part: since type classes are implemented as dictionaries of functions, the two options described above are actually equivalent - in both cases you end up passing around a dictionary of functions, only in the first case it's explicit, but in the second case the compiler does it for you.
Incidentally, this is how Haskell language support for this works as well.
Folloing #FyodorSoikin answer based on "existential types" and what we can find in purescript-exists we can provide yet another solution.
Finally we will be able to build an Array of records which will be "isomorphic" to:
exists tail. Array { x :: Int | tail }
Let's start with type constructor which can be used to existentially quantify over a row type (type of kind #Type). We are not able to use Exists from purescript-exists here because PureScript has no kind polymorphism and original Exists is parameterized over Type.
newtype Exists f = Exists (forall a. f (a :: #Type))
We can follow and reimplement (<Ctrl-c><Ctrl-v> ;-)) definitions from Data.Exists and build a set of tools to work with such Exists values:
module Main where
import Prelude
import Unsafe.Coerce (unsafeCoerce)
import Data.Newtype (class Newtype, unwrap)
newtype Exists f = Exists (forall a. f (a :: #Type))
mkExists :: forall f a. f a -> Exists f
mkExists r = Exists (unsafeCoerce r :: forall a. f a)
runExists :: forall b f. (forall a. f a -> b) -> Exists f -> b
runExists g (Exists f) = g f
Using them we get the ability to build an Array of Records with "any" tail but we have to wrap any such a record type in a newtype before:
newtype R t = R { x :: Int | t }
derive instance newtypeRec :: Newtype (R t) _
Now we can build an Array using mkExists:
arr :: Array (Exists R)
arr = [ mkExists (R { x: 8, y : "test"}), mkExists (R { x: 9, z: 10}) ]
and process values using runExists:
x :: Array [ Int ]
x = map (runExists (unwrap >>> _.x)) arr

How to convert partial functions to safe(Maybe) functions?

I want it to use library-defined partialfunc more convenient, or write callback with partial pattern-matching.
like this,
partialMaybe :: forall a b. (Partial => a -> b) -> a -> Maybe b
I couldn't find similar in some major libraries.
How to define it? or already defined in libs?
data ABC a = A a | B a | C a
f1 = someHigherOrderFunc $ partialMaybe \(A a) -> someFunc a -- if not 'A', return Nothing.
-- same as
f2 = someHigherOrderFunc $ case _ of A a -> Just $ someFunc a
_ -> Nothing -- requires line break, seems syntax redundant...
using: purescript 0.11.6
Edit:
I did it...
partialMaybe :: forall a b. (Partial => a -> b) -> a -> Maybe b
partialMaybe f a = runPure $ catchException (const $ pure Nothing) (Just <<< unsafePartial f <$> pure a)
this is...umm...very ugly. it's not.
'Failed pattern match' exception is thrown by the purescript.
so I think it should be able to handle by purescript.
Can't do it?
If you want an exception if a case is missed, use Partial. If you want otherwise, use Maybe or Either or another appropriate sum type.
You can catch the exception thrown from a failed pattern match. There is no way for a failed pattern match to not throw an exception.

Why doesn't Eff have an arrow for the last return value

The excellent PureScript book explains that
fullName :: forall r. Record (firstName :: String, lastName :: String | r) -> String
fullName person = person.firstName <> " " <> person.lastName
and then compares the Eff monad
import Prelude
import Control.Monad.Eff.Random (random)
import Control.Monad.Eff.Console (logShow)
main :: forall eff. Eff (console :: CONSOLE, random :: RANDOM | eff) Unit
main = do
n <- random
logShow n
My question is:
Why doesn't the signature of main contain a -> before Unit i.e.
main :: forall eff. Eff (console :: CONSOLE, random :: RANDOM | eff) -> Unit
This would make it similar to the -> String as in the signature of fullName
An excerpt from the same chapter(emphasis mine):
main is a computation with side-effects, which can be run in any
environment which supports random number generation and console IO,
and any other types of side effect, and which returns a value of type
Unit
.
One difference between both functions is that fullName has a parameter (before the ->). The function signature states that it takes some record and returns a string.
main does not take any parameters, because it is the "entry point" for an application, and it returns Eff. So main just returns one type. That type happens to have two type parameters.
Function parameters and type parameters look quite the same, but they are on different levels. Types that take parameters have a constructor and have their parameters applied to produce the actual type. It looks like function application, but on the type level! The "signature" of types is called kind... you can learn more about it, but think about it as "types of types".
Now Eff is a type that combines some effects and some "actual result". Its constructor is applied with an effect row as first parameter and the result type as second parameter. In the case of main, all it does is side-effects, so the "actual result" is Unit, which is basically nothing.
If the signature of main was:
main :: forall eff. Eff (console :: CONSOLE, random :: RANDOM | eff) -> Unit
that would imply that
Eff only takes some effect row as type parameter (which does not match the definition of Eff)
main takes that Eff as a parameter (but were would it come from?)
main returns just Unit

What does >>= mean in purescript?

I was reading the purescript wiki and found following section which explains do in terms of >>=.
What does >>= mean?
Do notation
The do keyword introduces simple syntactic sugar for monadic
expressions.
Here is an example, using the monad for the Maybe type:
maybeSum :: Maybe Number -> Maybe Number -> Maybe Number
maybeSum a b = do
n <- a
m <- b
let result = n + m
return result
maybeSum takes two
values of type Maybe Number and returns their sum if neither number is
Nothing.
When using do notation, there must be a corresponding
instance of the Monad type class for the return type. Statements can
have the following form:
a <- x which desugars to x >>= \a -> ...
x which desugars to x >>= \_ -> ... or just x if this is the last statement.
A let binding let a = x. Note the lack of the in keyword.
The example maybeSum desugars to ::
maybeSum a b =
a >>= \n ->
b >>= \m ->
let result = n + m
in return result
>>= is a function, nothing more. It resides in the Prelude module and has type (>>=) :: forall m a b. (Bind m) => m a -> (a -> m b) -> m b, being an alias for the bind function of the Bind type class. You can find the definitions of the Prelude module in this link, found in the Pursuit package index.
This is closely related to the Monad type class in Haskell, which is a bit easier to find resources. There's a famous question on SO about this concept, which is a good starting point if you're looking to improve your knowledge on the bind function (if you're starting on functional programming now, you can skip it for a while).

Defining a function a -> String, which works for types without Show?

I'd like to define a function which can "show" values of any type, with special behavior for types which actually do define a Show instance:
magicShowCast :: ?
debugShow :: a -> String
debugShow x = case magicShowCast x of
Just x' -> show x'
Nothing -> "<unprintable>"
This would be used to add more detailed information to error messages when something goes wrong:
-- needs to work on non-Showable types
assertEq :: Eq a => a -> a -> IO ()
assertEq x y = when (x /= y)
(throwIO (AssertionFailed (debugShow x) (debugShow y)))
data CanShow = CanShow1
| CanShow 2
deriving (Eq, Show)
data NoShow = NoShow1
| NoShow2
deriving (Eq)
-- AssertionFailed "CanShow1" "CanShow2"
assertEq CanShow1 CanShow2
-- AssertionFailed "<unprintable>" "<unprintable>"
assertEq NoShow1 NoShow2
Is there any way to do this? I tried using various combinations of GADTs, existential types, and template haskell, but either these aren't enough or I can't figure out how to apply them properly.
The real answer: You can't. Haskell intentionally doesn't define a generic "serialize to string" function, and being able to do so without some type class constraint would violate parametricity all over town. Dreadful, just dreadful.
If you don't see why this poses a problem, consider the following type signature:
something :: (a, a) -> b -> a
How would you implement this function? The generic type means it has to be either const . fst or const . snd, right? Hmm.
something (x,y) z = if debugShow z == debugShow y then y else x
> something ('a', 'b') ()
'a'
> something ('a', 'b') 'b'
'b'
Oooooooops! So much for being able to reason about your program in any sane way. That's it, show's over, go home, it was fun while it lasted.
The terrible, no good, unwise answer: Sure, if you don't mind shamelessly cheating. Did I mention that example above was an actual GHCi session? Ha, ha.
import Control.Exception
import Control.Monad
import GHC.Vacuum
debugShow :: a -> String
debugShow = show . nameGraph . vacuumLazy
assertEq :: Eq a => a -> a -> IO ()
assertEq x y = when (x /= y) . throwIO . AssertionFailed $
unlines ["assertEq failed:", '\t':debugShow x, "=/=", '\t':debugShow y]
data NoShow = NoShow1
| NoShow2
deriving (Eq)
> assertEq NoShow1 NoShow2
*** Exception: assertEq failed:
[("|0",["NoShow1|1"]),("NoShow1|1",[])]
=/=
[("|0",["NoShow2|1"]),("NoShow2|1",[])]
Oh. Ok. That looks like a fantastic idea, doesn't it.
Anyway, this doesn't quite give you what you want, since there's no obvious way to fall back to a proper Show instance when available. On the other hand, this lets you do a lot more than show can do, so perhaps it's a wash.
Seriously, though. Don't do this in actual, working code. Ok, error reporting, debugging, logging... that makes sense. But otherwise, it's probably very ill-advised.
I asked this question a while ago on the haskell-cafe list, and the experts said no. Here are some good responses,
http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2011-May/091744.html
http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2011-May/091746.html
The second one mentions GHC advanced overlap, but my experience was that it doesn't really work.
For your particular problem, I'd introduce a typeclass
class MaybeShow a where mshow :: a -> String
make anything that is showable do the logical thing
instance Show a => MaybeShow a where mshow = show
and then, if you have a fixed number of types which wouldn't be showable, say
instance MaybeShow NotShowableA where mshow _ = "<unprintable>"
of course you could abstract it a little,
class NotShowable a
instance NotShowable a => MaybeShow a where mshow _ = "<unprintable>"
instance NotShowable NotShowableA -- etc.
You shouldn't be able to. The simplest way to implement type classes is by having them compile into an extra parameter
foo :: Show s => a -> s
turns into
foo :: show -> a -> s
The program just passess around the type class instances (like v-tables in C++) as ordinary data. This is why you can trivially use things that look not just like multiple dispatch in OO languages, but can dispatch off the return type.
The problem is that a signature
foo :: a -> String
has no way of getting the implementation of Show that goes for a in cases when it has one.
You might be able to get something like this to work in particular implementations, with the correct language extensions (overlapping instance, etc) on, but I havent tried it
class MyShow a where
myShow :: a -> String
instance (Show a) => MyShow a where
myShow = show
instance MyShow a where
myShow = ...
one trick that might help is enable type families. It can let you write code like
instance (a' ~ a, Show a') => MyShow a
which can sometimes help you get code past the compiler that it doesn't think looks okay.