The following code fails for me:
object Message {
def parse[T](bsonDoc: BSONDocument): Try[T] = {
implicit val bsonHandler = Macros.handler[T]
bsonDoc.seeAsTry[T]
}
}
Message.parse[messages.ClientHello](data)
The error is:
No apply function found for T
implicit val bsonHandler = Macros.handler[T]
^
However, if I hardcode a type (one of my case classes), it's fine:
object Message {
def parse(bsonDoc: BSONDocument): Try[ClientHello] = {
implicit val bsonHandler = Macros.handler[ClientHello]
bsonDoc.seeAsTry[ClientHello]
}
}
Message.parse(data)
So I presume this is a problem using generics. Incidentally, I have to import messages.ClientHello. If I just use messages.ClientHello I get:
not found: value ClientHello
implicit val bsonHandler = Macros.handler[messages.ClientHello]
^
How can I achieve what I'm trying to do, which is to have a single method that will take a BSON document and return an instance of the appropriate case class?
1) Macro applications get expanded immediately when encountered (well, modulo some fine details of type inference that are irrelevant here). This means that when you write handler[T], handler will try to expand with T as a type parameter. This won't lead to anything good, hence the error. To make this work, you need to turn Message.parse into a macro itself.
2) This happens because ReactiveMongo macros are unhygienic. Specifically, https://github.com/ReactiveMongo/ReactiveMongo/blob/v0.10.0/macros/src/main/scala/macros.scala#L142 isn't going to work correctly in situations like yours, because it uses simple name of the class, not a fully qualified name. I think the best way to make the macro work correctly would be using Ident(companion), not Ident(companion.name) - that would ensure that this identifier binds to the companion, not to something in scope having the same name.
Related
So I have a class:
case class Document (idx: String, name: String, code: String)
Due to some transformations, an object which was initially created as Document, now becomes of type Any.
val doc = Document("12", "anyName", "ps") // Ends up as type Any
So I want to convert it into type Document again.
I know that can be done like this:
val docNew = doc.asInstanceOf[Document]
But, what I am trying is to pass the type, in this case Document, as a parameter to make it more generic.
So I was trying the following:
val mType = Document
val docNew = doc.asInstanceOf[mType]
But Intellij says:
Cannot resolve symbol mType
Edit: My ultimate goal is to pass the parameter Document to a function, so at the end I could do something like:
def convertIntoDoc(doc: Any, mType: Type) = {
val docNew = doc.asInstanceOf[mType]
docNew
}
If you want to learn programming with Scala you have to learn about the difference between types and values.
Due to type-erasure type parameters never actually make it into your program. In reality, types only exist to help you write good code.
If you go down this road you will eventually realise that asInstanceOf[T] does not actually do anything.
You might think this is weird and with type-erasure the type system is superfluous, but let me assure you it is perfectly useful and when it comes to more complicated code actually becomes the stepping stone to generic programming, e.g. code that can be used in many different ways due to type parametrisation.
To spin this a little further you should almost never end up with a val of type Any because you will loose this additional safety net of static typing. This means you have already made a mistake somewhere upstream in your code.
Your ultimate goal is simple to achieve:
def convertIntoDoc[MType](doc: Any) = {
val docNew = doc.asInstanceOf[MType]
docNew
}
You just have to remember that MType is a type and not a variable. So it has to be used as type parameter and not as value parameter.
The problem is that casting an Any into a MType will get you ClassCastExceptions (when running your program!) if you use the wrong type.
asInstanceOf is very dangerous because it kind of overwrites the type safety that the Scala compiler provides.
If you have any questions about this let me know.
The correct way to convert your Any to Document is to use match:
val docNew = doc match { case d: Document => d }
This is safe because it will throw a MatchException if for some reason the object is not of type Document.
Your convertIntoDoc function is just a wrapper around asInstanceOf, so you need to give more detail on what this function is intended to do (preferably in a separate question).
instead of val you can use type
type mType = Document
val docNew = doc.asInstanceOf[mType]
For the second part of the question, you can pass the type using type parameter as argument
def convertIntoDoc[A](doc: Any) = {
val docNew = doc.asInstanceOf[A]
docNew
}
Suppose I have:
class X
{
val listPrimitive: List[Int] = null
val listX: List[X] = null
}
and I print out the return types of each method in Scala as follows:
classOf[ComplexType].getMethods().foreach { m => println(s"${m.getName}: ${m.getGenericReturnType()}") }
listPrimitive: scala.collection.immutable.List<Object>
listX: scala.collection.immutable.List<X>
So... I can determine that the listX's element type is X, but is there any way to determine via reflection that listPrimitive's element type is actually java.lang.Integer? ...
val list:List[Int] = List[Int](123);
val listErased:List[_] = list;
println(s"${listErased(0).getClass()}") // java.lang.Integer
NB. This seems not to be an issue due to JVM type erasure since I can find the types parameter of List. It looks like the scala compiler throws away this type information IFF the parameter type is java.lang.[numbers] .
UPDATE:
I suspect this type information is available, due to the following experiment. Suppose I define:
class TestX{
def f(x:X):Unit = {
val floats:List[Float] = x.listPrimitive() // type mismatch error
}
}
and X.class is imported via a jar. The full type information must be available in X.class in order that this case correctly fails to compile.
UPDATE2:
Imagine you're writing a scala extension to a Java serialization library. You need to implement a:
def getSerializer(clz:Class[_]):Serializer
function that needs to do different things depending on whether:
clz==List[Int] (or equivalently: List[java.lang.Integer])
clz==List[Float] (or equivalently: List[java.lang.Float])
clz==List[MyClass]
My problem is that I will only ever see:
clz==List[Object]
clz==List[Object]
clz==List[MyClass]
because clz is provided to this function as clz.getMethods()(i).getGenericReturnType().
Starting with clz:Class[_] how can I recover the element type information that was lost?
Its not clear to me that TypeToken will help me because its usages:
typeTag[T]
requires that I provide T (ie. at compile time).
So, one path to a solution... Given some clz:Class[_], can I determine the TypeTokens of its method's return types? Clearly this is possible as this information must be contained (somewhere) in a .class file for a scala compiler to correctly generate type mismatch errors (see above).
At the java bytecode level Ints have to be represented as something else (apparently Object) because a List can only contain objects, not primitives. So that's what java-level reflection can tell you. But the scala type information is, as you infer, present (at the bytecode level it's in an annotation, IIRC), so you should be able to inspect it with scala reflection:
import scala.reflect.runtime.universe._
val list:List[Int] = List[Int](123)
def printTypeOf[A: TypeTag](a: A) = println(typeOf[A])
printTypeOf(list)
Response to update2: you should use scala reflection to obtain a mirror, not the Class[_] object. You can go via the class name if need be:
import scala.reflect.runtime.universe._
val rm = runtimeMirror(getClass.getClassLoader)
val someClass: Class[_] = ...
val scalaMirrorOfClass = rm.staticClass(someClass.getName)
// or possibly rm.reflectClass(someClass) ?
val someObject: Any = ...
val scalaMirrorOfObject = rm.reflectClass(someObject)
I guess if you really only have the class, you could create a classloader that only loads that class? I can't imagine a use case where you wouldn't have the class, or even a value, though.
I want to reify a ValDef into runtime, but i does not work directly. If i encapsulate the ValDef into a Block, everything works perfectly, like in the following example:
case class Container(expr: Expr[Any])
def lift(expr: Any): Container = macro reifyValDef
def reifyValDef(c: Context)(expr: c.Expr[Any]): c.Expr[Container] = {
import c.universe._
expr.tree match {
case Block(List(v: ValDef), _) =>
val asBlock = q"{$v}"
val toRuntime = q"scala.reflect.runtime.universe.reify($asBlock)"
c.Expr[Container](q"Container($toRuntime)")
}
}
lift {
val x: Int = 10
}
If i would use v directly, instead of wrapping it into a block, I get the error:
Error:(10, 11) type mismatch;
found :
required: Any
Note that extends Any, not AnyRef.
Such types can participate in value classes, but instances
cannot appear in singleton types or in reference comparisons.
val x: Int = 10
^
Is it just not working directly with ValDefs or is something wrong with my code?
That's one of the known issues in the reflection API. Definitions are technically not expressions, so you can't e.g. pass them directly as arguments to functions. Wrapping the definition in a block is a correct way of addressing the block.
The error message is of course confusing, but it does make some twisted sense. To signify the fact that a definition by itself doesn't have a type, the tpe field of the corresponding Tree is set to NoType. Then the type of the argument of a macro is checked against Any and the check fails (because NoType is a special type, which isn't compatible with anything), so a standard error message is printed. The awkward printout is an artifact of how the prettyprinter behaves in this weird situation.
I have a following function:
def getIntValue(x: Int)(implicit y: Int ) : Int = {x + y}
I see above declaration everywhere. I understand what above function is doing. It is a currying function which takes two arguments. If you omit the second argument, it will invoke implicit definition which returns int instead. So I think it is something very similar to defining a default value for the argument.
implicit val temp = 3
scala> getIntValue(3)
res8: Int = 6
I was wondering what are the benefits of above declaration?
Here's my "pragmatic" answer: you typically use currying as more of a "convention" than anything else meaningful. It comes in really handy when your last parameter happens to be a "call by name" parameter (for example: : => Boolean):
def transaction(conn: Connection)(codeToExecuteInTransaction : => Boolean) = {
conn.startTransaction // start transaction
val booleanResult = codeToExecuteInTransaction //invoke the code block they passed in
//deal with errors and rollback if necessary, or commit
//return connection to connection pool
}
What this is saying is "I have a function called transaction, its first parameter is a Connection and its second parameter will be a code-block".
This allows us to use this method like so (using the "I can use curly brace instead of parenthesis rule"):
transaction(myConn) {
//code to execute in a transaction
//the code block's last executable statement must be a Boolean as per the second
//parameter of the transaction method
}
If you didn't curry that transaction method, it would look pretty unnatural doing this:
transaction(myConn, {
//code block
})
How about implicit? Yes it can seem like a very ambiguous construct, but you get used to it after a while, and the nice thing about implicit functions is they have scoping rules. So this means for production, you might define an implicit function for getting that database connection from the PROD database, but in your integration test you'll define an implicit function that will superscede the PROD version, and it will be used to get a connection from a DEV database instead for use in your test.
As an example, how about we add an implicit parameter to the transaction method?
def transaction(implicit conn: Connection)(codeToExecuteInTransaction : => Boolean) = {
}
Now, assuming I have an implicit function somewhere in my code base that returns a Connection, like so:
def implicit getConnectionFromPool() : Connection = { ...}
I can execute the transaction method like so:
transaction {
//code to execute in transaction
}
and Scala will translate that to:
transaction(getConnectionFromPool) {
//code to execute in transaction
}
In summary, Implicits are a pretty nice way to not have to make the developer provide a value for a required parameter when that parameter is 99% of the time going to be the same everywhere you use the function. In that 1% of the time you need a different Connection, you can provide your own connection by passing in a value instead of letting Scala figure out which implicit function provides the value.
In your specific example there are no practical benefits. In fact using implicits for this task will only obfuscate your code.
The standard use case of implicits is the Type Class Pattern. I'd say that it is the only use case that is practically useful. In all other cases it's better to have things explicit.
Here is an example of a typeclass:
// A typeclass
trait Show[a] {
def show(a: a): String
}
// Some data type
case class Artist(name: String)
// An instance of the `Show` typeclass for that data type
implicit val artistShowInstance =
new Show[Artist] {
def show(a: Artist) = a.name
}
// A function that works for any type `a`, which has an instance of a class `Show`
def showAListOfShowables[a](list: List[a])(implicit showInstance: Show[a]): String =
list.view.map(showInstance.show).mkString(", ")
// The following code outputs `Beatles, Michael Jackson, Rolling Stones`
val list = List(Artist("Beatles"), Artist("Michael Jackson"), Artist("Rolling Stones"))
println(showAListOfShowables(list))
This pattern originates from a functional programming language named Haskell and turned out to be more practical than the standard OO practices for writing a modular and decoupled software. The main benefit of it is it allows you to extend the already existing types with new functionality without changing them.
There's plenty of details unmentioned, like syntactic sugar, def instances and etc. It is a huge subject and fortunately it has a great coverage throughout the web. Just google for "scala type class".
There are many benefits, outside of your example.
I'll give just one; at the same time, this is also a trick that you can use on certain occasions.
Imagine you create a trait that is a generic container for other values, like a list, a set, a tree or something like that.
trait MyContainer[A] {
def containedValue:A
}
Now, at some point, you find it useful to iterate over all elements of the contained value.
Of course, this only makes sense if the contained value is of an iterable type.
But because you want your class to be useful for all types, you don't want to restrict A to be of a Seq type, or Traversable, or anything like that.
Basically, you want a method that says: "I can only be called if A is of a Seq type."
And if someone calls it on, say, MyContainer[Int], that should result in a compile error.
That's possible.
What you need is some evidence that A is of a sequence type.
And you can do that with Scala and implicit arguments:
trait MyContainer[A] {
def containedValue:A
def aggregate[B](f:B=>B)(implicit ev:A=>Seq[B]):B =
ev(containedValue) reduce f
}
So, if you call this method on a MyContainer[Seq[Int]], the compiler will look for an implicit Seq[Int]=>Seq[B].
That's really simple to resolve for the compiler.
Because there is a global implicit function that's called identity, and it is always in scope.
Its type signature is something like: A=>A
It simply returns whatever argument is passed to it.
I don't know how this pattern is called. (Can anyone help out?)
But I think it's a neat trick that comes in handy sometimes.
You can see a good example of that in the Scala library if you look at the method signature of Seq.sum.
In the case of sum, another implicit parameter type is used; in that case, the implicit parameter is evidence that the contained type is numeric, and therefore, a sum can be built out of all contained values.
That's not the only use of implicits, and certainly not the most prominent, but I'd say it's an honorable mention. :-)
I've been working with Scala Macros and have the following code in the macro:
val fieldMemberType = fieldMember.typeSignatureIn(objectType) match {
case NullaryMethodType(tpe) => tpe
case _ => doesntCompile(s"$propertyName isn't a field, it must be another thing")
}
reify{
new TypeBuilder() {
type fieldType = fieldMemberType.type
}
}
As you can see, I've managed to get a c.universe.Type fieldMemberType. This represents the type of certain field in the object. Once I get that, I want to create a new TypeBuilder object in the reify. TypeBuilder is an abstract class with an abstract parameter. This abstract parameter is fieldType. I want this fieldType to be the type that I've found before.
Running the code shown here returns me a fieldMemberType not found. Is there any way that I can get the fieldMemberType to work inside the reify clause?
The problem is that the code you pass to reify is essentially going to be placed verbatim at the point where the macro is being expanded, and fieldMemberType isn't going to mean anything there.
In some cases you can use splice to sneak an expression that you have at macro-expansion time into the code you're reifying. For example, if we were trying to create an instance of this trait:
trait Foo { def i: Int }
And had this variable at macro-expansion time:
val myInt = 10
We could write the following:
reify { new Foo { def i = c.literal(myInt).splice } }
That's not going to work here, which means you're going to have to forget about nice little reify and write out the AST by hand. You'll find this happens a lot, unfortunately. My standard approach is to start a new REPL and type something like this:
import scala.reflect.runtime.universe._
trait TypeBuilder { type fieldType }
showRaw(reify(new TypeBuilder { type fieldType = String }))
This will spit out several lines of AST, which you can then cut and paste into your macro definition as a starting point. Then you fiddle with it, replacing things like this:
Ident(TypeBuilder)
With this:
Ident(newTypeName("TypeBuilder"))
And FINAL with Flag.FINAL, and so on. I wish the toString methods for the AST types corresponded more exactly to the code it takes to build them, but you'll pretty quickly get a sense of what you need to change. You'll end up with something like this:
c.Expr(
Block(
ClassDef(
Modifiers(Flag.FINAL),
anon,
Nil,
Template(
Ident(newTypeName("TypeBuilder")) :: Nil,
emptyValDef,
List(
constructor(c),
TypeDef(
Modifiers(),
newTypeName("fieldType"),
Nil,
TypeTree(fieldMemberType)
)
)
)
),
Apply(Select(New(Ident(anon)), nme.CONSTRUCTOR), Nil)
)
)
Where anon is a type name you've created in advance for your anonymous class, and constructor is a convenience method I use to make this kind of thing a little less hideous (you can find its definition at the end of this complete working example).
Now if we wrap this expression up in something like this, we can write the following:
scala> TypeMemberExample.builderWithType[String]
res0: TypeBuilder{type fieldType = String} = $1$$1#fb3f1f3
So it works. We've taken a c.universe.Type (which I get here from the WeakTypeTag of the type parameter on builderWithType, but it will work in exactly the same way with any old Type) and used it to define the type member of our TypeBuilder trait.
There is a simpler approach than tree writing for your use case. Indeed I use it all the time to keep trees at bay, as it can be really difficult to program with trees. I prefer to compute types and use reify to generate the trees. This makes much more robust and "hygienic" macros and less compile time errors. IMO using trees must be a last resort, only for a few cases, such as tree transforms or generic programming for a family of types such as tuples.
The tip here is to define a function taking as type parameters, the types you want to use in the reify body, with a context bound on a WeakTypeTag. Then you call this function by passing explicitly the WeakTypeTags you can build from universe Types thanks to the context WeakTypeTag method.
So in your case, that would give the following.
val fieldMemberType: Type = fieldMember.typeSignatureIn(objectType) match {
case NullaryMethodType(tpe) => tpe
case _ => doesntCompile(s"$propertyName isn't a field, it must be another thing")
}
def genRes[T: WeakTypeTag] = reify{
new TypeBuilder() {
type fieldType = T
}
}
genRes(c.WeakTypeTag(fieldMemberType))