What is the more idiomatic way to handle an Option, map / getOrElse, or match?
val x = option map {
value => Math.cos(value) + Math.sin(value)
} getOrElse {
.5
}
or
val x = option match {
case Some(value) => Math.cos(value) + Math.sin(value)
case None => .5
}
You could always just look at the Scaladoc for Option:
The most idiomatic way to use an scala.Option instance is to treat it as a collection or monad and use map,flatMap, filter, or foreach:
val name: Option[String] = request getParameter "name"
val upper = name map { _.trim } filter { _.length != 0 } map { _.toUpperCase }
println(upper getOrElse "")
And a bit later:
A less-idiomatic way to use scala.Option values is via pattern matching:
val nameMaybe = request getParameter "name"
nameMaybe match {
case Some(name) =>
println(name.trim.toUppercase)
case None =>
println("No name value")
}
Use fold for this kind of map-or-else-default thing:
val x = option.fold(0.5){ value => Math.cos(value) + Math.sin(value) }
Obviously both are valid and I don't think one is more idiomatic than the other. That being said, using map uses the fact the Option is a Monad. This can be particularly advantageous when combining two Options. Say you have two Option[Int] that you would like to add. In this case instead of doing multiple matches it is much cleaner to use map/flatMap and it's equivalent "for comprehensions". So for your example both are valid... but for other examples using map/flatMap is often much more succinct.
Some(6).flatMap(intValue => Some(5).map(intValue + _))
or
for {
i <- Some(6)
j <- Some(5)
} yield i + j
All of them have different semantics, so in your case none of them.
map applies some function to the value inside Option, if it exists (Some, not None). Basically this is how you safely work with Options, appling function on some null value is dangeroues, cause it can throw NPE, but in case with Option it just returns None.
getOrElse simply returns either it's value or default one (which you provide as an argument). It won't do anything with the value inside the Option, you can just extract it, if you have Some, or return a default one, in case of None.
and match approach i'd say is a combination of two, cause you can apply some computation on the values and extract it from the Option
Related
I want to compute something if exactly one of two options is non-empty. Obviously this could be done by a pattern match, but is there some better way?
(o1, o2) match {
case (Some(o), None) => Some(compute(o))
case (None, Some(o)) => Some(compute(o))
case _ => None
}
You could do something like this:
if (o1.isEmpty ^ o2.isEmpty)
List(o1,o2).flatMap(_.map(x=>Some(compute(x)))).head
else
None
But pattern matching is probably the better way to go.
Thanks to helpful comments from #Suma, I came up with another solutions in addition to the current ones:
Since the inputs are always in the form of Option(x):
Iterator(Seq(o1,o2).filter(_!=None))
.takeWhile(_.length==1)
.map( x => compute(x.head.get))
.toSeq.headOption
Using iterator also allows for a sequence of values to be passed to the input. The final mapping will be done if and only if one value in the sequence is defined.
Inspired by now deleted answer of pedrofurla, which was attempting to use o1 orElse o2 map { compute }, one possibility is to define xorElse, the rest is easy with it:
implicit class XorElse[T](o1: Option[T]) {
def xorElse[A >: T](o2: Option[A]): Option[A] = {
if (o1.isDefined != o2.isDefined) o1 orElse o2
else None
}
}
(o1 xorElse o2).map(compute)
Another possibility I have found is using a pattern match, but using Seq concatenation so that both cases are handled with the same code. The advantage of this approach is it can be extended to any number of options, it will always evaluate when there is exactly one:
o1.toSeq ++ o2 match {
case Seq(one) => Some(compute(one))
case _ => None
}
Just initialize a sequence and then flatten
Seq(o1, o2).flatten match {
case Seq(o) => Some(compute(o))
case _ => None
}
I have two vals, a condition and an option. Note that condition is a simple boolean, not depending on the option's value.
If condition holds true, I would like to map over the option to convert it to a result value. In all other cases, I would like to return a defaultResult.
This works and is quite readable, but I dislike the duplication of defaultResult:
val result = if (condition) {
option.map(valueToResult).getOrElse(defaultResult)
} else {
defaultResult
}
My second approach does not have duplications, but I dislike the fact that filter is abused for something that is not actually dependent on the option's value:
val result = option.filter(_ => condition).map(valueToResult).getOrElse(defaultResult)
What's a more idiomatic or otherwise better approach in Scala?
You can use Option.collect:
Returns a scala.Some containing the result of applying pf to this
scala.Option's contained value, if this option is nonempty and pf is
defined for that value.
val result = option.collect {
case x if condition => valueToResult(x)
}.getOrElse(defaultResult)
val result = option match {
case Some(value) if condition => valueToResult(value)
case _ => defaultResult
}
val result = (for (v<-option if condition) yield valueToResult(v)).getOrElse(defaultResult)
option.foldLeft(defaultResult)((d,x) => if (condition) valueToResult(x) else d)
val result = (condition match {
case true => option.map(valueToResult)
case false => None
}).getOrElse(defaultResult)
Apologies if this is a newbie question...
In Scala I understand that it is preferred to use an Option rather than returning null when you have a function which returns an instance but could potentially return nothing. I understand that this makes it better with regards to safety, because you are not passing null references around, and risking NullPointerException somewhere down the line.
However, is there a cleaner way to handle options than using pattern matching?
The syntax I end up using is the following:
val optObj : Option[MyObject] = myFunctionThatReturnsOption
optObj match {
case Some(obj) => {
//my code using obj
}
case None => _
}
In reality all this doing is the equivalent of the Java version:
MyObject obj = myMethodThatCanReturnNull()
if (obj != null) {
//my code using obj
}
Is there some other way to avoid all this boilerplate in Scala when using Option instead of null references? All I want to do is execute a piece of code as long as the Option contains some object (i.e. is not None).
Use foreach, getOrElse and/or map if you want to work in a more consistent way. Here's some use cases and what I'd do:
//I want to get a non-null value and I have a sane default
val result = myOption getOrElse 3
//I want to perform some side effecting action but only if not None
myOption foreach{ value =>
println(value toString ())
}
//equivalently
for(value <- myOption){
//notice I haven't used the "yeild" keyword here
}
//I want to do a computation and I don't mind if it comes back as an Option
val result = for(value <- myOption) yield func(value)
val equivalent = myOption map func
The third example will use map in both cases.
It gets really interesting when you can mix and match things in a "for comprehension" (Google term.) Let's say that func also returns an Option but I only want things working in specific cases:
val result = for{
value <- myOption if value > 0
output <- func(value)
} yield output
Now I get back an Option but only if myOption contained an integer that was greater than zero. Pretty nifty stuff, no?
You can use foreach if you just want to perform some side-effecting operation with the value:
optObj.foreach(obj => {
//my code using obj
})
if you have some other use case you should use some other method on Option like map, filter or getOrElse.
Of course, the way I usually use options if I only care about present value is foreach:
optObj.foreach { obj =>
//...
}
Having said this, there are a lot of other options (which #wheaties enlisted) and some people keep battling about the true one.
You can use the flatMap-method pretty well with Option. Like hier:
case class Player(name: String)
def lookupPlayer(id: Int): Option[Player] = {
if (id == 1) Some(new Player("Sean"))
else if(id == 2) Some(new Player("Greg"))
else None
}
def lookupScore(player: Player): Option[Int] = {
if (player.name == "Sean") Some(1000000) else None
}
println(lookupPlayer(1).map(lookupScore)) // Some(Some(1000000))
println(lookupPlayer(2).map(lookupScore)) // Some(None)
println(lookupPlayer(3).map(lookupScore)) // None
println(lookupPlayer(1).flatMap(lookupScore)) // Some(1000000)
println(lookupPlayer(2).flatMap(lookupScore)) // None
println(lookupPlayer(3).flatMap(lookupScore)) // None
Here's a great reference for Scala best practices regarding options:
http://blog.tmorris.net/posts/scalaoption-cheat-sheet/index.html
I have a Scala Option[T]. If the value is Some(x) I want to process it with a a process that does not return a value (Unit), but if it is None, I want to print an error.
I can use the following code to do this, but I understand that the more idiomatic way is to treat the Option[T] as a sequence and use map, foreach, etc. How do I do this?
opt match {
case Some(x) => // process x with no return value, e.g. write x to a file
case None => // print error message
}
I think explicit pattern matching suits your use case best.
Scala's Option is, sadly, missing a method to do exactly this. I add one:
class OptionWrapper[A](o: Option[A]) {
def fold[Z](default: => Z)(action: A => Z) = o.map(action).getOrElse(default)
}
implicit def option_has_utility[A](o: Option[A]) = new OptionWrapper(o)
which has the slightly nicer (in my view) usage
op.fold{ println("Empty!") }{ x => doStuffWith(x) }
You can see from how it's defined that map/getOrElse can be used instead of pattern matching.
Alternatively, Either already has a fold method. So you can
op.toRight(()).fold{ _ => println("Empty!") }{ x => doStuffWith(x) }
but this is a little clumsy given that you have to provide the left value (here (), i.e. Unit) and then define a function on that, rather than just stating what you want to happen on None.
The pattern match isn't bad either, especially for longer blocks of code. For short ones, the overhead of the match starts getting in the way of the point. For example:
op.fold{ printError }{ saveUserInput }
has a lot less syntactic overhead than
op match {
case Some(x) => saveUserInput(x)
case None => printError
}
and therefore, once you expect it, is a lot easier to comprehend.
I'd recommend to simply and safely use opt.get which itself throws a NoSuchElementException exception if opt is None. Or if you want to throw your own exception, you can do this:
val x = opt.getOrElse(throw new Exception("Your error message"))
// x is of type T
as #missingfaktor says, you are in the exact scenario where pattern matching is giving the most readable results.
If Option has a value you want to do something, if not you want to do something else.
While there are various ways to use map and other functional constructs on Option types, they are generally useful when:
you want to use the Some case and ignore the None case e.g. in your case
opt.map(writeToFile(_)) //(...if None just do nothing)
or you want to chain the operations on more than one option and give a result only when all of them are Some. For instance, one way of doing this is:
val concatThreeOptions =
for {
n1 <- opt1
n2 <- opt2
n3 <- opt3
} yield n1 + n2 + n3 // this will be None if any of the three is None
// we will either write them all to a file or none of them
but none of these seem to be your case
Pattern matching is the best choice here.
However, if you want to treat Option as a sequence and to map over it, you can do it, because Unit is a value:
opt map { v =>
println(v) // process v (result type is Unit)
} getOrElse {
println("error")
}
By the way, printing an error is some kind of "anti-pattern", so it's better to throw an exception anyway:
opt.getOrElse(throw new SomeException)
I found myself writing something like this quite often:
a match {
case `b` => // do stuff
case _ => // do nothing
}
Is there a shorter way to check if some value matches a pattern? I mean, in this case I could just write if (a == b) // do stuff, but what if the pattern is more complex? Like when matching against a list or any pattern of arbitrary complexity. I'd like to be able to write something like this:
if (a matches b) // do stuff
I'm relatively new to Scala, so please pardon, if I'm missing something big :)
This is exactly why I wrote these functions, which are apparently impressively obscure since nobody has mentioned them.
scala> import PartialFunction._
import PartialFunction._
scala> cond("abc") { case "def" => true }
res0: Boolean = false
scala> condOpt("abc") { case x if x.length == 3 => x + x }
res1: Option[java.lang.String] = Some(abcabc)
scala> condOpt("abc") { case x if x.length == 4 => x + x }
res2: Option[java.lang.String] = None
The match operator in Scala is most powerful when used in functional style. This means, rather than "doing something" in the case statements, you would return a useful value. Here is an example for an imperative style:
var value:Int = 23
val command:String = ... // we get this from somewhere
command match {
case "duplicate" => value = value * 2
case "negate" => value = -value
case "increment" => value = value + 1
// etc.
case _ => // do nothing
}
println("Result: " + value)
It is very understandable that the "do nothing" above hurts a little, because it seems superflous. However, this is due to the fact that the above is written in imperative style. While constructs like these may sometimes be necessary, in many cases you can refactor your code to functional style:
val value:Int = 23
val command:String = ... // we get this from somewhere
val result:Int = command match {
case "duplicate" => value * 2
case "negate" => -value
case "increment" => value + 1
// etc.
case _ => value
}
println("Result: " + result)
In this case, you use the whole match statement as a value that you can, for example, assign to a variable. And it is also much more obvious that the match statement must return a value in any case; if the last case would be missing, the compiler could not just make something up.
It is a question of taste, but some developers consider this style to be more transparent and easier to handle in more real-world examples. I would bet that the inventors of the Scala programming language had a more functional use in mind for match, and indeed the if statement makes more sense if you only need to decide whether or not a certain action needs to be taken. (On the other hand, you can also use if in the functional way, because it also has a return value...)
This might help:
class Matches(m: Any) {
def matches[R](f: PartialFunction[Any, R]) { if (f.isDefinedAt(m)) f(m) }
}
implicit def any2matches(m: Any) = new Matches(m)
scala> 'c' matches { case x: Int => println("Int") }
scala> 2 matches { case x: Int => println("Int") }
Int
Now, some explanation on the general nature of the problem.
Where may a match happen?
There are three places where pattern matching might happen: val, case and for. The rules for them are:
// throws an exception if it fails
val pattern = value
// filters for pattern, but pattern cannot be "identifier: Type",
// though that can be replaced by "id1 # (id2: Type)" for the same effect
for (pattern <- object providing map/flatMap/filter/withFilter/foreach) ...
// throws an exception if none of the cases match
value match { case ... => ... }
There is, however, another situation where case might appear, which is function and partial function literals. For example:
val f: Any => Unit = { case i: Int => println(i) }
val pf: PartialFunction[Any, Unit] = { case i: Int => println(i) }
Both functions and partial functions will throw an exception if called with an argument that doesn't match any of the case statements. However, partial functions also provide a method called isDefinedAt which can test whether a match can be made or not, as well as a method called lift, which will turn a PartialFunction[T, R] into a Function[T, Option[R]], which means non-matching values will result in None instead of throwing an exception.
What is a match?
A match is a combination of many different tests:
// assign anything to x
case x
// only accepts values of type X
case x: X
// only accepts values matches by pattern
case x # pattern
// only accepts a value equal to the value X (upper case here makes a difference)
case X
// only accepts a value equal to the value of x
case `x`
// only accept a tuple of the same arity
case (x, y, ..., z)
// only accepts if extractor(value) returns true of Some(Seq()) (some empty sequence)
case extractor()
// only accepts if extractor(value) returns Some something
case extractor(x)
// only accepts if extractor(value) returns Some Seq or Tuple of the same arity
case extractor(x, y, ..., z)
// only accepts if extractor(value) returns Some Tuple2 or Some Seq with arity 2
case x extractor y
// accepts if any of the patterns is accepted (patterns may not contain assignable identifiers)
case x | y | ... | z
Now, extractors are the methods unapply or unapplySeq, the first returning Boolean or Option[T], and the second returning Option[Seq[T]], where None means no match is made, and Some(result) will try to match result as described above.
So there are all kinds of syntactic alternatives here, which just aren't possible without the use of one of the three constructions where pattern matches may happen. You may able to emulate some of the features, like value equality and extractors, but not all of them.
Patterns can also be used in for expressions. Your code sample
a match {
case b => // do stuff
case _ => // do nothing
}
can then be expressed as
for(b <- Some(a)) //do stuff
The trick is to wrap a to make it a valid enumerator. E.g. List(a) would also work, but I think Some(a) is closest to your intended meaning.
The best I can come up with is this:
def matches[A](a:A)(f:PartialFunction[A, Unit]) = f.isDefinedAt(a)
if (matches(a){case ... =>}) {
//do stuff
}
This won't win you any style points though.
Kim's answer can be “improved” to better match your requirement:
class AnyWrapper[A](wrapped: A) {
def matches(f: PartialFunction[A, Unit]) = f.isDefinedAt(wrapped)
}
implicit def any2wrapper[A](wrapped: A) = new AnyWrapper(wrapped)
then:
val a = "a" :: Nil
if (a matches { case "a" :: Nil => }) {
println("match")
}
I wouldn't do it, however. The => }) { sequence is really ugly here, and the whole code looks much less clear than a normal match. Plus, you get the compile-time overhead of looking up the implicit conversion, and the run-time overhead of wrapping the match in a PartialFunction (not counting the conflicts you could get with other, already defined matches methods, like the one in String).
To look a little bit better (and be less verbose), you could add this def to AnyWrapper:
def ifMatch(f: PartialFunction[A, Unit]): Unit = if (f.isDefinedAt(wrapped)) f(wrapped)
and use it like this:
a ifMatch { case "a" :: Nil => println("match") }
which saves you your case _ => line, but requires double braces if you want a block instead of a single statement... Not so nice.
Note that this construct is not really in the spirit of functional programming, as it can only be used to execute something that has side effects. We can't easily use it to return a value (therefore the Unit return value), as the function is partial — we'd need a default value, or we could return an Option instance. But here again, we would probably unwrap it with a match, so we'd gain nothing.
Frankly, you're better off getting used to seeing and using those match frequently, and moving away from this kind of imperative-style constructs (following Madoc's nice explanation).