Scala, how to use Some(value) from an Option implicitly? - scala

I have a piece of code that extracts a string from a request body, but it may not be there, so it is an Option[String]. If there is a value, then I wish to use it implicitly.
To do this conversion, I write implicit val code = googleCode.
Is there a way to make googleCode an implicit String so that I can use it directly rather than creating an implicit val with the value of googleCode?
request.getQueryString("code") match {
case None =>
Logger.error("unable to retrieve authentication code from google request")
Redirect(routes.Application.index())
case Some(googleCode) => Async {
implicit val code: String = googleCode // <== CONVERTING TO AN IMPLICIT
Logger.debug("retrieved authentication code, proceeding to get token")
...
Ok("congratulations, ${user.name}, you are logged in!")
Note, the code snippet is from a Playframework Controller, but this is more a question of the Scala language in general

It's often advisable to avoid using pattern matching with Options anyway. Here's how you can write it:
request.getQueryString("code") map { implicit googleCode =>
// googleCode is an implicit String! do something with it
} getOrElse {
// handle the None case
}

Hmm. Instead of looking for a solution for converting a code using Option into some kind of Java, I would suggest to take these three easy steps.
Step 1. Do whatever is the shortest cut for you, like option.get(), anything, so that your code (kind of) works.
Step 2. Learn functional programming. Specifically, learn to use Option in a idiomatic, specifically FP-style way.
Step 3. Profit. You will benefit a lot from learning.

Related

Check the runtime type of Scala class instance

If I run the following code, then I get an error:
import scala.reflect.ClassTag
class General {
}
class SubGeneral extends General {
def test() = println("tested")
}
class ProGeneral[T <: General: ClassTag] {
var array = Array.ofDim[T](3, 3)
def funcForSubGeneral(): Unit =
if (array(0)(0).isInstanceOf[SubGeneral]) then array(0)(0).test()
}
That is because General does not have the function test().
I know that I can fix this with pattern matching. This instead of the above funcForSubGeneral() works:
def funcForSubGeneral(): Unit =
array(0)(0) match {
case s: SubGeneral => s.test()
case _ => println("nope")
}
But I was wondering if it is possible to get the runtime type of array(0)(0) and check if it is a SubGeneral, and if that is the case then I call test(), which shouldn't cause a problem?
That is what I was actually trying by using isIntanceOf. I want to omit pattern matching since I'm just interested in one type.
isInstanceOf doesn't change anything, you would need to do array(0)(0).asInstanceOf[SubGeneral].test() in order to force the casting.
Note that the casting may fail at runtime, so that is why you need to check with the if before. Thus the end code looks like this:
if (array(0)(0).isInstanceOf[SubGeneral]) then array(0)(0).asInstanceOf[SubGeneral].test()
But, since this is cumbersome and error-prone, we have pattern matching:
array(0)(0) match {
case subGeneral: SubGeneral => subGeneral.test()
}
However, note that type tests are considered a bad practice; mainly because they are actually class checks and may fail certain circumstances. For example:
List("a", "b", "c") match {
case numbers: List[Int] => numbers.head + 1
}
Will throw an exception in runtime since, due to type erasure, we lost the [String] part and it matches only List then it tries to read the first element as an Int which is an error.
Anyways, this is the fourth time in two days you ask a question that shows bad practices and unidiomatic code.
My advice:
I would bet you are not following an appropriate resource to learn the language. Rather, it seems you are just trying to mimic another language (Python?) with different syntax. - Thus, I encourage you to pick an appropriate book, course, tutorial, etc; that properly introduces the language and its idioms.
I would encourage you to join the official Discord server which is more suitable for newcomers than StackOverflow.
I would recommend you to explain the meta-problem you are trying to solve in detail (either here in a new question or in the Discord server), I am pretty sure there are better and more idiomatic ways to solve it.

Convert a Seq[String] to a case class in a typesafe way

I have written a parser which transforms a String to a Seq[String] following some rules. This will be used in a library.
I am trying to transform this Seq[String] to a case class. The case class would be provided by the user (so there is no way to guess what it will be).
I have thought to shapeless library because it seems to implement the good features and it seems mature, but I have no idea to how to proceed.
I have found this question with an interesting answer but I don't find how to transform it for my needs. Indeed, in the answer there is only one type to parse (String), and the library iterates inside the String itself. It probably requires a deep change in the way things are done, and I have no clue how.
Moreover, if possible, I want to make this process as easy as possible for the user of my library. So, if possible, unlike the answer in link above, the HList type would be guess from the case class itself (however according to my search, it seems the compiler needs this information).
I am a bit new to the type system and all these beautiful things, if anyone is able to give me an advice on how to do, I would be very happy!
Kind Regards
--- EDIT ---
As ziggystar requested, here is some possible of the needed signature:
//Let's say we are just parsing a CSV.
#onUserSide
case class UserClass(i:Int, j:Int, s:String)
val list = Seq("1,2,toto", "3,4,titi")
// User transforms his case class to a function with something like:
val f = UserClass.curried
// The function created in 1/ is injected in the parser
val parser = new Parser(f)
// The Strings to convert to case classes are provided as an argument to the parse() method.
val finalResult:Seq[UserClass] = parser.parse(list)
// The transfomation is done in two steps inside the parse() method:
// 1/ first we have: val list = Seq("1,2,toto", "3,4,titi")
// 2/ then we have a call to internalParserImplementedSomewhereElse(list)
// val parseResult is now equal to Seq(Seq("1", "2", "toto"), Seq("3","4", "titi"))
// 3/ finally Shapeless do its magick trick and we have Seq(UserClass(1,2,"toto"), UserClass(3,4,"titi))
#insideTheLibrary
class Parser[A](function:A) {
//The internal parser takes each String provided through argument of the method and transforms each String to a Seq[String]. So the Seq[String] provided is changed to Seq[Seq[String]].
private def internalParserImplementedSomewhereElse(l:Seq[String]): Seq[Seq[String]] = {
...
}
/*
* Class A and B are both related to the case class provided by the user:
* - A is the type of the case class as a function,
* - B is the type of the original case class (can be guessed from type A).
*/
private def convert2CaseClass[B](list:Seq[String]): B {
//do something with Shapeless
//I don't know what to put inside ???
}
def parse(l:Seq[String]){
val parseResult:Seq[Seq[String]] = internalParserImplementedSomewhereElse(l:Seq[String])
val finalResult = result.map(convert2CaseClass)
finalResult // it is a Seq[CaseClassProvidedByUser]
}
}
Inside the library some implicit would be available to convert the String to the correct type as they are guessed by Shapeless (similar to the answered proposed in the link above). Like string.toInt, string.ToDouble, and so on...
May be there are other way to design it. It's just what I have in mind after playing with Shapeless few hours.
This uses a very simple library called product-collecions
import com.github.marklister.collections.io._
case class UserClass(i:Int, j:Int, s:String)
val csv = Seq("1,2,toto", "3,4,titi").mkString("\n")
csv: String =
1,2,toto
3,4,titi
CsvParser(UserClass).parse(new java.io.StringReader(csv))
res28: Seq[UserClass] = List(UserClass(1,2,toto), UserClass(3,4,titi))
And to serialize the other way:
scala> res28.csvIterator.toList
res30: List[String] = List(1,2,"toto", 3,4,"titi")
product-collections is orientated towards csv and a java.io.Reader, hence the shims above.
This answer will not tell you how to do exactly what you want, but it will solve your problem. I think you're overcomplicating things.
What is it you want to do? It appears to me that you're simply looking for a way to serialize and deserialize your case classes - i.e. convert your Scala objects to a generic string format and the generic string format back to Scala objects. Your serialization step presently is something you seem to already have defined, and you're asking about how to do the deserialization.
There are a few serialization/deserialization options available for Scala. You do not have to hack away with Shapeless or Scalaz to do it yourself. Try to take a look at these solutions:
Java serialization/deserialization. The regular serialization/deserialization facilities provided by the Java environment. Requires explicit casting and gives you no control over the serialization format, but it's built in and doesn't require much work to implement.
JSON serialization: there are many libraries that provide JSON generation and parsing for Java. Take a look at play-json, spray-json and Argonaut, for example.
The Scala Pickling library is a more general library for serialization/deserialization. Out of the box it comes with some binary and some JSON format, but you can create your own formats.
Out of these solutions, at least play-json and Scala Pickling use macros to generate serializers and deserializers for you at compile time. That means that they should both be typesafe and performant.

Idiomatic syntax for Option when the meaningful value is None

This is purely a coding-style question.
A function I'm calling returns an Option, and I want to take a specific action if it's equal to None.
Say, for example, that I'm trying to create a default user at boot time if it doesn't already exist. I'd call a function that attempts to find a user that matches the default one, and returns an Option[User].
If that return value is None, I'd like to run some user creation code. If not, I'm done.
I'm wondering what's the most idiomatic Scala syntax for this. What I have so far is:
def getUser(name: String): Option[User] = ...
getUser("admin") getOrElse createUser("admin", "ChangeThisNow!")
getUser("admin") match {
case None => createUser("admin", "ChangeThisNow!")
case _ =>
}
if(getUser("admin") == None) createUser("admin", "ChangeThisNow!")
The first solution seems like the most functional one, but I can't help but feel that there might be better ones - possibly by using partially applied functions, which I admit I'm still a bit fuzzy about.
Since in your case the goal is to cause a side effect, I'd use a conditional to stress that, instead of using getOrElse.
if (getUser("admin").isEmpty)
createUser("admin", "ChangeThisNow!")
Remember that scala is a multi-paradigm language.
In addition to syntax, you want to consider concepts such as cohesion (single responsibility) and so you can consider the composition of your objects in addition to the actual idioms you use in the syntax.
The OO way might be to decorate the object/class that getUser belongs to in to put that concern of creating the user in a wrapper so that other code that calls the getUser function never has to deal with that concern. This fits nicely with open/closed principle and single responsibility. This is a bit of an anemic domain model anti-pattern here but may show how OO can be used to extend the conversation into actual design.
Either pattern matching or getOrElse are reasonable solutions. Generally if statements aren't used against Monads like the option - at least not that I see.
Either way, I beleive the expression should return the result even if there are side effects (user creation).
case class User(name: String)
class UserService {
def getUser(name: String): Option[User] = ???
def createUser(name: String): User = ???
}
class UserServiceDecorator extends UserService {
override def getUser(name: String): Option[User] =
Some(super.getUser(name).getOrElse(super.createUser(name)))
}
Really the best way to do this is to assign the result to a meaningful variable name so your future code doesn't need to know if createUser was called or not.
val user = getUser("admin").getOrElse(createUser("admin", "ChangeThisNow!"))
This way you can use the user variable regardless of if you've created a new user or not.

When should I make methods with implicit argument in Scala?

I made codes using play framework in scala which look like the following:
object Application extends Controller {
def hoge = Action( implicit request =>
val username = MyCookie.getName.get
Ok("hello " + username)
}
}
object MyCookie {
def getName( implicit request: RequestHeader ) = {
request.cookies.get("name").map(_.value)
}
}
I got a code review from my coworker. He said this code is not readable because of implicit parameter. I couldn't reply to his opinion. So could you tell me what is the best way to use implicit parameters? When should I use implicit parameters?
You should use implicit parameters when there is almost always a "right" way to do things, and you want to ignore those details almost all the time; or when there often is no way to do things, and the implicits provide the functionality for those things that work.
For an example of the first case, in scala.concurrent.Future, almost every method takes an implicit ExecutionContext. You almost never care what your ExecutionContext is from call to call; you just want it to work. But when you need to change the execution context you can supply it as an explicit parameter.
For an example of the second case, look at the CanBuildFroms in the collections library. You cannot build anything from anything; certain capabilities are supplied, and the lack of an implicit that, say, lets you package up a bunch of Vector[Option[String]]s into a HashSet[Char] is one major way to keep the library powerful and flexible yet sane.
You are doing neither: apparently you're just using it to save a little typing in one spot at the expense of the other spot. And, in this case, in doing so you've made it less obvious how things work, as you have to look all over the place to figure out where that implicit request actually gets used. If you want to save typing, you're much better off using short variable names but being explicit about it:
Action{ req => val name = MyCookie.getName(req).get; Ok("hello "+name) }

Scala polymorphic function for filtering an input List of Either

Seeking a more elegant solution
I have this piece of code, I just use it in test cases where it isn't necessary to do any error handling. What it does is:
take an input list of strings
parse them using the DSJSonmapper.parseDSResult method
filters them and extracts the Right value from each Either (Left is an Exception)
The code is as follows:
def parseDs(ins: List[String]) = {
def filterResults[U, T](in: List[Either[U, T]]): List[T] = {
in.filter(y => y.isRight).map(z => z.right.get)
}
filterResults(ins.map(x => DSJsonMapper.parseDSResult(x)))
}
Now, I haven't done an awful lot of polymorphic functions, but this works. However I feel like it's a bit ugly. Has anyone got a better suggestion, how to accomplish the same thing.
I'm aware this is going to come down to a case of personal preference. But suggestions are welcome.
collect is made for exactly this kind of situation:
def filterMe[U,T](in: List[Either[U,T]]): List[T] = in.collect{
case Right(r) => r
}
In fact, it's so good at this you may want to skip the def and just
ins.map(DSJsonMapper.parseDsResult).collect{ case Right(r) => r }
Rex's answer is possibly a little clearer, but here's a slightly shorter alternative that parses and "filters" in a single step:
ins.flatMap(DSJsonMapper.parseDSResult(_).right.toOption)
Here we take the right projection of each parse result and turn that into an Option (which will be None if the parse failed and Some(whatever) otherwise). Since we're using flatMap, the Nones don't appear in the result and the values are pulled out of the Somes.