Why this two code blocks are equivalent for Option class? - scala

In documentation of Option class written that following two examples are equivalent:
val name: Option[String] = request getParameter "name"
val upper = name map { _.trim } filter { _.length != 0 } map { _.toUpperCase }
println(upper getOrElse "")
and
val upper = for {
name <- request getParameter "name"
trimmed <- Some(name.trim)
upper <- Some(trimmed.toUpperCase) if trimmed.length != 0
} yield upper
println(upper getOrElse "")
But I don't understand how they can be equivalent: in first code block request getParameter "name" return instance of type Option[String], but in second code block statement name <- request getParameter "name" return instance of type String (I assumed that because next statement calls trim method on name variable (trim is not defined for Option[String])).

The conversion from for ... yield comprehension to map/flatMap method calls is done by the compiler. It's not required that the Option is an Iterable; the only thing necessary in this case is Option having map / flatMap methods:
flatMap if there are more -> calls after it in the same for block
map if it's the last one
We can create our own MyOption class like this:
case class MyOption[+T](value: T) {
def flatMap[A](f: T => MyOption[A]): MyOption[A] = f(value)
def map[A](f: T => A): MyOption[A] = MyOption(f(value))
override def toString = s"Some($value)"
}
Then:
val result = for {
a <- MyOption("one")
b <- MyOption("two")
} yield a + "," + b
println(result)
// prints: Some(one,two)

Option is an Iterable (there's an implicit option2Iterable method in Option companion object), that's why it can be used in someVar <- someOption clause. In fact, that arrow means "take elements from collection on the right".
So you're right, name in the 2nd example is a String.
In the 1st one you can see there are map and other Iterable methods used on Option. It is basically the same as for expression below, but calls methods directly, while for is just a syntax sugar and gets translated into the chain of method calls by the compiler.

Related

Scala: for-comprehension for chain of operations

I have a task to transform the following code-block:
val instance = instanceFactory.create
val result = instance.ackForResult
to for-comprehension expression.
As for-comprehension leans on enumeration of elements, I tried to get around it with wrapper class:
case class InstanceFactoryWrapper(value:InstanceFactory) {
def map(f: InstanceFactory => Instance): Instance
= value.create()
}
where map-method must handle only one element and return a single result: Instance
I tested this approach with this expression:
for {
mediationApi <- InstanceFactoryWrapper(instanceFactoryWrapper)
}
But it does't work: IDEA recommends me to use foreach in this part. But "foreach" doesn't return anything, as opposed to map.
What am I doing wrong?
Simply put when working with List\Option\Either or other lang types comprehensions are useful to transform nested map\flatMap\withFilter into sequences.
Use custom classes in for-comprehension
But what about your own classes or other 3rd party ones?
You need to implement monadic operations in order to use them in for-comprehensions.
The bare minimum: map and flatMap.
Take the following example with a custom Config class:
case class Config[T](content: T) {
def flatMap[S](f: T => Config[S]): Config[S] =
f(content)
def map[S](f: T => S): Config[S] =
this.copy(content = f(content))
}
for {
first <- Config("..")
_ = println("Going through a test")
second <- Config(first + "..")
third <- Config(second + "..")
} yield third
This is how you enable for-comprehension.

Object instantiation variants in scala

I am really new to scala, and I am currently making my way through the tour (https://docs.scala-lang.org/tour/variances.html).
Now, looking at some library (akka-http), I stumbled across some code like this:
def fetchItem(itemId: Long): Future[Option[Item]] = Future {
orders.find(o => o.id == itemId)
}
And I don't quite understand the syntax, or more precisely, the = Future { part. As I learned, the syntax for methods is def [methodName]([Arguments])(:[returnType]) = [codeblock].
However the above seems to differ in that its having the Future in front of the "codeblock". Is this some kind of object instantiation? Because I could not find documentation about this syntax, I tried in my play code stuff like this:
{
val myCat:Cat = new Cat("first cat")
val myOtherCat:Cat = Cat { "second cat" }
val myThirdCat:Cat = MyObject.getSomeCat
}
...
object MyObject
{
def getSomeCat: Cat = Cat
{
"blabla"
}
}
And all of this works, in that it creates a new Cat object. So it seems like new Cat(args) is equivalent to Cat { args }.
But shouldn't def getSomeCat: Cat = Cat define a method with a code block, not the instantiate a new Cat object? I am confused.
I think there are a couple of things here:
1.
The [codeblock] in method syntax doesn't have to be enclosed in {}. If there's only one expression, it's allowed to omit them.
E.g.
def add(x: Int, y: Int) = x + y
or
def add(x: Int, y: Int) = Future { x + y }
2.
Each class can have its companion object define an apply() method, which can be invoked without explicitly saying "apply" (this is special Scala syntactic sugar). This allows us to construct instances of the class by going through the companion object, and since "apply" can be omitted, at first glance it looks like going through the class itself, just without the "new" keyword.
Without the object:
class Cat(s: String)
val myFirstCat: Cat = new Cat("first cat") // OK
val mySecondCat: Cat = Cat("second cat") // error
And now with the object:
class Cat(s: String)
object Cat {
def apply(s: String) = new Cat(s)
}
val myFirstCat: Cat = new Cat("first cat") // OK
val mySecondCat: Cat = Cat.apply("second cat") // OK
val myThirdCat: Cat = Cat("third cat") // OK (uses apply under the hood)
val myFourthCat: Cat = Cat { "fourth cat" } // OK as well
Note how fourth cat invocation works just fine with curly braces, because methods can be passed codeblocks (last evaluated value in the block will be passed, just like in functions).
3.
Case classes are another slightly "special" Scala construct in a sense that they give you convenience by automatically providing some stuff for you "behind the curtain", including an associated companion object with apply().
case class Cat(s: String)
val myFirstCat: Cat = new Cat("first cat") // OK
val mySecondCat: Cat = Cat.apply("second cat") // OK
val myThirdCat: Cat = Cat("third cat") // OK
What happens in your case with Future is number 2, identical to "fourth cat". Regarding your question about new Cat(args) being equivalent to Cat { args }, it's most likely situation number 3 - Cat is a case class. Either that, or its companion object explicitly defines the apply() method.
The short answer is Yes, that Future code is an object instanciation.
Your Cat class has a single String argument and can be created using Cat(<string>). If you want to compute a value for the string you can put it in a block using {} as you did in your example. This block can contain arbitrary code, and the value of the block will be the value of the last expression in the block which must be type String.
The Future[T] class has a single argument of type T and can be created using Future(T). You can pass an arbitrary block of code as before, as long as it returns a value of type T.
So creating a Future is just like creating any other object. The fetchItem code is just creating a Future object and returning it.
However there is a subtlety with Future in that the parameter is defined as a "call-by-name" parameter not the default "call-by-value" parameter. This means that it is not evaluated until it is used, and it is evaluated every time it is used. In the case of a Future the parameter is evaluated once at a later time and potentially on a different thread. If you use a block to compute the parameter then the whole block will be executed each time the parameter is used.
Scala has very powerful syntax and some useful shortcuts, but it can take a while to get used to it!
A typical method structure will look like:
case class Bar(name: String)
def foo(param: String): Bar = {
// code block.
}
However, Scala is quite flexible when its comes to method definition. One of flexibility is that if your method block contains single expression, then you can ignore curly braces { }.
def foo(param: String): Bar = {
Bar("This is Bar") //Block only contains single expression.
}
// Can be written as:
def foo(param: String): Bar = Bar("This is Bar")
// In case of multiple expressions:
def foo(param: String): Bar = {
println("Returning Bar...")
Bar("This is Bar")
}
def foo(param: String): Bar = println("Returning Bar...") Bar("This is Bar") //Fails
def foo(param: String): Bar = println("Returning Bar..."); Bar("This is Bar") //Fails
def foo(param: String): Bar = {println("Returning Bar..."); Bar("This is Bar")} // Works
Similarly, in your code, fetchItem contains only single expression - Future {orders.find(o => o.id == itemId)} that return a new Future (instance of Future) of Option[Item], therefore braces { } is optional. However, if you want you can write it inside braces as below:
def fetchItem(itemId: Long): Future[Option[Item]] = {
Future {
orders.find(o => o.id == itemId)
}
}
Similarly, if a method take only single parameter, you can use curly braces. i.e. you can invoke fetchItems as:
fetchItem(10)
fetchItem{10}
fetchItem{
10
}
So, why use curly braces { } instead of brackets ( )?
Because, you can provide multiple code blocks inside braces, and this situation is required when need to perform multiple computation and return a value as result of that computation. For example:
fetchItem{
val x = 2
val y = 3
val z = 2
(x + y)*z //final result is 10 which is passed as parameter.
}
// In addition, using curly braces will make your code more cleaner e.g. in case of higher ordered functions.
def test(id: String => Unit) = ???
test {
id => {
val result: List[String] = getDataById(x)
val updated = result.map(_.toUpperCase)
updated.mkString(",")
}
}
Now, coming to your case, when you invoke Future{...}, you are invoking apply(...) method of Scala future companion object that take function literal body: =>T as parameter and return a new Future.
//The below code can also be written as:
Future {
orders.find(o => o.id == itemId)
}
//Can be written as:
Future(orders.find(o => o.id == itemId))
Future.apply(orders.find(o => o.id == itemId))
// However, braces are not allowed with multiple parameter.
def foo(a:String, b:String) = ???
foo("1","2") //work
foo{"1", "2"} //won't work.

What updates the inherited Map of PrefixMap?

Running the PrefixMap example from the book Programming in Scala, 3rd edition, from the chapter The Architecture of Scala Collections, I don't understand what updates the inherited Map of PrefixMap when calling update.
Here is the code:
import collection._
class PrefixMap[T]
extends mutable.Map[String, T]
with mutable.MapLike[String, T, PrefixMap[T]] {
val id: Long = PrefixMap.nextId
var suffixes: immutable.Map[Char, PrefixMap[T]] = Map.empty
var value: Option[T] = None
def get(s: String): Option[T] =
if (s.isEmpty) value
else suffixes get s(0) flatMap (_.get(s substring 1))
def withPrefix(s: String): PrefixMap[T] =
if (s.isEmpty) this
else {
val leading = s(0)
suffixes get leading match {
case None =>
suffixes = suffixes + (leading -> empty)
case _ =>
}
val ret = suffixes(leading) withPrefix (s substring 1)
println("withPrefix: ends with: id="+this.id+", size="+this.size+", this="+this)
ret
}
override def update(s: String, elem: T) = {
println("update: this before withPrefix: id="+this.id+", size="+this.size+", return="+this)
val pm = withPrefix(s)
println("update: withPrefix returned to update: id="+pm.id+", size="+pm.size+", return="+pm)
println("===> update: this after withPrefix and before assignment to pm.value : id="+this.id+", size="+this.size+", return="+this)
pm.value = Some(elem)
println("===> update: this after assinment to pm.value: id="+this.id+", size="+this.size+", return="+this)
}
override def remove(s: String): Option[T] =
if (s.isEmpty) { val prev = value; value = None; prev }
else suffixes get s(0) flatMap (_.remove(s substring 1))
def iterator: Iterator[(String, T)] =
(for (v <- value.iterator) yield ("", v)) ++
(for ((chr, m) <- suffixes.iterator;
(s, v) <- m.iterator) yield (chr +: s, v))
def += (kv: (String, T)): this.type = { update(kv._1, kv._2); this }
def -= (s: String): this.type = { remove(s); this }
override def empty = new PrefixMap[T]
}
object PrefixMap {
var ids: Long = 0
def nextId: Long = { PrefixMap.ids+=1; ids }
}
object MyApp extends App {
val pm = new PrefixMap[Int]
pm.update("a", 0)
println(pm)
}
The output is:
update: this before withPrefix: id=1, size=0, return=Map()
withPrefix: ends with: id=1, size=0, this=Map()
update: withPrefix returned to update: id=2, size=0, return=Map()
===> update: this after withPrefix and before assignment to pm.value : id=1, size=0, return=Map()
===> update: this after assinment to pm.value: id=1, size=1, return=Map(a -> 0)
Map(a -> 0)
So the question is: how it is possible that the line with "pm.value = Some(elem)" in the update method causes the inherited Map of PrefixMap to be updated with (a -> 0)?
It is not clear what you mean by "inherited Map of PrefixMap". Map is a trait which if you are coming from the Java world is similar to interface. It means that Map on its own doesn't hold any value, it just specifies contract and provides some default implementation of various convenience methods via "core" methods (the ones you implement in your PrefixMap).
As to how this whole data structure works, you should imagine this PrefixMap implementation as a "tree". Logically each edge has a single char (in the prefix sequence) and each node potentially a value that corresponds to a string that is created by accumulation all chars on the way from the root to the current node.
So if you have a Map with "ab" -> 12 key-value, the tree will look something like this:
And if you add "ac" -> 123 to the tree, it will become
Finally if you add "a" -> 1 to the tree, it will become:
Important observation here is that if you take the "a" node as a root, what you'll be left with is a valid prefix tree with all strings shortened by that "a" prefix.
Physically the layout is a bit different:
There is the root node which is PrefixMap[T] which is Map[String,T] from the outside, and also a node for an empty string key.
Internal nodes which are value + suffixes i.e. optional value and merged list of children nodes with their corresponding characters on the edge into a Map[Char, PrefixMap[T]]
As you may see update implementation is effectively find something with withPrefix call and then assigning value to it. So what the withPrefix method does? Although it is implemented recursively, it might be easier to think about it in an iterative way. From this point of view, it iterates over the characters of the given String one by one and navigates through the tree creating missing nodes see
case None =>
suffixes = suffixes + (leading -> empty)
and finally returns the node corresponding to the whole String (i.e. this in case the deepest recursive s.isEmpty)
Method get implementation is actually quite similar to the withPrefix: it recursively iterates over given string and navigates through the tree but it is simpler because it doesn't have to create missing nodes. Because children nodes are actually also stored in a Map its get method returns Option the same way PrefixMap should return Option. So you can just use flatMap and it will work OK if there is no such child node at some level.
Finally iterator creates its iterator as a union of
the value.iterator (luckily Option in Scala implements iterator that returns just 1 or 0 elements depending on whether there is a value or not)
all iterators of all the children nodes just adding its own character as a prefix to their keys.
So when you do
val pm = new PrefixMap[Int]
pm.update("a", 0)
println(pm)
update creates are node(s) in the tree and stores the value. And pm.toString actually uses iterate to build string representation. So it iterates over the tree collection all the values in non-empty value Options in all the nodes.

Found Unit, required Int

I have the following Scala code:
object Solution {
def getBestSolution(sumList: List[Int]): Int = {
return 0
}
def main(args: Array[String]) {
val t = readInt()
(0 until t).foreach({
val n = readInt()
val a = readLine().split(" ").map(_.toInt).toList
val sumList = a.scanLeft(0)(_ + _).tail.toList
//println(classOf[sumList])
println(sumList)
println(getBestSolution(sumList))
})
}
}
For it, I am getting this error:
file.scala:16: error: type mismatch;
found : Unit
required: Int => ?
println(getBestSolution(sumList))
^
one error found
Any idea what is causing this?
The argument you are passing to foreach is the result of executing the code block (which is a Unit), not a function.
Remove the outer parentheses (they do not really hurt anything, but are unnecessary and look ugly), and add _ => in the beginning:
(0 to t).foreach { _ =>
...
println(getBestSolution(sumList))
}
This is the proper syntax for creating an unnamed function. The stuff before => is the parameter list that the function accepts. In your case, you can just put an underscore there, because you do not need the value of the parameter. Or you could give it a name if you needed to do something with it, e.g.: (0 to t).foreach { x => println(x*x) }
you could have done it with simple for comprehension too instead of foreach
for(x <- 0 to t){
val n = readInt()
val a = readLine().split(" ").map(_.toInt).toList
val sumList = a.scanLeft(0)(_ + _).tail.toList
//println(classOf[sumList])
println(sumList)
println(getBestSolution(sumList))
}
To sum up, Programming in Scala book has pointed that Scala provides the for comprehension, which provides syntactically pleasing nesting of map, flatMap, and filter ... The for comprehension is not a looping construct, but is a syntactic construct the compiler reduces to map, flatMap, and filter.

Scala macros: Emit for comprehensions from macros

Trying to emit a for yield block from a blackbox macro, but I'm failing to understand how you can create the block with valid syntax.
So below source is a hardcoded param name as this block is later inserted inside a method that will have the matching param name. params is just params: Seq[c.universe.ValDef], enclosing the case class fields.
def extract(source: Source): Option[CaseClass] = { ... }
val extractors = accessors(c)(params) map {
case (nm, tpe) => {
val newTerm = TermName(nm.toString + "Opt")
q"""$newTerm <- DoStuff[$tpe].apply("$nm", source)"""
}
}
val extractorNames = accessors(c)(params) map {
case (nm, tpe) => TermName(nm.toString + "Opt")
}
This is basically taking a case class, and outputting a for yield black to basically recreate the case class from a comprehension.
Every field in the case class of the form name: Type is transformed to a set of extractors that yield the same case class instance back if the for comprehension is successful.
case class Test(id: Int, text: String)
Will be macro transformed to the following, where Extract is just a type class and Extract.apply[T : Extract] is just materialising the context bound with implicitly[Extract[T]]:
for {
idOpt <- Extract[Int].apply("id", source): Option[Int]
textOpt <- Extract[String].apply("text", source): Option[String]
} yield Test(idOpt, textOpt)
The problem comes in having to quote the inner for yield expressions with and output a <- b blocks.
def extract(source: Source): Option[$typeName] = {
for {(..$extractors)} yield $companion.apply(..$extractorNames)
}
The error is ';' expected but '<-' found, which is pretty obvious as a <- b is invalid Scala by itself. What is the correct way to generate and quasiquote the expression block such that the above would work?
Here is a list of all the different kinds of quasiquotes.
There you can see that to express the a <- b syntax you need the fq interpolator.
So that code will probably become:
val extractors = accessors(c)(params) map {
case (nm, tpe) => {
val newTerm = TermName(nm.toString + "Opt")
fq"""$newTerm <- DoStuff[$tpe].apply("$nm", source)"""
}
}
And then with the normal interpolator:
q"for (..$extractors) yield $companion.apply(..$extractorNames)"