I have a function foo which takes another function (say bar) as a parameter. Is there a way to get the function name of bar as a string inside foo?
No. See the difference between methods and functions. Methods aren't passed as parameters under the hood - they are expanded into function objects when being passed to some other method/function. These function objects are instances of anonymous, compiler-generated classes , and have no name (or, at least, being anonymous classes, have some mangled name which you could access using reflection, but probably don't need).
So, when you do:
def foo() {}
def bar(f: () => Unit) {}
bar(foo)
what actually happens in the last call is:
bar(() => foo())
Theoretically, though, you could find the name of the method that the function object you're being passed is wrapping. You could do bytecode introspection to analyze the body of the apply method of the function object f in method bar above, and conclude based on that what the name of the method is. This is both an approximation and an overkill, however.
I've had quite a dig around, and I don't think that there is. toString on the function object just says eg <function1>, and its class is a synthesised class generated by the compiler rather that something with a method object inside it that you might query.
I guess that if you really needed this there would be nothing to stop you implementing function with something that delegated but also knew the name of the thing to which it was delegating.
Related
When reading some scala code, i see something like fooString
but I couldn't find anything that expalins this sort of commands when calling a function.
I know we should define the parameter and expected return type in scala when defining a function or class. Consider this code:
def socketTextStream(
hostname: String,port: Int
): ReceiverInputDStream[String] = withNamedScope("socket text stream") {
socketStream[String](hostname, port, SocketReceiver.bytesToLines)
}
what [String] after "socketStream" do here and I wonder why there is another function( withNamedScope) after "=" here.
First, def socketTextStream(hostname: String, port: Int): ReceiverInputDStream[String] is declaring a method called socketTextStream which receives two inputs (host & port) and returns a ReceiverInputDStream which is a generic class, and in this case the result will be parameterized with the type String.
Then, = withNamedScope("socket text stream") { .. } means that the implementation of that method is call other method (withNamedScope) that takes a String (presumably a name) as its first argument, and a block (probably a by name parameter) as its second argument.
In this case, the two arguments are on separated parameters lists, which is called currying.
Finally, socketStream[String](hostname, port, SocketReceiver.bytesToLines) (which is the body of the block) is calling another method socketStream which is a polymorphic / generic method.
The [String] part is specifying that the type parameter of that method, is String. Maybe this information is redundant or maybe it is used to force an specific implicit, without the definition of such method is hard to tell.
Anyways, all here is basic syntax and structures of the language, all covered by the tour (which many people highlight for being too brief and just covering the basis of the language). Thus, I would recommend you to check more resources before continue with reading code.
I have come across this new method definition. Need explanation what exactly happens here.
Parent trait
sealed trait Generic{
def name : String = name // what is the body of this function call?
def id : Int = id
def place : String = place
}
Child case classes
case class Capital(
countryName : String,
override val id: Int,
override val place:String
) extends Generic
warning: method place in trait Generic does nothing other than call itself recursively I get this warning message is there anything wrong in using these types of methods?
How exactly compiler treat these type of function calls def name : String = name?
Is it this call treats its body as its method name?
You are providing default implementations in the trait that are infinite loops, very much like in the following example:
def infiniteLoop: Unit = infiniteLoop
This is arguably the most useless and dangerous code that you could possibly put in a method of a trait. You could only make it worse by making it non-deterministic. Fortunately, the compiler gives you a very clear and precise warning:
warning: method place in trait Generic does nothing other than call itself recursively
"Is there anything wrong in using these types of methods"?: having unproductive infinite loops in your code is usually considered wrong, unless your goal is to produce as much heat as possible using computer hardware.
"How exactly compiler treat these type of function calls"?: Just like any other tail recursive function, but additionally it outputs the above warning, because it sees that it is obviously not what you want.
"Is it this call treats its body as its method name?": The body of each method declaration is what follows the =-sign. In your case, the otherwise common curly braces around the function body are omitted, and the entire function body consists only of the recursive call to itself.
If you don't want to have any unnecessary infinite loops around, simply leave the methods unimplemented:
sealed trait Generic{
def name: String
def id: Int
def place: String
}
This also has the additional advantage that the compiler can warn you if you forget to implement one of these methods in a subclass.
Ok, so in your trait you define methods body via recursion. Means that these methods, if not overridden (and they should not as soon as you have defined them somehow), will call itself recursively till StackOverflowError happens. For example, you did not override name method in Capital, so in this case you get StackOverflowError at runtime:
val c = Capital("countryName", 1, "place")
c.name
So, you are warned, that you have recursive definition. Trait is sealed, so at least it cannot be overridden in other places, but anyway, such definition is something like put mines on your road and rely on your memory, that you will not forget about them (and anybody else will be care enough to check trait definition before extending)
I have a function foo which takes another function (say bar) as a parameter. Is there a way to get the function name of bar as a string inside foo?
No. See the difference between methods and functions. Methods aren't passed as parameters under the hood - they are expanded into function objects when being passed to some other method/function. These function objects are instances of anonymous, compiler-generated classes , and have no name (or, at least, being anonymous classes, have some mangled name which you could access using reflection, but probably don't need).
So, when you do:
def foo() {}
def bar(f: () => Unit) {}
bar(foo)
what actually happens in the last call is:
bar(() => foo())
Theoretically, though, you could find the name of the method that the function object you're being passed is wrapping. You could do bytecode introspection to analyze the body of the apply method of the function object f in method bar above, and conclude based on that what the name of the method is. This is both an approximation and an overkill, however.
I've had quite a dig around, and I don't think that there is. toString on the function object just says eg <function1>, and its class is a synthesised class generated by the compiler rather that something with a method object inside it that you might query.
I guess that if you really needed this there would be nothing to stop you implementing function with something that delegated but also knew the name of the thing to which it was delegating.
Note that this question and similar ones have been asked before, such as in Forward References - why does this code compile?, but I found the answers to still leave some questions open, so I'm having another go at this issue.
Within methods and functions, the effect of the val keyword appears to be lexical, i.e.
def foo {
println(bar)
val bar = 42
}
yielding
error: forward reference extends over definition of value bar
However, within classes, the scoping rules of val seem to change:
object Foo {
def foo = bar
println(bar)
val bar = 42
}
Not only does this compile, but also the println in the constructor will yield 0 as its output, while calling foo after the instance is fully constructed will result in the expected value 42.
So it appears to be possible for methods to forward-reference instance values, which will, eventually, be initialised before the method can be called (unless, of course, you're calling it from the constructor), and for statements within the constructor to forward-reference values in the same way, accessing them before they've been initialised, resulting in a silly arbitrary value.
From this, a couple of questions arise:
Why does val use its lexical compile-time effect within constructors?
Given that a constructor is really just a method, this seems rather inconsistent to entirely drop val's compile-time effect, giving it its usual run-time effect only.
Why does val, effectively, lose its effect of declaring an immutable value?
Accessing the value at different times may result in different results. To me, it very much seems like a compiler implementation detail leaking out.
What might legitimate usecases for this look like?
I'm having a hard time coming up with an example that absolutely requires the current semantics of val within constructors and wouldn't easily be implementable with a proper, lexical val, possibly in combination with lazy.
How would one work around this behaviour of val, getting back all the guarantees one is used to from using it within other methods?
One could, presumably, declare all instance vals to be lazy in order to get back to a val being immutable and yielding the same result no matter how they are accessed and to make the compile-time effect as observed within regular methods less relevant, but that seems like quite an awful hack to me for this sort of thing.
Given that this behaviour unlikely to ever change within the actual language, would a compiler plugin be the right place to fix this issue, or is it possible to implement a val-alike keyword with, for someone who just spent an hour debugging an issue caused by this oddity, more sensible semantics within the language?
Only a partial answer:
Given that a constructor is really just a method ...
It isn't.
It doesn't return a result and doesn't declare a return type (or doesn't have a name)
It can't be called again for an object of said class like "foo".new ("bar")
You can't hide it from an derived class
You have to call them with 'new'
Their name is fixed by the name of the class
Ctors look a little like methods from the syntax, they take parameters and have a body, but that's about all.
Why does val, effectively, lose its effect of declaring an immutable value?
It doesn't. You have to take an elementary type which can't be null to get this illusion - with Objects, it looks different:
object Foo {
def foo = bar
println (bar.mkString)
val bar = List(42)
}
// Exiting paste mode, now interpreting.
defined module Foo
scala> val foo=Foo
java.lang.NullPointerException
You can't change a val 2 times, you can't give it a different value than null or 0, you can't change it back, and a different value is only possible for the elementary types. So that's far away from being a variable - it's a - maybe uninitialized - final value.
What might legitimate usecases for this look like?
I guess working in the REPL with interactive feedback. You execute code without an explicit wrapping object or class. To get this instant feedback, it can't be waited until the (implicit) object gets its closing }. Therefore the class/object isn't read in a two-pass fashion where firstly all declarations and initialisations are performed.
How would one work around this behaviour of val, getting back all the guarantees one is used to from using it within other methods?
Don't read attributes in the Ctor, like you don't read attributes in Java, which might get overwritten in subclasses.
update
Similar problems can occur in Java. A direct access to an uninitialized, final attribute is prevented by the compiler, but if you call it via another method:
public class FinalCheck
{
final int foo;
public FinalCheck ()
{
// does not compile:
// variable foo might not have been initialized
// System.out.println (foo);
// Does compile -
bar ();
foo = 42;
System.out.println (foo);
}
public void bar () {
System.out.println (foo);
}
public static void main (String args[])
{
new FinalCheck ();
}
}
... you see two values for foo.
0
42
I don't want to excuse this behaviour, and I agree, that it would be nice, if the compiler could warn consequently - in Java and Scala.
So it appears to be possible for methods to forward-reference instance
values, which will, eventually, be initialised before the method can
be called (unless, of course, you're calling it from the constructor),
and for statements within the constructor to forward-reference values
in the same way, accessing them before they've been initialised,
resulting in a silly arbitrary value.
A constructor is a constructor. You are constructing the object. All of its fields are initialized by JVM (basically, zeroed), and then the constructor fills in whatever fields needs filling in.
Why does val use its lexical compile-time effect within constructors?
Given that a constructor is really just a method, this seems rather
inconsistent to entirely drop val's compile-time effect, giving it its
usual run-time effect only.
I have no idea what you are saying or asking here, but a constructor is not a method.
Why does val, effectively, lose its effect of declaring an immutable value?
Accessing the value at different times may result in different
results. To me, it very much seems like a compiler implementation
detail leaking out.
It doesn't. If you try to modify bar from the constructor, you'll see it is not possible. Accessing the value at different times in the constructor may result in different results, of course.
You are constructing the object: it starts not constructed, and ends constructed. For it not to change it would have to start out with its final value, but how can it do that without someone assigning that value?
Guess who does that? The constructor.
What might legitimate usecases for this look like?
I'm having a hard time coming up with an example that absolutely
requires the current semantics of val within constructors and wouldn't
easily be implementable with a proper, lexical val, possibly in
combination with lazy.
There's no use case for accessing the val before its value has been filled in. It's just impossible to find out whether it has been initialized or not. For example:
class Foo {
println(bar)
val bar = 10
}
Do you think the compiler can guarantee it has not been initialized? Well, then open the REPL, put in the above class, and then this:
class Bar extends { override val bar = 42 } with Foo
new Bar
And see that bar was initialized when printed.
How would one work around this behaviour of val, getting back all the
guarantees one is used to from using it within other methods?
Declare your vals before using them. But note that constuctor is not a method. When you do:
println(bar)
inside a constructor, you are writing:
println(this.bar)
And this, the object of the class you are writing a constructor for, has a bar getter, so it is called.
When you do the same thing on a method where bar is a definition, there's no this with a bar getter.
Is it possible to create an AOP like interceptor using Scalas new Dynamic Type feature? For example: Would it be possible to create a generic stopwatch interceptor that could be mixed in with arbitrary types to profile my code? Or would I still have to use AspectJ?
I'm pretty sure Dynamic is only used when the object you're selecting on doesn't already have what you're selecting:
From the nightly scaladoc:
Instances x of this trait allow calls x.meth(args) for arbitrary method names meth and argument lists args. If a call is not natively supported by x, it is rewritten to x.invokeDynamic("meth", args)
Note that since the documentation was written, the method has been renamed applyDynamic.
No.
In order for a dynamic object to be supplied as a parameter, it'll need to have the expected type - which means inheriting from the class you want to proxy, or from the appropriate superclass / interface.
As soon as you do this, it'll have the relevant methods statically provided, so applyDynamic would never be considered.
I think your odds are bad. Scala will call applyDynamic only if there is no static match on the method call:
class Slow {
def doStuff = //slow stuff
}
var slow = new Slow with DynamicTimer
slow.doStuff
In the example above, scalac won't call applyDynamic because it statically resolved your call to doStuff. It will only fall through to applyDynamic if the method you are calling matches none of the names of methods on the type.