Filling a Scala immutable Map from a database table - scala

Question

I have a SQL database table with the following structure:
create table category_value (
category varchar(25),
property varchar(25)
);
I want to read this into a Scala Map[String, Set[String]] where each entry in the map is a set of all of the property values that are in the same category.
I would like to do it in a "functional" style with no mutable data (other than the database result set).
Following on the Clojure loop construct, here is what I have come up with:
def fillMap(statement: java.sql.Statement): Map[String, Set[String]] = {
val resultSet = statement.executeQuery("select category, property from category_value")
#tailrec
def loop(m: Map[String, Set[String]]): Map[String, Set[String]] = {
if (resultSet.next) {
val category = resultSet.getString("category")
val property = resultSet.getString("property")
loop(m + (category -> m.getOrElse(category, Set.empty)))
} else m
}
loop(Map.empty)
}
Is there a better way to do this, without using mutable data structures?

Answer 1

If you like, you could try something around
def fillMap(statement: java.sql.Statement): Map[String, Set[String]] = {
val resultSet = statement.executeQuery("select category, property from category_value")
Iterator.continually((resultSet, resultSet.next)).takeWhile(_._2).map(_._1).map{ res =>
val category = res.getString("category")
val property = res.getString("property")
(category, property)
}.toIterable.groupBy(_._1).mapValues(_.map(_._2).toSet)
}
Untested, because I don’t have a proper sql.Statement. And the groupBy part might need some more love to look nice.
Edit: Added the requested changes.

Answer 2

There are two parts to this problem.
Getting the data out of the database and into a list of rows.
I would use a Spring SimpleJdbcOperations for the database access, so that things at least appear functional, even though the ResultSet is being changed behind the scenes.
First, some a simple conversion to let us use a closure to map each row:
implicit def rowMapper[T<:AnyRef](func: (ResultSet)=>T) =
new ParameterizedRowMapper[T]{
override def mapRow(rs:ResultSet, row:Int):T = func(rs)
}
Then let's define a data structure to store the results. (You could use a tuple, but defining my own case class has advantage of being just a little bit clearer regarding the names of things.)
case class CategoryValue(category:String, property:String)
Now select from the database
val db:SimpleJdbcOperations = //get this somehow
val resultList:java.util.List[CategoryValue] =
db.query("select category, property from category_value",
{ rs:ResultSet => CategoryValue(rs.getString(1),rs.getString(2)) } )
Converting the data from a list of rows into the format that you actually want
import scala.collection.JavaConversions._
val result:Map[String,Set[String]] =
resultList.groupBy(_.category).mapValues(_.map(_.property).toSet)
(You can omit the type annotations. I've included them to make it clear what's going on.)

Answer 3

Builders are built for this purpose. Get one via the desired collection type companion, e.g. HashMap.newBuilder[String, Set[String]].

Answer 4

This solution is basically the same as my other solution, but it doesn't use Spring, and the logic for converting a ResultSet to some sort of list is simpler than Debilski's solution.
def streamFromResultSet[T](rs:ResultSet)(func: ResultSet => T):Stream[T] = {
if (rs.next())
func(rs) #:: streamFromResultSet(rs)(func)
else
rs.close()
Stream.empty
}
def fillMap(statement:java.sql.Statement):Map[String,Set[String]] = {
case class CategoryValue(category:String, property:String)
val resultSet = statement.executeQuery("""
select category, property from category_value
""")
val queryResult = streamFromResultSet(resultSet){rs =>
CategoryValue(rs.getString(1),rs.getString(2))
}
queryResult.groupBy(_.category).mapValues(_.map(_.property).toSet)
}

Answer 5

There is only one approach I can think of that does not include either mutable state or extensive copying*. It is actually a very basic technique I learnt in my first term studying CS. Here goes, abstracting from the database stuff:
def empty[K,V](k : K) : Option[V] = None
def add[K,V](m : K => Option[V])(k : K, v : V) : K => Option[V] = q => {
if ( k == q ) {
Some(v)
}
else {
m(q)
}
}
def build[K,V](input : TraversableOnce[(K,V)]) : K => Option[V] = {
input.foldLeft(empty[K,V]_)((m,i) => add(m)(i._1, i._2))
}
Usage example:
val map = build(List(("a",1),("b",2)))
println("a " + map("a"))
println("b " + map("b"))
println("c " + map("c"))
> a Some(1)
> b Some(2)
> c None
Of course, the resulting function does not have type Map (nor any of its benefits) and has linear lookup costs. I guess you could implement something in a similar way that mimicks simple search trees.
(*) I am talking concepts here. In reality, things like value sharing might enable e.g. mutable list constructions without memory overhead.