ZeroC Ice "checked casts" in Scala - scala

ZeroC Ice for Java translates every Slice interface Simple into (among other things) a proxy interface SimplePrx and a proxy SimplePrxHelper. If I have an ObjectPrx (the base interface for all proxies), I can check whether it actually has interface Simple by using a static method on SimplePrxHelper:
val obj : Ice.ObjectPrx = ...; // Get a proxy from somewhere...
val simple : SimplePrx = SimplePrxHelper.checkedCast(obj);
if (simple != null)
// Object supports the Simple interface...
else
// Object is not of type Simple...
I wanted to write a method castTo so that I could replace the second line with
val simple = castTo[SimplePrx](obj)
or
val simple = castTo[SimplePrxHelper](obj)
So far as I can see, Scala's type system is not expressive enough to allow me to define castTo. Is this correct?

Should be able to do something with implicits, along these lines:
object Casting {
trait Caster[A] {
def checkedCast(obj: ObjectPrx): Option[A]
}
def castTo[A](obj: ObjectPrx)(implicit caster: Caster[A]) =
caster.checkedCast(obj)
implicit object SimplePrxCaster extends Caster[SimplePrx] {
def checkedCast(obj: ObjectPrx) = Option(SimplePrxHelper.checkedCast(obj))
}
}
Then you just bring things into scope where you want to use them:
package my.package
import Casting._
...
def whatever(prx: ObjectPrx) {
castTo[SimplePrx](prx) foreach (_.somethingSimple())
}
...

You can get something like what you want with structural types:
def castTo[A](helper: { def checkedCast(o: Object): A })(o: Object) = {
helper.checkedCast(o)
}
class FooPrx { }
object FooPrxHelper {
def checkedCast(o: Object): FooPrx = o match {
case fp : FooPrx => fp
case _ => null
}
}
scala> val o: Object = new FooPrx
o: java.lang.Object = FooPrx#da8742
scala> val fp = castTo(FooPrxHelper)(o)
fp: FooPrx = FooPrx#da8742

Related

Scala reflect string to singleton object

I'm looking for a way to convert a Scala singleton object given as a string (for example: package1.Main) to the actual instance of Main, so that I can invoke methods on it.
Example of the problem:
package x {
object Main extends App {
val objectPath: String = io.StdIn.readLine("Give an object: ") // user enters: x.B
// how to convert the objectPath (String) to a variable that references singleton B?
val b1: A = magicallyConvert1(objectPath)
b1.hi()
val b2: B.type = magicallyConvert2(objectPath)
b2.extra()
}
trait A {
def hi() = {}
}
object B extends A {
def extra() = {}
}
}
How can the magicallyConvert1 and magicallyConvert2 functions be implemented?
For a normal class, this can be done using something like:
val b: A = Class.forName("x.B").newInstance().asInstanceOf[A]
But I found a solution for singletons, using Java reflections:
A singleton is accesible in Java under the name:
package.SingletonName$.MODULE$
So you have to append "$.MODULE$", which is a static field.
So we can use standard Java reflections to get it.
So the solution is:
def magicallyConvert1(objectPath: String) = {
val clz = Class.forName(objectPath + "$")
val field = clz.getField("MODULE$")
val b: A = field.get(null).asInstanceOf[A]
b
}
def magicallyConvert2(objectPath: String) = {
val clz = Class.forName(objectPath + "$")
val field = clz.getField("MODULE$")
val b: B.type = field.get(null).asInstanceOf[B.type]
b
}
But it would be interesting to still see a solution with Scala-Reflect en Scala-Meta.
take a look at scalameta http://scalameta.org it does what you want and more

Access Spark broadcast variable in different classes

I am broadcasting a value in Spark Streaming application . But I am not sure how to access that variable in a different class than the class where it was broadcasted.
My code looks as follows:
object AppMain{
def main(args: Array[String]){
//...
val broadcastA = sc.broadcast(a)
//..
lines.foreachRDD(rdd => {
val obj = AppObject1
rdd.filter(p => obj.apply(p))
rdd.count
}
}
object AppObject1: Boolean{
def apply(str: String){
AnotherObject.process(str)
}
}
object AnotherObject{
// I want to use broadcast variable in this object
val B = broadcastA.Value // compilation error here
def process(): Boolean{
//need to use B inside this method
}
}
Can anyone suggest how to access broadcast variable in this case?
There is nothing particularly Spark specific here ignoring possible serialization issues. If you want to use some object it has to be available in the current scope and you can achieve this the same way as usual:
you can define your helpers in a scope where broadcast is already defined:
{
...
val x = sc.broadcast(1)
object Foo {
def foo = x.value
}
...
}
you can use it as a constructor argument:
case class Foo(x: org.apache.spark.broadcast.Broadcast[Int]) {
def foo = x.value
}
...
Foo(sc.broadcast(1)).foo
method argument
case class Foo() {
def foo(x: org.apache.spark.broadcast.Broadcast[Int]) = x.value
}
...
Foo().foo(sc.broadcast(1))
or even mixed-in your helpers like this:
trait Foo {
val x: org.apache.spark.broadcast.Broadcast[Int]
def foo = x.value
}
object Main extends Foo {
val sc = new SparkContext("local", "test", new SparkConf())
val x = sc.broadcast(1)
def main(args: Array[String]) {
sc.parallelize(Seq(None)).map(_ => foo).first
sc.stop
}
}
Just a short take on performance considerations that were introduced earlier.
Options proposed by zero233 are indeed very elegant way of doing this kind of things in Scala. At the same time it is important to understand implications of using certain patters in distributed system.
It is not the best idea to use mixin approach / any logic that uses enclosing class state. Whenever you use a state of enclosing class within lambdas Spark will have to serialize outer object. This is not always true but you'd better off writing safer code than one day accidentally blow up the whole cluster.
Being aware of this, I would personally go for explicit argument passing to the methods as this would not result in outer class serialization (method argument approach).
you can use classes and pass the broadcast variable to classes
your psudo code should look like :
object AppMain{
def main(args: Array[String]){
//...
val broadcastA = sc.broadcast(a)
//..
lines.foreach(rdd => {
val obj = new AppObject1(broadcastA)
rdd.filter(p => obj.apply(p))
rdd.count
})
}
}
class AppObject1(bc : Broadcast[String]){
val anotherObject = new AnotherObject(bc)
def apply(str: String): Boolean ={
anotherObject.process(str)
}
}
class AnotherObject(bc : Broadcast[String]){
// I want to use broadcast variable in this object
def process(str : String): Boolean = {
val a = bc.value
true
//need to use B inside this method
}
}

How to define a parametric type alias

I try to define a parametric type alias :
case class A
case class B
case class C
// We need an Int to load instances of A and B, and a String to load C
object Service {
def loadA(i: Int) : A = ???
def loadB(i: Int) : B = ???
def loadC(s: String) : C = ???
}
trait Location[T] { def get : T}
class IntLocation(val i: Int)
class StringLocation(val s: String)
trait EntityLocation[E] extends Location[_]
// Aim : make the loader typesafe
// Problem : I need something like that : type EntityLocation[Composite] = IntLocation
object Family {
trait EntityLoader[EntityT] extends (EntityLocation[EntityT] => EntityT)
val ALoader = new EntityLoader[A] {def load[A](l: EntityLocation[A]) = Service.loadA(l.get)
}
I am not sure what you are trying to achieve here. Could you please explain how you want to use these types in your code?
Assuming just want to use the types IdLocation and FileLocation in your code, maybe you want to try
trait Location[T] { def get : T }
type IdLocation = Location[Id]
type FileLocation = Location[java.io.File]
Seems rather convoluted, so I'm not sure I follow exactly what your purpose here is. You seem to go into many layers of factories that create factories, that call factory methods, etc.
Seems to me that at the end of the day you need you want to have a val ALoader value that you can use to get instances of A from Location[Int] objects, so I'll go with that assumption:
// Not sure what you want this one, but let's assume that you need a wrapper class per your example.
trait Location[P] { def get: P }
class IntLocation(val i: Int) extends Location[Int]
{
override def get: Int = i
}
// P for parameter, O for output class.
def loader[O, P](creator: P => O)(param: Location[P]) = { creator(param.get) }
object Service
{
// A function somewhere, capable of taking your parameter and creating something else (in your example, an Int to an 'A')
// here Int to String to make something concrete.
// This could be any function, anywhere
def loadA(someParam: Int) = someParam.toString
}
def main(args: Array[String])
{
val myStringLoader: Location[Int] => String = loader(Service.loadA)
// Alternatively, you could have written `val myStringLoader = loader(Service.loadA)(_)`. Either the type or the underscore are needed to tell the compiler that you expect a function, not a value.
// Some definition for you wrapper class
val location3 = new Location[Int]{
override def get: Int = 3
}
// ... or just a plain old instance of it.
val otherLocation = new IntLocation(5)
// This would 'load' the kind of thing you want using the method you specified.
val myString = myStringLoader(location3)
val myOtherString = myStringLoader(otherLocation)
// This prints "3 - 5"
print(myString + " - " + myOtherString)
}
This might seem like a long answer, but in truth the line def loader[O, P](creator: P => O)(param: Location[P]) = { creator(param.get) } is the one that does it all, the rest is to make it as similar to your sample as possible and to provide a working main you can use to start from.
Of course, this would be even simpler if you don't really need the Location wrapper for your integer.

Scala Reflection Conundrum: Can you explain these weird results?

I wrote some Scala code, using reflection, that returns all vals in an object that are of a certain type. Below are three versions of this code. One of them works but is ugly. Two attempts to improve it don't work, in very different ways. Can you explain why?
First, the code:
import scala.reflect.runtime._
import scala.util.Try
trait ScopeBase[T] {
// this version tries to generalize the type. The only difference
// from the working version is [T] instead of [String]
def enumerateBase[S: universe.TypeTag]: Seq[T] = {
val mirror = currentMirror.reflect(this)
universe.typeOf[S].decls.map {
decl => Try(mirror.reflectField(decl.asMethod).get.asInstanceOf[T])
}.filter(_.isSuccess).map(_.get).filter(_ != null).toSeq
}
}
trait ScopeString extends ScopeBase[String] {
// This version works but requires passing the val type
// (String, in this example) explicitly. I don't want to
// duplicate the code for different val types.
def enumerate[S: universe.TypeTag]: Seq[String] = {
val mirror = currentMirror.reflect(this)
universe.typeOf[S].decls.map {
decl => Try(mirror.reflectField(decl.asMethod).get.asInstanceOf[String])
}.filter(_.isSuccess).map(_.get).filter(_ != null).toSeq
}
// This version tries to avoid passing the object's type
// as the [S] type parameter. After all, the method is called
// on the object itself; so why pass the type?
def enumerateThis: Seq[String] = {
val mirror = currentMirror.reflect(this)
universe.typeOf[this.type].decls.map {
decl => Try(mirror.reflectField(decl.asMethod).get.asInstanceOf[String])
}.filter(_.isSuccess).map(_.get).filter(_ != null).toSeq
}
}
// The working example
object Test1 extends ScopeString {
val IntField: Int = 13
val StringField: String = "test"
lazy val fields = enumerate[Test1.type]
}
// This shows how the attempt to generalize the type doesn't work
object Test2 extends ScopeString {
val IntField: Int = 13
val StringField: String = "test"
lazy val fields = enumerateBase[Test2.type]
}
// This shows how the attempt to drop the object's type doesn't work
object Test3 extends ScopeString {
val IntField: Int = 13
val StringField: String = "test"
lazy val fields = enumerateThis
}
val test1 = Test1.fields // List(test)
val test2 = Test2.fields // List(13, test)
val test3 = Test3.fields // List()
The "enumerate" method does work. However, as you can see from the Test1 example, it requires passing the object's own type (Test1.type) as a parameter, which should not have been necessary. The "enumerateThis" method tries to avoid that but fails, producing an empty list. The "enumerateBase" method attempts to generalize the "enumerate" code by passing the val type as a parameter. But it fails, too, producing the list of all vals, not just those of a certain type.
Any idea what's going on?
Your problem in your generic implementation is the loss of the type information of T. Also, don't use exceptions as your primary method of control logic (it's very slow!). Here's a working version of your base.
abstract class ScopeBase[T : universe.TypeTag, S <: ScopeBase[T, S] : universe.TypeTag : scala.reflect.ClassTag] {
self: S =>
def enumerateBase: Seq[T] = {
val mirror = currentMirror.reflect(this)
universe.typeOf[S].baseClasses.map(_.asType.toType).flatMap(
_.decls
.filter(_.typeSignature.resultType <:< universe.typeOf[T])
.filter(_.isMethod)
.map(_.asMethod)
.filter(_.isAccessor)
.map(decl => mirror.reflectMethod(decl).apply().asInstanceOf[T])
.filter(_ != null)
).toSeq
}
}
trait Inherit {
val StringField2: String = "test2"
}
class Test1 extends ScopeBase[String, Test1] with Inherit {
val IntField: Int = 13
val StringField: String = "test"
lazy val fields = enumerateBase
}
object Test extends App {
println(new Test1().fields)
}
Instead of getting the type from universe.typeOf you can use the runtime class currentMirror.classSymbol(getClass).toType, below is an example that works:
def enumerateThis: Seq[String] = {
val mirror = currentMirror.reflect(this)
currentMirror.classSymbol(getClass).toType.decls.map {
decl => Try(mirror.reflectField(decl.asMethod).get.asInstanceOf[String])
}.filter(_.isSuccess).map(_.get).filter(_ != null).toSeq
}
//prints List(test)
With everyone's help, here's the final version that works:
import scala.reflect.runtime.{currentMirror, universe}
abstract class ScopeBase[T: universe.TypeTag] {
lazy val enumerate: Seq[T] = {
val mirror = currentMirror.reflect(this)
currentMirror.classSymbol(getClass).baseClasses.map(_.asType.toType).flatMap {
_.decls
.filter(_.typeSignature.resultType <:< universe.typeOf[T])
.filter(_.isMethod)
.map(_.asMethod)
.filterNot(_.isConstructor)
.filter(_.paramLists.size == 0)
.map(decl => mirror.reflectField(decl.asMethod).get.asInstanceOf[T])
.filter(_ != null).toSeq
}
}
}
trait FieldScope extends ScopeBase[Field[_]]
trait DbFieldScope extends ScopeBase[DbField[_, _]] {
// etc....
}
As you see from the last few lines, my use cases are limited to scope objects for specific field types. This is why I want to parameterize the scope container. If I wanted to enumerate the fields of multiple types in a single scope container, then I would have parameterized the enumerate method.

Scala: subclassing with factories

Let's say I've got two traits, one of them being a factory for another:
trait BaseT {
val name: String
def introduceYourself() = println("Hi, I am " +name)
// some other members ...
}
trait BaseTBuilder {
def build: BaseT
}
Now, I want to extend BaseT:
trait ExtendedT extends BaseT {
val someNewCoolField: Int
override def introduceYourself() = {
super.introduceYourself()
println(someNewCoolField)
}
// some other extra fields
Let's say I know how to initialize the new fields, but I'd like to use BaseTBuilder for initializing superclass members. Is there a possibility to create a trait that would be able to instantiate ExtendedT somehow? This approach obviously fails:
trait ExtendedTBuilder { self: TBuilder =>
def build: ExtendedT = {
val base = self.build()
val extended = base.asInstanceOf[ExtendedT] // this cannot work
extended.someNewCoolField = 4 // this cannot work either, assignment to val
extended
}
def buildDifferently: ExtendedT = {
new ExtendedT(4) // this fails, we don't know anything about constructors of ExtendedT
}
def build3: ExtendedT = {
self.build() with {someNewCoolField=5} //that would be cool, but it cannot work either
}
}
I'd like to have such a set of traits (or objects) that when someone supplies concrete implementation of BaseT and BaseTBuilder I could instantiantiate ExtendedT by writing:
val extendedBuilder = new ConcreteBaseTBuilder with ExtendedTBuilder
val e: ExtendedT = extendedBuilder.build
ExtendedT could contain a field of type BaseT, but then it would require manually proxying all the necessary methods and fields, which is in my opinion a violation of DRY principle. How to solve that?
How about create ExtendBaseT instance in your ExtendBaseTBuilder
trait ExtendBaseTBuilder { self : BaseTBuilder =>
def build: ExtendBaseT = {
new ExtendBaseT {
val someNewCoolField: Int = 3
}
}
}