I have a series of functions 'arg -> 'entity -> 'entity to update an immutable entity.
I have a series of corresponding 'arg option arguments where if the argument is Some, I should call the corresponding update function.
I have currently implemented it like this:
// General utility function
// ('a -> 'b -> 'b) -> 'a option -> 'b -> 'b
let ifSome f argOpt entity =
match argOpt with
| Some arg -> f arg entity
| None -> entity
// Function that accepts several option parameters
// (callbackUrl and authHeader are wrapped in option)
let updateWebhook callbackUrl authHeader webhook =
webhook
|> ifSome Webhook.setCallbackUrl callbackUrl
|> ifSome Webhook.setAuthHeader authHeader
I like how simple it is, but as is often the case with my homegrown functional solutions (particularly when the generic function is more generic than suggested by the parameter names I came up with), I get the feeling that this is just a special case of a more general functional concept - that I could use some existing abstractions to perform the same task. I therefore wonder:
Is this a recognized functional pattern? If so, does it have a name, and can I read more about it somewhere?
If not, is there a (hopefully similarly simple) alternative that accomplishes the same using "well-known" functional abstractions/patterns?
This is just Option.fold (or more precisely in this case Option.foldBack). Folds are more generally known as catamorphisms.
let updateWebhook callbackUrl authHeader webhook =
webhook
|> Option.foldBack Webhook.setCallbackUrl callbackUrl
|> Option.foldBack Webhook.setAuthHeader authHeader
Related
I am supposed to write a small program in F# for a uni assignment. One of the exercises says to create a filter method with this signature:
filter : ('a -> bool) -> list<'a> -> list<'a>. But I am struggling to properly interpret this syntax. The docs say the syntax for creating a method is
let [inline] function-name parameter-list [ : return-type ] = function-body. But how does my example fit into this? Is it a function which takes no parameters but returns three values?
The function should filter a list given a predicate which is simple enough, but if it doesn't take any parameters, how should I pass a predicate and list? I am sure I'm missing something major because I can't wrap my head around it.
The documentation you may be referring to tells you how to implement a function. The signature you've been given, however, is the desired function's type. F# types are documented here: https://learn.microsoft.com/dotnet/fsharp/language-reference/fsharp-types
Specifically, the documentation says that in its simplest form, a function has the type parameter-type1 -> return-type, but when it has more parameters, it generally takes the form parameter-type1 -> parameter-type2 -> ... -> return-type.
In F#, functions are values, so the desired filter is a value that happens to be a function. The function should take two inputs: ('a -> bool) and list<'a>, and return a value of the type list<'a>.
One of the inputs is a function in its own right: ('a -> bool).
Technically, this is saying that filter is a function which takes a predicate function of type 'a -> bool and returns a function which takes a list<'a> and returns another value of type list<'a>.
This is because functions only transform one value into another, but either of those values can be a function.
As a practical matter, filter takes two arguments: that predicate function which take one 'a value and returns a boolean, and a list<'a>.
The simplest answer to your question is that that function takes two arguments and returns a value:
('a -> bool) // arg 1
-> list<'a> // arg 2
-> list<'a> // return value
In F#, function arguments can also be thought of as part of the return value because of partially applied functions e.g. you can think of the above as "given the first arg, return back a new function that expects the second arg and gives back the filtered list".
('a -> bool) // arg
-> (list<'a> -> list<'a>) // return value
I have a function f: 'a -> Async<'b option> that I want to call with 'a option instead of 'a. Now, if I had a function g that returned Async<'b> instead of f's Async<'b option>, I could write a standard traverse implementation and I would then have Async<'b option> at the end. But if I use traverse with f, the result is Async<'b option option>.
It seems to me I need something like this:
module Option =
let traverseBindAsync (f: 'a -> Async<'b option>) (opt: 'a option) : Async<'b option> =
async {
match opt with
| None -> return None
| Some x -> return! f x
}
I don't think traverseBind is a recognized concept (no search results). Is it known under another name, or alternatively, is there another way to think about this in terms of recognized FP concepts one can express in F#? If so, could I use those concepts in a way that is more or less as syntactically concise as the above Option.traverseBindAsync?
I'm not aware of any standard name for a function of a type like this. However, there are two changes you can do to the code that might be somewhat revealing. First, you can implement it without the use of the async block, just by using either f x or by returning async.Unit(None), i.e. an asynchronous computation that immediately returns None:
let traverseBindAsync (f: 'a -> Async<'b option>) (opt: 'a option) : Async<'b option> =
match opt with
| None -> async.Return None
| Some x -> f x
Now you can also rewrite this as doing Option.map on the input and using async.Return(None) as the default value when the input option (and therefore also the result of the map operation) is None:
let traverseBindAsync (f: 'a -> Async<'b option>) (opt: 'a option) : Async<'b option> =
opt |> Option.map f |> Option.defaultValue (async.Return None)
I don't think this has any name, but you can think of your function as Option.map with a particular default value when the input is not available.
I am attempting to change the value of a key in a map I made in OCaml:
module TestMap = Map.Make(String);;
let m = TestMap.empty;;
let m = TestMap.add "Chris" 1 m ;;
let m = TestMap.add "Julie" 4 m;;
This compiles file, but when I try to update the value at key Julie with:
let m = TestMap.update "Julie" 10 m;;
I get an error from the compiler:
Error: This expression has type int but an expression was expected of type
'a option -> 'a option
I'm guessing that I'm maybe using the function incorrectly. I'm finding the documentation for Map.update pretty hard to understand:
val update : key -> ('a option -> 'a option) -> 'a t -> 'a t
Is my syntax or are my arguments incorrect?
The update function works in a way different from what you think
key -> ('a option -> 'a option) -> 'a t -> 'a t
You see that second argument is a function which takes an 'a option and returns an 'a option so you don't directly update with a new value but rather pass a function which returns the new value, according to the previous one, eg:
let m = TestMap.update "Julie" (fun _ -> Some 10) m;;
This because, as documentation states, the passed 'a option tells you if there was a mapping for the key and the returned 'a option allows you to change it or even remove it (through None).
If you need just to update a mapping you can use Map.add again, there's no need to use more advanced Map.update.
How can I create a function called getFuncName that takes a function of type (unit -> 'a) and returns its name.
I was talking to one of the C# devs and they said you could use the .Method property on a Func type as shown in an example here.
I tried to convert this to F# :
for example convert (unit -> 'a) to a type Func<_> then call the property on it but it always returns the string "Invoke".
let getFuncName f =
let fFunc = System.Func<_>(fun _ -> f())
fFunc.Method.Name
let customFunc() = 1.0
// Returns "Invoke" but I want it to return "customFunc"
getFuncName customFunc
A bit of background to this problem is:
I have created an array of functions of type (unit -> Deedle.Frame). I now want to cycle through those functions invoking them and saving them to csv with the csv name having the same name as the function. Some hypothetical code is below:
let generators : (unit -> Frame<int, string>) array = ...
generators
|> Array.iter (fun generator -> generator().SaveCsv(sprintf "%s\%s.csv" __SOURCE_DIRECTORY__ (getFuncName generator)))
This is being used in a scripting sense rather than as application code.
Not sure how you searched for information, but the first query to the search engine gave me this response:
let getFuncName f =
let type' = f.GetType()
let method' = type'.GetMethods() |> Array.find (fun m -> m.Name="Invoke")
let il = method'.GetMethodBody().GetILAsByteArray()
let methodCodes = [byte OpCodes.Call.Value;byte OpCodes.Callvirt.Value]
let position = il |> Array.findIndex(fun x -> methodCodes |> List.exists ((=)x))
let metadataToken = BitConverter.ToInt32(il, position+1)
let actualMethod = type'.Module.ResolveMethod metadataToken
actualMethod.Name
Unfortunately, this code only works when F# compiler does not inline function body into calling method.
Taken from here
Although there may be a more simple way.
Does "Value Restriction" practically mean that there is no higher order functional programming?
I have a problem that each time I try to do a bit of HOP I get caught by a VR error. Example:
let simple (s:string)= fun rq->1
let oops= simple ""
type 'a SimpleType= F of (int ->'a-> 'a)
let get a = F(fun req -> id)
let oops2= get ""
and I would like to know whether it is a problem of a prticular implementation of VR or it is a general problem that has no solution in a mutable type-infered language that doesn't include mutation in the type system.
Does “Value Restriction” mean that there is no higher order functional programming?
Absolutely not! The value restriction barely interferes with higher-order functional programming at all. What it does do is restrict some applications of polymorphic functions—not higher-order functions—at top level.
Let's look at your example.
Your problem is that oops and oops2 are both the identity function and have type forall 'a . 'a -> 'a. In other words each is a polymorphic value. But the right-hand side is not a so-called "syntactic value"; it is a function application. (A function application is not allowed to return a polymorphic value because if it were, you could construct a hacky function using mutable references and lists that would subvert the type system; that is, you could write a terminating function type type forall 'a 'b . 'a -> 'b.
Luckily in almost all practical cases, the polymorphic value in question is a function, and you can define it by eta-expanding:
let oops x = simple "" x
This idiom looks like it has some run-time cost, but depending on the inliner and optimizer, that can be got rid of by the compiler—it's just the poor typechecker that is having trouble.
The oops2 example is more troublesome because you have to pack and unpack the value constructor:
let oops2 = F(fun x -> let F f = get "" in f x)
This is quite a but more tedious, but the anonymous function fun x -> ... is a syntactic value, and F is a datatype constructor, and a constructor applied to a syntactic value is also a syntactic value, and Bob's your uncle. The packing and unpacking of F is all going to be compiled into the identity function, so oops2 is going to compile into exactly the same machine code as oops.
Things are even nastier when you want a run-time computation to return a polymorphic value like None or []. As hinted at by Nathan Sanders, you can run afoul of the value restriction with an expression as simple as rev []:
Standard ML of New Jersey v110.67 [built: Sun Oct 19 17:18:14 2008]
- val l = rev [];
stdIn:1.5-1.15 Warning: type vars not generalized because of
value restriction are instantiated to dummy types (X1,X2,...)
val l = [] : ?.X1 list
-
Nothing higher-order there! And yet the value restriction applies.
In practice the value restriction presents no barrier to the definition and use of higher-order functions; you just eta-expand.
I didn't know the details of the value restriction, so I searched and found this article. Here is the relevant part:
Obviously, we aren't going to write the expression rev [] in a program, so it doesn't particularly matter that it isn't polymorphic. But what if we create a function using a function call? With curried functions, we do this all the time:
- val revlists = map rev;
Here revlists should be polymorphic, but the value restriction messes us up:
- val revlists = map rev;
stdIn:32.1-32.23 Warning: type vars not generalized because of
value restriction are instantiated to dummy types (X1,X2,...)
val revlists = fn : ?.X1 list list -> ?.X1 list list
Fortunately, there is a simple trick that we can use to make revlists polymorphic. We can replace the definition of revlists with
- val revlists = (fn xs => map rev xs);
val revlists = fn : 'a list list -> 'a list list
and now everything works just fine, since (fn xs => map rev xs) is a syntactic value.
(Equivalently, we could have used the more common fun syntax:
- fun revlists xs = map rev xs;
val revlists = fn : 'a list list -> 'a list list
with the same result.) In the literature, the trick of replacing a function-valued expression e with (fn x => e x) is known as eta expansion. It has been found empirically that eta expansion usually suffices for dealing with the value restriction.
To summarise, it doesn't look like higher-order programming is restricted so much as point-free programming. This might explain some of the trouble I have when translating Haskell code to F#.
Edit: Specifically, here's how to fix your first example:
let simple (s:string)= fun rq->1
let oops= (fun x -> simple "" x) (* eta-expand oops *)
type 'a SimpleType= F of (int ->'a-> 'a)
let get a = F(fun req -> id)
let oops2= get ""
I haven't figured out the second one yet because the type constructor is getting in the way.
Here is the answer to this question in the context of F#.
To summarize, in F# passing a type argument to a generic (=polymorphic) function is a run-time operation, so it is actually type-safe to generalize (as in, you will not crash at runtime). The behaviour of thusly generalized value can be surprising though.
For this particular example in F#, one can recover generalization with a type annotation and an explicit type parameter:
type 'a SimpleType= F of (int ->'a-> 'a)
let get a = F(fun req -> id)
let oops2<'T> : 'T SimpleType = get ""