I'm wondering if this would be a reasonable feature request (even better if it already exists and I don't know how to access it).
An example of why this is desirable is the pipes library. Pipes defines a type:
data Proxy a' a b' b m r
with a ton of aliases, a few of which are:
type Effect = Proxy X () () X
type Producer b = Proxy X () () b
type Pipe a b = Proxy () a () b
type Consumer a = Proxy () a () X
As you can imagine, this is a worst-case scenario for clear error messages. As a programmer reading the documentation, you're thinking in terms of simpler types with few parameters but all of the error messages are in terms of a monster type with six parameters like so:
Couldn't match expected type ‘Proxy () Bool () b0 IO ()’
with actual type ‘Int -> Pipe Bool Integer m0 r0’
Would be clearer if that message could be like:
Couldn't match expected type ‘Pipe Bool Integer IO ()’
with actual type ‘Int -> Pipe Bool Integer IO ()’
As a side question, why does GHC lose track of the specific type Integer that it replaces with b0 while somehow it remembers Bool? The declared type is:
(Monad m)
=> Int
-> Pipe Bool Integer m r
Anyway ...
Would better error reporting for type aliases be possible as a feature request or does GHC forget the alias long before detecting the type error? (Seems to me like GHC must keep track of the alias because GHC seems to remember it in the "actual type" part of the error message, but I have no clue how a compiler works.)
Related
I'm actually trying to understand how data are stored and loaded using pointers with rust, but when I run this code:
#[cfg(test)]
mod tests{
fn get_pointer<T>(a:T) -> *const i32{
ptr::addr_of!(a)
}
#[test]
fn f(){
unsafe {
let a = 5;
let pointer = get_pointer(a);
let encoded = bincode::serialize(&(pointer as usize)).unwrap();
let decoded = bincode::deserialize::<usize>(&encoded[..]).unwrap() as *const i32;
let b = std::ptr::read(decoded);
assert_eq!(a, b);
}
}
}
The value stored in b become 0 instead of 5, and I cannot figure out why this happens and how to solve this.
I think that the problem occurs because the value of a is dropped after the function returns the pointer but I'm not sure if that's right
I think that the problem occurs because the value of a is dropped after the function returns the pointer but I'm not sure if that's right
Well yes, pretty much. The locals of a function only live for the extent of that function (which is why rustc will refuse compiling if you try to return a reference to function-local data), so get_pointer returns a dangling pointer, serializing and deserializing the pointer does quite literally nothing, and the ptr::read is UB:
Safety
Behavior is undefined if any of the following conditions are violated:
src must be valid for reads.
src must be properly aligned. Use read_unaligned if this is not the case.
src must point to a properly initialized value of type T.
Running the program using miri unambiguously flags the issue:
error: Undefined Behavior: pointer to alloc1416 was dereferenced after this allocation got freed
--> /playground/.rustup/toolchains/nightly-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/lib/rustlib/src/rust/library/core/src/ptr/mod.rs:703:9
|
703 | copy_nonoverlapping(src, tmp.as_mut_ptr(), 1);
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ pointer to alloc1416 was dereferenced after this allocation got freed
|
= help: this indicates a bug in the program: it performed an invalid operation, and caused Undefined Behavior
= help: see https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/reference/behavior-considered-undefined.html for further information
= note: inside `std::ptr::read::<i32>` at /playground/.rustup/toolchains/nightly-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/lib/rustlib/src/rust/library/core/src/ptr/mod.rs:703:9
note: inside `main` at src/main.rs:12:17
--> src/main.rs:12:17
|
12 | let b = ptr::read(decoded);
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I'm actually trying to understand how data are stored and loaded using pointers with rust
Doing it that way is a terrible idea, you're stepping off way into UB land and that means all bets are off, what you observe (to the extent that you can observe anything) has no relations to defined semantics.
Previously asked similar question but somehow I'm not finding my way out, attempting again with another example.
The code as a starting point (a bit trimmed) is available at https://ideone.com/zkQcIU.
(it has some issue recognizing Microsoft.FSharp.Core.Result type, not sure why)
Essentially all operations have to be pipelined with the previous function feeding the result to the next one. The operations have to be async and they should return error to the caller in case an exception occurred.
The requirement is to give the caller either result or fault. All functions return a Tuple populated with either Success type Article or Failure with type Error object having descriptive code and message returned from the server.
Will appreciate a working example around my code both for the callee and the caller in an answer.
Callee Code
type Article = {
name: string
}
type Error = {
code: string
message: string
}
let create (article: Article) : Result<Article, Error> =
let request = WebRequest.Create("http://example.com") :?> HttpWebRequest
request.Method <- "GET"
try
use response = request.GetResponse() :?> HttpWebResponse
use reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream())
use memoryStream = new MemoryStream(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(reader.ReadToEnd()))
Ok ((new DataContractJsonSerializer(typeof<Article>)).ReadObject(memoryStream) :?> Article)
with
| :? WebException as e ->
use reader = new StreamReader(e.Response.GetResponseStream())
use memoryStream = new MemoryStream(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(reader.ReadToEnd()))
Error ((new DataContractJsonSerializer(typeof<Error>)).ReadObject(memoryStream) :?> Error)
Rest of the chained methods - Same signature and similar bodies. You can actually reuse the body of create for update, upload, and publish to be able to test and compile code.
let update (article: Article) : Result<Article, Error>
// body (same as create, method <- PUT)
let upload (article: Article) : Result<Article, Error>
// body (same as create, method <- PUT)
let publish (article: Article) : Result<Article, Error>
// body (same as create, method < POST)
Caller Code
let chain = create >> Result.bind update >> Result.bind upload >> Result.bind publish
match chain(schemaObject) with
| Ok article -> Debug.WriteLine(article.name)
| Error error -> Debug.WriteLine(error.code + ":" + error.message)
Edit
Based on the answer and matching it with Scott's implementation (https://i.stack.imgur.com/bIxpD.png), to help in comparison and in better understanding.
let bind2 (switchFunction : 'a -> Async<Result<'b, 'c>>) =
fun (asyncTwoTrackInput : Async<Result<'a, 'c>>) -> async {
let! twoTrackInput = asyncTwoTrackInput
match twoTrackInput with
| Ok s -> return! switchFunction s
| Error err -> return Error err
}
Edit 2 Based on F# implementation of bind
let bind3 (binder : 'a -> Async<Result<'b, 'c>>) (asyncResult : Async<Result<'a, 'c>>) = async {
let! result = asyncResult
match result with
| Error e -> return Error e
| Ok x -> return! binder x
}
Take a look at the Suave source code, and specifically the WebPart.bind function. In Suave, a WebPart is a function that takes a context (a "context" is the current request and the response so far) and returns a result of type Async<context option>. The semantics of chaining these together are that if the async returns None, the next step is skipped; if it returns Some value, the next step is called with value as the input. This is pretty much the same semantics as the Result type, so you could almost copy the Suave code and adjust it for Result instead of Option. E.g., something like this:
module AsyncResult
let bind (f : 'a -> Async<Result<'b, 'c>>) (a : Async<Result<'a, 'c>>) : Async<Result<'b, 'c>> = async {
let! r = a
match r with
| Ok value ->
let next : Async<Result<'b, 'c>> = f value
return! next
| Error err -> return (Error err)
}
let compose (f : 'a -> Async<Result<'b, 'e>>) (g : 'b -> Async<Result<'c, 'e>>) : 'a -> Async<Result<'c, 'e>> =
fun x -> bind g (f x)
let (>>=) a f = bind f a
let (>=>) f g = compose f g
Now you can write your chain as follows:
let chain = create >=> update >=> upload >=> publish
let result = chain(schemaObject) |> Async.RunSynchronously
match result with
| Ok article -> Debug.WriteLine(article.name)
| Error error -> Debug.WriteLine(error.code + ":" + error.message)
Caution: I haven't been able to verify this code by running it in F# Interactive, since I don't have any examples of your create/update/etc. functions. It should work, in principle — the types all fit together like Lego building blocks, which is how you can tell that F# code is probably correct — but if I've made a typo that the compiler would have caught, I don't yet know about it. Let me know if that works for you.
Update: In a comment, you asked whether you need to have both the >>= and >=> operators defined, and mentioned that you didn't see them used in the chain code. I defined both because they serve different purposes, just like the |> and >> operators serve different purposes. >>= is like |>: it passes a value into a function. While >=> is like >>: it takes two functions and combines them. If you would write the following in a non-AsyncResult context:
let chain = step1 >> step2 >> step3
Then that translates to:
let asyncResultChain = step1AR >=> step2AR >=> step3AR
Where I'm using the "AR" suffix to indicate versions of those functions that return an Async<Result<whatever>> type. On the other hand, if you had written that in a pass-the-data-through-the-pipeline style:
let result = input |> step1 |> step2 |> step3
Then that would translate to:
let asyncResult = input >>= step1AR >>= step2AR >>= step3AR
So that's why you need both the bind and compose functions, and the operators that correspond to them: so that you can have the equivalent of either the |> or the >> operators for your AsyncResult values.
BTW, the operator "names" that I picked (>>= and >=>), I did not pick randomly. These are the standard operators that are used all over the place for the "bind" and "compose" operations on values like Async, or Result, or AsyncResult. So if you're defining your own, stick with the "standard" operator names and other people reading your code won't be confused.
Update 2: Here's how to read those type signatures:
'a -> Async<Result<'b, 'c>>
This is a function that takes type A, and returns an Async wrapped around a Result. The Result has type B as its success case, and type C as its failure case.
Async<Result<'a, 'c>>
This is a value, not a function. It's an Async wrapped around a Result where type A is the success case, and type C is the failure case.
So the bind function takes two parameters:
a function from A to an async of (either B or C)).
a value that's an async of (either A or C)).
And it returns:
a value that's an async of (either B or C).
Looking at those type signatures, you can already start to get an idea of what the bind function will do. It will take that value that's either A or C, and "unwrap" it. If it's C, it will produce an "either B or C" value that's C (and the function won't need to be called). If it's A, then in order to convert it to an "either B or C" value, it will call the f function (which takes an A).
All this happens within an async context, which adds an extra layer of complexity to the types. It might be easier to grasp all this if you look at the basic version of Result.bind, with no async involved:
let bind (f : 'a -> Result<'b, 'c>) (a : Result<'a, 'c>) =
match a with
| Ok val -> f val
| Error err -> Error err
In this snippet, the type of val is 'a, and the type of err is 'c.
Final update: There was one comment from the chat session that I thought was worth preserving in the answer (since people almost never follow chat links). Developer11 asked,
... if I were to ask you what Result.bind in my example code maps to your approach, can we rewrite it as create >> AsyncResult.bind update? It worked though. Just wondering i liked the short form and as you said they have a standard meaning? (in haskell community?)
My reply was:
Yes. If the >=> operator is properly written, then f >=> g will always be equivalent to f >> bind g. In fact, that's precisely the definition of the compose function, though that might not be immediately obvious to you because compose is written as fun x -> bind g (f x) rather than as f >> bind g. But those two ways of writing the compose function would be exactly equivalent. It would probably be very instructive for you to sit down with a piece of paper and draw out the function "shapes" (inputs & outputs) of both ways of writing compose.
Why do you want to use Railway Oriented Programming here? If you just want to run a sequence of operations and return information about the first exception that occurs, then F# already provides a language support for this using exceptions. You do not need Railway Oriented Programming for this. Just define your Error as an exception:
exception Error of code:string * message:string
Modify the code to throw the exception (also note that your create function takes article but does not use it, so I deleted that):
let create () = async {
let ds = new DataContractJsonSerializer(typeof<Error>)
let request = WebRequest.Create("http://example.com") :?> HttpWebRequest
request.Method <- "GET"
try
use response = request.GetResponse() :?> HttpWebResponse
use reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream())
use memoryStream = new MemoryStream(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(reader.ReadToEnd()))
return ds.ReadObject(memoryStream) :?> Article
with
| :? WebException as e ->
use reader = new StreamReader(e.Response.GetResponseStream())
use memoryStream = new MemoryStream(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(reader.ReadToEnd()))
return raise (Error (ds.ReadObject(memoryStream) :?> Error)) }
And then you can compose functions just by sequencing them in async block using let! and add exception handling:
let main () = async {
try
let! created = create ()
let! updated = update created
let! uploaded = upload updated
Debug.WriteLine(uploaded.name)
with Error(code, message) ->
Debug.WriteLine(code + ":" + message) }
If you wanted more sophisticated exception handling, then Railway Oriented Programming might be useful and there is certainly a way of integrating it with async, but if you just want to do what you described in your question, then you can do that much more easily with just standard F#.
Suppose I have a function such as:
query_server : Server.t -> string Or_error.t Deferred.t
Then I produce a list of deferred queries:
let queries : string Or_error.t Deferred.t list = List.map servers ~f:query_server
How to get the result of the first query that doesn't fail (or some error otherwise). Basically, I'd like a function such as:
any_non_error : 'a Or_error.t Deferred.t list -> 'a Or_error.t
Also, I'm not sure how to somehow aggregate the errors. Maybe my function needs an extra parameter such as Error.t -> Error.t -> Error.t or is there a standard way to combine errors?
A simple approach would be to use Deferred.List that contains list operations lifted into the Async monad, basically a container interface in the Kleisli category. We will try each server in order until the first one is ready, e.g.,
let first_non_error =
Deferred.List.find ~f:(fun s -> query_server s >>| Result.is_ok)
Of course, it is not any_non_error, as the processing is sequential. Also, we are losing the error information (though the latter is very easy to fix).
So to make it parallel, we will employ the following strategy. We will have two deferred computations, the first will run all queries in parallel and wait until all are ready, the second will become determined as soon as an Ok result is received. If the first one happens before the last one, then it means that all servers failed. So let's try:
let query_servers servers =
let a_success,got_success = Pipe.create () in
let all_errors = Deferred.List.map ~how:`Parallel servers ~f:(fun s ->
query_server s >>| function
| Error err as e -> e
| Ok x as ok -> Pipe.write_without_pushback x; ok) in
Deferred.any [
Deferred.any all_errors;
Pipe.read a_success >>= function
| `Ok x -> Ok x
| `Eof -> assert false
]
I am trying to understand elm's type signatures. What does this function return exactly? It appears to be a function that accepts no arguments and returns ...
route : Parser (Page -> a) a
As a learning exercise for myself I'm going to try to answer this. Others will chip in if I get something wrong.
I'm sure you are used to something like
type Person = Adult String | Child String Age
Child is a type that takes two parameters. Parser is the same. But it's definition is pretty formidable
type Parser a b =
Parser (State a -> List (State b))
type alias State value =
{ visited : List String
, unvisited : List String
, params : Dict String String
, value : value
}
That said, you see how Parser is ultimately a wrapper around a function from a State to a list of States. Ultimately it is going to be passed a List of 'unvisited' strings or params; it will progressively 'visit' each one and the result will be combined into the final 'value'.
Next, note that while Parser takes two type parameters - a, b - parseHash is defined
parseHash : Parser (a -> a) a -> Location -> Maybe a
So, your original
route : Parser (Page -> a) a
is going to have to be
route : Parser (Page -> Page) Page
to type check.
To return to your original question, therefore, route is a Parser (which is a very general object) that encapsulates instructions on how to go from one Page to another, and can be used - via parseHash - to tell you what Page to go to next, and that is of course what you would expect from a router.
Hope this gets you started
I have a discriminated union that is similar to the Result type used in Scott's Railway Oriented Programming. For simplicity's sake, it's slightly simplified here:
type ErrorMessage = ErrorMessage of string
type ValidationResult<'a> =
| Success of 'a
| Error of ErrorMessage
I have a corresponding module ValidationResult that contains functions that act on these ValidationResults, one of them is a recursive retryable function that allows the parameter, f: unit -> 'a, to be called again (such as reading from stdin) if the ValidationResult is Error:
module ValidationResult
let doubleMap success error = function
| Success x -> success x
| Error e -> error e
let rec retryable errorHandler f =
let result = f ()
let retry e =
errorHandler e
retryable errorHandler f
doubleMap id retry result
But it isn't tail recursive and I would like to convert it to be so. How can I do that?
The F# compiler compiles tail-recursive functions in two different ways.
If the function is simple (calls itself directly), then it is compiled into a loop
If the tail-recursion involves multiple different functions (or even function values), then the compiler uses the .tail IL instruction to do a tail-call. This is also a tail-call, but handled by the .NET runtime rather than eliminated by the F# compiler.
In your case, the retryable function is already tail-recursive, but it is the second kind. Daniel's answer makes it simple enough so that it becomes the first kind.
However, you can keep the function as you have it and it will be tail-recursive. The only thing to note is that the compiler does not generate the .tail instruction by default in Debug mode (as it messes up the call stack) and so you need to enable it explicitly (in project options, check "Generate tail calls").
Just removing the call to doubleMap should do it:
let rec retryable errorHandler f =
match f() with
| Success x -> x
| Error e ->
errorHandler e
retryable errorHandler f