What if we define a |>! operator like so:
let (|>!) a f = async {
let! r = a
return f r
}
Then instead of writing
let! r = fetchAsync()
work r
we could write
fetchAsync() |>! work
Is this a good idea or would it generate inefficient code?
The |>! operator you're describing is the standard "map" pattern that can apply to just about any "wrapper" type, not just async. If your return f r had been return! f r then you would have the standard "bind" pattern, which by convention should be written as the operator >>= if you're defining an operator for it.
And it is a good idea, but with one minor change. You've written it with the async value as the first parameter and the function as the second parameter, but the way you used it, fetchAsync() |>! work, requires the function to be the first parameter, e.g. let (|>!) f a = .... (If you look at the way Scott Wlaschin implements this in the first example I linked, he puts the function as the first parameter as well.) Also, I think most F# programmers would choose not to write this as an operator, but as a function called Async.map, so that its usage would look like this:
let result =
fetchAsync()
|> Async.map step1
|> Async.map step2
|> Async.map step3
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#.
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.
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
This snippet of F# code
let rec reformat = new EventHandler(fun _ _ ->
b.TextChanged.RemoveHandler reformat
b |> ScrollParser.rewrite_contents_of_rtb
b.TextChanged.AddHandler reformat
)
b.TextChanged.AddHandler reformat
results in the following warning:
traynote.fs(62,41): warning FS0040: This and other recursive references to the object(s) being defined will be checked for initialization-soundness at runtime through the use of a delayed reference. This is because you are defining one or more recursive objects, rather than recursive functions. This warning may be suppressed by using '#nowarn "40"' or '--nowarn:40'.
Is there a way in which the code can be rewritten to avoid this warning? Or is there no kosher way of having recursive objects in F#?
Your code is a perfectly fine way to construct a recursive object. The compiler emits a warning, because it cannot guarantee that the reference won't be accessed before it is initialized (which would cause a runtime error). However, if you know that EventHandler does not call the provided lambda function during the construction (it does not), then you can safely ignore the warning.
To give an example where the warning actually shows a problem, you can try the following code:
type Evil(f) =
let n = f()
member x.N = n + 1
let rec e = Evil(fun () ->
printfn "%d" (e:Evil).N; 1)
The Evil class takes a function in a constructor and calls it during the construction. As a result, the recursive reference in the lambda function tries to access e before it is set to a value (and you'll get a runtime error). However, especially when working with event handlers, this is not an issue (and you get the warnning when you're using recursive objects correctly).
If you want to get rid of the warning, you can rewrite the code using explicit ref values and using null, but then you'll be in the same danger of a runtime error, just without the warning and with uglier code:
let foo (evt:IEvent<_, _>) =
let eh = ref null
eh := new EventHandler(fun _ _ ->
evt.RemoveHandler(!eh) )
evt.AddHandler(!eh)