I'm new to F# and trying to recreate some simple apps that I've built in the past with C# or Powershell. I'm trying to get multiple properties for a web.
In F#, I can get a single property, but I'm not sure the syntax that would work for getting multiple properties at once.
As an example:
// F# Example
context.Load(web |> fun w->w.Lists)
context.Load(web |> fun w->w.AssociatedOwnerGroup)
context.ExecuteQuery()
Is there a way in F# to combine that into a single line?
In C# I'd call it like so:
// C# Example
context.Load(web, w => w.Lists, w => w.AssociatedOwnerGroup);
context.ExecuteQuery();
It looks like the function you're calling is ClientRuntimeContext.Load<T>, which has the following C# signature:
public void Load<T>(
T clientObject,
params Expression<Func<T, Object>>[] retrievals
)
where T : ClientObject
There are two issues here that make this function difficult to call from F#: the params array, and the automatic conversion to LINQ expressions. F# supports these separately, but it looks like the automatic conversion doesn't work when you have multiple parameters. Instead, I think you have to do it manually, something like this:
// automatically quotes a function
type Expr =
static member Quote<'t>(f : Expression<Func<'t, obj>>) = f
// quote the functions
let funcs =
[|
fun (w : SPWeb) -> w.Lists
fun (w : SPWeb) -> w.AssociatedOwnerGroup
|] |> Array.map Expr.Quote
// call the Load function
context.Load(web, funcs)
Sorry, I know that's ugly. There may be a better way to do it, but I don't know what it is.
Related
The following scenario shows an abstraction that seems to me to be impossible to implement declaratively.
Suppose that I want to create a Symbol object which allows you to create objects with strings that can be compared, like Symbol.for() in JavaScript. A simple implementation in JS might look like this:
function MySymbol(text){//Comparable symbol object class
this.text = text;
this.equals = function(other){//Method to compare to other MySymbol
return this.text == other.text;
}
}
I could easily write this in a declarative language like Haskell:
data MySymbol = MySymbol String
makeSymbol :: String -> MySymbol
makeSymbol s = MySymbol s
compareSymbol :: MySymbol -> MySymbol -> Bool
compareSymbol (MySymbol s1) (MySymbol s2) = s1 == s2
However, maybe in the future I want to improve efficiency by using a global registry without changing the interface to the MySymbol objects. (The user of my class doesn't need to know that I've changed it to use a registry)
For example, this is easily done in Javascript:
function MySymbol(text){
if (MySymbol.registry.has(text)){//check if symbol already in registry
this.id = MySymbol.registry.get(text);//get id
} else {
this.id = MySymbol.nextId++;
MySymbol.registry.set(text, this.id);//Add new symbol with nextId
}
this.equals = function(other){//To compare, simply compare ids
return this.id == other.id;
}
}
//Setup initial empty registry
MySymbol.registry = new Map();//A map from strings to numbers
MySymbol.nextId = 0;
However, it is impossible to create a mutable global registry in Haskell. (I can create a registry, but not without changing the interface to my functions.)
Specifically, these three possible Haskell solutions all have problems:
Force the user to pass a registry argument or equivalent, making the interface implementation dependent
Use some fancy Monad stuff like Haskell's Control.Monad.Random, which would require either foreseeing the optimization from the start or changing the interface (and is basically just adding the concept of state into your program and therefore breaks referential transparency etc.)
Have a slow implementation which might not be practical in a given application
None of these solutions allow me to sufficiently abstract away implementation from my Haskell interface.
So, my question is: Is there a way to implement this optimization to a Symbol object in Haskell (or any declarative language) without causing one of the three problems listed above,
and are there any other situations where an imperative language can express an abstraction (for example an optimization like above) that a declarative language can't?
The intern package shows how. As discussed by #luqui, it uses unsafePerformIO at a few key moments, and is careful to hide the identifiers produced during interning.
I have an old compiler server (VS 2010), which, obviously, can't compile such instructions:
var result = a?.b()?.c?.d;
Is there alternative I can use? Is it possible to do this through expression tree? For example, like this:
var result = NullSafe(()=> a.b().c.d);
There were quite a few attempts to do this before it became a language feature. It's a bit hard to find the references now, but you can get an idea how it can be done and why it's not that easy.
This snippet for example looks simple:
public static R NullSafe<T, R>(this T obj, Func<T, R> f) where T : class
{
return obj != null ? f(obj) : default(R);
}
You can use it almost like an operator:
deliveryCode = order.NullSafe(o => o.DeliveryCompany).NullSafe(dc => dc.FileArtworkCode);
But it doesn't work with value types. This older snippet uses EqualityComparer :
public static TOut NullSafe<TIn, TOut>(this TIn obj, Func<TIn, TOut> memberAction)
{
//Note we should not use obj != null because it can not test value types and also
//compiler has to lift the type to a nullable type for doing the comparision with null.
return (EqualityComparer<TIn>.Default.Equals(obj, default(TIn)))
? memberAction(obj)
: default(TOut);
}
It will take a bit of digging to find more complete examples. I remember trying methods similar to these way back when until I found a more complete one.
This SO answer to a similar question does away with chaining and allows one to write:
foo.PropagateNulls(x => x.ExtensionMethod().Property.Field.Method());
The implementation is a bit involved though, to say the least.
Normally I think of Groovy's inject method as equivalent to Java 8's reduce, but I seem to have hit an unusual situation.
Say I have a POJO (or POGO) called Book
class Book {
int id
String name
}
If I have a collection of books and want to convert them to a map where the keys are the ids and the values are the books, then in Groovy it's easy enough to write:
Map bookMap = books.inject([:]) { map, b ->
map[b.id] = b
map
}
i.e., for each book, add it to the map under the book's id and return the map.
In Java 8, the same operation would take a completely different approach. Either this:
Map<Integer, Book> bookMap = books.stream()
.collect(Collectors.toMap(Book::getId, b -> b));
or, equivalently,
bookMap = books.stream()
.collect(Collectors.toMap(Book::getId, Function.identity()));
the difference being a matter of style.
What I'm wondering, however, is if there is a reduce operation in Java 8 that would be similar to the inject from Groovy. I can't just mimic what I did in Groovy, because in Java 8 the signature for reduce is:
T reduce(T identity, BinaryOperator<T> accumulator)
The BinaryOperator means that both elements of the lambda expression must be of the same type. If it was a BiFunction, I could make the lambda's first argument a HashMap<Integer, Book> and the second argument a Book, but I can't do that with a BinaryOperator. I know there's a three-argument version of reduce, but that doesn't seem to help either.
Am I missing something obvious? Is it just that inject is more general that reduce? Since I already have an idiomatic way of solving the problem in Java, this isn't critical, but I was struck by the differences here.
Yo Ken! :-D
You need the 3 parameter form of reduce, so given:
List<Book> books = Arrays.asList(
new Book(1, "Book One"),
new Book(2, "Tim's memoirs"),
new Book(3, "Harry Potter and the sarcastic cat")
);
You can do:
Map<Integer, Book> reduce = books.stream().reduce(
new HashMap<Integer, Book>(),
(map, value) -> {
map.put(value.id, value);
return map;
},
(a, b) -> {
a.putAll(b);
return a;
}
);
To give:
{
1=Book{id=1, name='Book One'},
2=Book{id=2, name='Tim's memoirs'},
3=Book{id=3, name='Harry Potter and the sarcastic cat'}
}
The first parameter is the thing to collect into:
new HashMap<Integer, Book>(),
The second parameter is a BiFunction that takes the current accumulator, and the next element in the stream, and combines them somehow:
(map, value) -> {
map.put(value.id, value);
return map;
},
The third binary operator in that reduce call:
(a, b) -> {
a.putAll(b);
return a;
}
Is how to join all the resulting maps back together assuming you are running a parallel stream...
put and putAll returning void make it a fugly mess :-( But I guess chaining wasn't a popular thing back in the late 90s...
I'm aware of partial updates for records like :
data A a b = A { a :: a, b :: b }
x = A { a=1,b=2 :: Int }
y = x { b = toRational (a x) + 4.5 }
Are there any tricks for doing only partial initialization, creating a subrecord type, or doing (de)serialization on subrecord?
In particular, I found that the first of these lines works but the second does not :
read "A {a=1,b=()}" :: A Int ()
read "A {a=1}" :: A Int ()
You could always massage such input using a regular expression, but I'm curious what Haskell-like options exist.
Partial initialisation works fine: A {a=1} is a valid expression of type A Int (); the Read instance just doesn't bother parsing anything the Show instance doesn't output. The b field is initialised to error "...", where the string contains file/line information to help with debugging.
You generally shouldn't be using Read for any real-world parsing situations; it's there for toy programs that have really simple serialisation needs and debugging.
I'm not sure what you mean by "subrecord", but if you want serialisation/deserialisation that can cope with "upgrades" to the record format to contain more information while still being able to process old (now "partial") serialisations, then the safecopy library does just that.
You cannot leave some value in Haskell "uninitialized" (it would not be possible to "initialize" it later anyway, since Haskell is pure). If you want to provide "default" values for the fields, then you can make some "default" value for your record type, and then do a partial update on that default value, setting only the fields you care about. I don't know how you would implement read for this in a simple way, however.
With the introduction of things like duck typing, I would love it if I compose object methods on the fly, besides extension methods. Anybody know if this is possible? I know that MS is worried about composing framework on the fly, but they seem to be dipping their toes in the water.
Update: Thanks to Pavel for clarifying. For example, say I return a new dynamic object from LINQ and would like to add some methods to it on the fly.
In light of the updated answer, you're actually not looking for "dynamic methods", so much so as "dynamic objects" - such that you may add new properties and methods to them at runtime. If that is correct, then in .NET 4.0, you can use ExpandoObject in conjunction with dynamic:
dynamic foo = new ExpandoObject();
foo.Bar = 123; // creates a new property on the fly
int x = foo.Bar; // 123
// add a new method (well, a delegate property, but it's callable as method)
foo.Baz = (Func<int, int, int>)
delegate(int x, int y)
{
return x + y;
};
foo.Baz(1, 2); // 3
You can have "dynamic methods" too, with expression trees, and once you obtain a delegate for such a method, you can also create a callable method-like property out of it on an ExpandoObject.
For use in LINQ queries, unfortunately, you cannot use object initializers with ExpandoObject; in the simplest case, the following will not compile:
var foo = new ExpandoObject { Bar = 123; }
The reason is that Bar in this case will be looked up statically as a property of ExpandoObject. You need the receiver to be dynamic for this feature to kick in, and there's no way to make it that inside an object initializer. As a workaround for use in LINQ, consider this helper extension method:
public static dynamic With(this ExpandoObject o, Action<dynamic> init)
{
init(o);
return o;
}
Now you can use it thus:
from x in xs
select new ExpandoObject().With(o => {
o.Foo = x;
o.Bar = (Func<int, int>)delegate(int y) { return x + y; };
});
Yes, there is: Generating Dynamic Methods with Expression Trees in Visual Studio 2010
This was already possible with the aid of DynamicMethod and/or MethodBuilder. Not sure if that counts for being "worried", as it has been around for a while now, though it requires a dynamic assembly in most scenarios (DynamicMethod can be used without, though).