There is the following snippet of code in the Aeson package usage example:
data Coord = Coord { x :: Double, y :: Double }
instance FromJSON Coord where
parseJSON (Object v) = Coord <$>
v .: "x" <*>
v .: "y"
The type of parseJSON function is parseJSON :: Value -> Parser a.
I have the following question about this code: what is the .: function? From the example I might say that its type is Object -> String -> Parser String, however I can't find anything about it on hoogle/hackage. Any help would be appreciated!
It retrieves the value associated with the key. (.:) produces a parse failure (via empty from Alternative) if the key isn't there, so it is suitable for mandatory keys (as opposed to (.:?), which makes sense for optional ones).
Related
I have a question pertaining to deserialization. I can envision a solution using Data.Data, Data.Typeable, or with GHC.Generics, but I'm curious if it can be accomplished without generics, SYB, or meta-programming.
Problem Description:
Given a list of [String] that is known to contain the fields of a locally defined algebraic data type, I would like to deserialize the [String] to construct the target data type. I could write a parser to do this, but I'm looking for a generalized solution that will deserialize to an arbitrary number of data types defined within the program without writing a parser for each type. With knowledge of the number and type of value constructors an algebraic type has, it's as simple as performing a read on each string to yield the appropriate values necessary to build up the type. However, I don't want to use generics, reflection, SYB, or meta-programming (unless it's otherwise impossible).
Say I have around 50 types defined similar to this (all simple algebraic types composed of basic primitives (no nested or recursive types, just different combinations and orderings of primitives) :
data NetworkMsg = NetworkMsg { field1 :: Int, field2 :: Int, field3 :: Double}
data NetworkMsg2 = NetworkMsg2 { field1 :: Double, field2 :: Int, field3 :: Double }
I can determine the data-type to be associated with a [String] I've received over the network using a tag id that I parse before each [String].
Possible conjectured solution path:
Since data constructors are first-class values in Haskell, and actually have a type-- Can NetworkMsg constructor be thought of as a function, such as:
NetworkMsg :: Int -> Int -> Double -> NetworkMsg
Could I transform this function into a function on tuples using uncurryN then copy the [String] into a tuple of the same shape the function now takes?
NetworkMsg' :: (Int, Int, Double) -> NetworkMsg
I don't think this would work because I'd need knowledge of the value constructors and type information, which would require Data.Typeable, reflection, or some other metaprogramming technique.
Basically, I'm looking for automatic deserialization of many types without writing type instance declarations or analyzing the type's shape at run-time. If it's not feasible, I'll do it an alternative way.
You are correct in that the constructors are essentially just functions so you can write generic instances for any number of types by just writing instances for the functions. You'll still need to write a separate instance
for all the different numbers of arguments, though.
{-# LANGUAGE FlexibleInstances #-}
{-# LANGUAGE MultiParamTypeClasses #-}
import Text.Read
import Control.Applicative
class FieldParser p r where
parseFields :: p -> [String] -> Maybe r
instance Read a => FieldParser (a -> r) r where
parseFields con [a] = con <$> readMaybe a
parseFields _ _ = Nothing
instance (Read a, Read b) => FieldParser (a -> b -> r) r where
parseFields con [a, b] = con <$> readMaybe a <*> readMaybe b
parseFields _ _ = Nothing
instance (Read a, Read b, Read c) => FieldParser (a -> b -> c -> r) r where
parseFields con [a, b, c] = con <$> readMaybe a <*> readMaybe b <*> readMaybe c
parseFields _ _ = Nothing
{- etc. for as many arguments as you need -}
Now you can use this type class to parse any message based on the constructor as long as the type-checker is able to figure out the resulting message type from context (i.e. it is not able to deduce it simply from the given constructor for these sort of multi-param type class instances).
data Test1 = Test1 {fieldA :: Int} deriving Show
data Test2 = Test2 {fieldB ::Int, fieldC :: Float} deriving Show
test :: String -> [String] -> IO ()
test tag fields = case tag of
"Test1" -> case parseFields Test1 fields of
Just (a :: Test1) -> putStrLn $ "Succesfully parsed " ++ show a
Nothing -> putStrLn "Parse error"
"Test2" -> case parseFields Test2 fields of
Just (a :: Test2) -> putStrLn $ "Succesfully parsed " ++ show a
Nothing -> putStrLn "Parse error"
I'd like to know how exactly you use the message types in the application, though, because having each message as its separate type makes it very difficult to have any sort of generic message handler.
Is there some reason why you don't simply have a single message data type? Such as
data NetworkMsg
= NetworkMsg1 {fieldA :: Int}
| NetworkMsg2 {fieldB :: Int, fieldC :: Float}
Now, while the instances are built in pretty much the same way, you get much better type inference since the result type is always known.
instance Read a => MessageParser (a -> NetworkMsg) where
parseMsg con [a] = con <$> readMaybe a
instance (Read a, Read b) => MessageParser (a -> b -> NetworkMsg) where
parseMsg con [a, b] = con <$> readMaybe a <*> readMaybe b
instance (Read a, Read b, Read c) => MessageParser (a -> b -> c -> NetworkMsg) where
parseMsg con [a, b, c] = con <$> readMaybe a <*> readMaybe b <*> readMaybe c
parseMessage :: String -> [String] -> Maybe NetworkMsg
parseMessage tag fields = case tag of
"NetworkMsg1" -> parseMsg NetworkMsg1 fields
"NetworkMsg2" -> parseMsg NetworkMsg2 fields
_ -> Nothing
I'm also not sure why you want to do type-generic programming specifically without actually using any of the tools meant for generics. GHC.Generics, SYB or Template Haskell is usually the best solution for this kind of problem.
and thanks in advance for the help :)
Here's the problem I'm trying to solve:
I have a type (MyType) and I wrote a JSON parser for it (Using aeson library), and this parser depends on another value (Config):
import Data.Aeson
data MyType = MyType Text
data Config = Config Text
parseMyType :: Config -> Value -> Parser MyType
parseMyType (Config f) (Object o) = do (String v) <- o .: f
return $ MyType v
What I really wanted to write a FromJSON instance for it... but the parseJSON only depends on the Value (cannot have Config):
instance FromJSON MyType where
parseJSON :: Value -> Parser MyType
parseJSON = ???
I'm wondering if it's possible to use type class in this case. I'm probably missing some type trick... or maybe there's a language extension I can use?
Thank you!
If you want to "magic up" an instance declaration based on runtime information, this is possible through the reflection library, though it is some rather deep magic and there is probably a nicer way: https://www.fpcomplete.com/user/thoughtpolice/using-reflection
Given some data structure with lenses defined, for example:
import Control.Lens
data Thing =
Thing {
_a :: String
, _b :: String
, _c :: Int
, _d :: Int
}
makeLenses ''Thing
And given some function that I want to call using several getters, for example:
fun :: Int -> String -> Int -> String -> Bool
fun = undefined
At the moment, I end up with a lot of ugliness with parens to access each field, for example:
thing = Thing "hello" "there" 5 1
answer = fun (thing^.c) (thing^.a) (thing^.d) (thing^.b)
Given the conciseness of the lens library in most other situations I was hoping for something a little more elegant, but I can't find any combinators that will help this specific case.
Since any lens could be used in either the viewing or the setting "mode", we'll need to at least specify view X for each lens X. But for any lens l :: Lens' a b, view l has a type like a -> b if you translate some of the MonadReader noise.
We can thus get rid of some of the repetition using the Applicative instance for ((->) a).
thing & fun <$> view c <*> view a <*> view d <*> view b
Every example I've seen for ToJSON and FromJSON are for data types with single constructors, like so :
data RewindConfig = RConfig JobID Phase
deriving Show
instance FromJSON RewindConfig where
parseJSON (Object o) = RConfig
<$> o .: "JobID"
<*> o .: "Phase"
parseJSON _ = fail "invalid RewindConfig"
I thought I would look to how Aeson makes the instance for a type with multiple constructors, for example Either:
instance (FromJSON a, FromJSON b) => FromJSON (Either a b) where
parseJSON (Object (H.toList -> [(key, value)]))
| key == left = Left <$> parseJSON value
| key == right = Right <$> parseJSON value
parseJSON _ = fail ""
The pattern-matching in parseJSON confuses me, I don't understand what is going on with (H.toList -> [(key, value)]).
The data type I want to make instances for looks like this:
data Foo = Bar String
| Baz String
| Bin String
it did occur to me to do something I knew how to implement
data Foo = (Maybe Bar) (Maybe Baz) (Maybe Bin)
But that seems unsatisfying. Could someone help me out by explaining what's going on with the Either instance, and perhaps giving me some guidance on To/From instances for Foo?
update: I think the instances Aeson implements for Maybe are much clearer and tells me what I need to know for my needs. Still, I'd like to know what's going on with Either.
The pattern (Object (H.toList -> [(key, value)])) is called a view pattern. You can read it as something like this:
parseJSon (Object o) = case H.toList o of
[(key, value)]
| key == left -> Left <$> parseJSON value
| key == right -> Right <$> parseJSON value
It's actually slightly different, since the above will always commit to the pattern Object o when handed an Object, whereas the view pattern will only commit when both the "matches the Object o pattern" and the "H.toList o matches the [(key, value)] pattern" conditions hold, but for this example that doesn't matter.
The json package contains an encoding for data types that you might want to adopt.
If you just derive Data you can use it. It's not very fast, but very easy to use.
Assuming each datatype has a distinct key, another approach could use lenses - I like it because it's concise and is readable. For example if you have a wrapper around an A, B, and C which all have FromJSON instances:
import Data.Aeson
import Data.Maybe
import Data.Aeson.Lens
import Control.Lens
data Wrap = WrapA A | WrapB B | WrapC C
instance FromJSON Wrap where
parseJSON json
| isJust (json ^? key "A's unique key") = WrapA <$> parseJSON json
| isJust (json ^? key "B's unique key") = WrapB <$> parseJSON json
| isJust (json ^? key "C's unique key") = WrapC <$> parseJSON json
| otherwise = fail "Bad message"
Given an existential data type, for example:
data Foo = forall a . (Typeable a, Binary a) => Foo a
I'd like to write instance Binary Foo. I can write the serialisation (serialise the TypeRep then serialise the value), but I can't figure out how to write the deserialisation. The basic problem is that given a TypeRep you need to map back to the type dictionary for that type - and I don't know if that can be done.
This question has been asked before on the haskell mailing list http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell/2006-September/018522.html, but no answers were given.
You need some way that each Binary instance can register itself (just as in your witness version). You can do this by bundling each instance declaration with an exported foreign symbol, where the symbol name is derived from the TypeRep. Then when you want to deserialize you get the name from the TypeRep and look up that symbol dynamically (with dlsym() or something similar). The value exported by the foreign export can, e.g., be the deserializer function.
It's crazy ugly, but it works.
This can be solved in GHC 7.10 and onwards using the Static Pointers Language extension:
{-# LANGUAGE StaticPointers #-}
{-# LANGUAGE InstanceSigs #-}
data Foo = forall a . (StaticFoo a, Binary a, Show a) => Foo a
class StaticFoo a where
staticFoo :: a -> StaticPtr (Get Foo)
instance StaticFoo String where
staticFoo _ = static (Foo <$> (get :: Get String))
instance Binary Foo where
put (Foo x) = do
put $ staticKey $ staticFoo x
put x
get = do
ptr <- get
case unsafePerformIO (unsafeLookupStaticPtr ptr) of
Just value -> deRefStaticPtr value :: Get Foo
Nothing -> error "Binary Foo: unknown static pointer"
A full description of the solution can be found on this blog post, and a complete snippet here.
If you could do that, you would also be able to implement:
isValidRead :: TypeRep -> String -> Bool
This would be a function that changes its behavior due to someone defining a new type! Not very pure-ish.. I think (and hope) that one can't implement this in Haskell..
I have an answer that slightly works in some situations (not enough for my purposes), but may be the best that can be done. You can add a witness function to witness any types that you have, and then the deserialisation can lookup in the witness table. The rough idea is (untested):
witnesses :: IORef [Foo]
witnesses = unsafePerformIO $ newIORef []
witness :: (Typeable a, Binary a) => a -> IO ()
witness x = modifyIORef (Foo x :)
instance Binary Foo where
put (Foo x) = put (typeOf x) >> put x
get = do
ty <- get
wits <- unsafePerformIO $ readIORef witnesses
case [Foo x | Foo x <- wits, typeOf x == ty] of
Foo x:_ -> fmap Foo $ get `asTypeOf` return x
[] -> error $ "Could not find a witness for the type: " ++ show ty
The idea is that as you go through, you call witness on values of every type that you may plausibly encounter when deserialising. When you deserialise you search this list. The obvious problem is that if you fail to call witness before deserialisation you get a crash.