I want to write a Haskell function that takes a custom type with eleven fields and returns either a list of all the fields' values, or a map associating the fields' names with their values. I don't want to have to explicitly get every field because that would be verbose and less versatile. Is there any way to do this?
What you write would be possible to some degree, but it wouldn't be very useful.
Let's imagine we insist on writing this function for a moment. Given that the fields' values may have different types, you probably rather want to yield a tuple. I.e.
data MyType = MyType Int String Bool
getFields :: MyType -> (Int, String, Bool)
getFields (MyType a b c) = (a,b,c)
So you could now call it like
let v = MyType 1 "Hello" True
let (x, y, z) = getFields v
Now, this isn't actually very useful, because you could use pattern matching in all of these cases, e.g.
let v = MyType 1 "Hello" True
let (MyType x y z) = v
Alright, but what if you wanted to address individual fields? Like
let x = fst (getFields v)
...how to do that without a 'getFields' function? Well, you can simply assign field names (as you probably already did):
data MyType = MyType
{ i :: Int
, s :: String
, b :: Bool
}
Now you could functions for accessing indivial fields for free:
let x = i v
...since assigning names ot fields actually generates functions like i :: MyType -> Int or s :: MyType -> String.
Related
I am making my way through "Haskell Programming..." and, in Chapter 10, have been working with a toy database. The database is defined as:
data DatabaseItem = DBString String
| DBNumber Integer
| DBDate UTCTime
deriving (Eq, Ord, Show)
and, given a database of the form [databaseItem], I am asked to write a function
dbNumberFilter :: [DatabaseItem] -> [Integer]
that takes a list of DatabaseItems, filters them for DBNumbers, and returns a list the of Integer values stored in them.
I solved that with:
dbNumberFilter db = foldr selectDBNumber [] db
where
selectDBNumber (DBNumber a) b = a : b
selectDBNumber _ b = b
Obviously, I can write an almost identical to extract Strings or UTCTTimes, but I am wondering if there is a way to create a generic filter that can extract a list of Integers, Strings, by passing the filter a chosen data constructor. Something like:
dbGenericFilter :: (a -> DataBaseItem) -> [DatabaseItem] -> [a]
dbGenericFilter DBICon db = foldr selectDBDate [] db
where
selectDBDate (DBICon a) b = a : b
selectDBDate _ b = b
where by passing DBString, DBNumber, or DBDate in the DBICon parameter, will return a list of Strings, Integers, or UTCTimes respectively.
I can't get the above, or any variation of it that I can think of, to work. But is there a way of achieving this effect?
You can't write a function so generic that it just takes a constructor as its first argument and then does what you want. Pattern matches are not first class in Haskell - you can't pass them around as arguments. But there are things you could do to write this more simply.
One approach that isn't really any more generic, but is certainly shorter, is to make use of the fact that a failed pattern match in a list comprehension skips the item:
dbNumberFilter db = [n | DBNumber n <- db]
If you prefer to write something generic, such that dbNUmberFilter = genericFilter x for some x, you can extract the concept of "try to match a DBNumber" into a function:
import Data.Maybe (mapMaybe)
genericFilter :: (DatabaseItem -> Maybe a) -> [DatabaseItem] -> [a]
genericFilter = mapMaybe
dbNumberFilter = genericFilter getNumber
where getNumber (DBNumber n) = Just n
getNumber _ = Nothing
Another somewhat relevant generic thing you could do would be to define the catamorphism for your type, which is a way of abstracting all possible pattern matches for your type into a single function:
dbCata :: (String -> a)
-> (Integer -> a)
-> (UTCTime -> a)
-> DatabaseItem -> a
dbCata s i t (DBString x) = s x
dbCata s i t (DBNumber x) = i x
dbCata s i t (DBDate x) = t x
Then you can write dbNumberFilter with three function arguments instead of a pattern match:
dbNumberFilter :: [DatabaseItem] -> [Integer]
dbNumberFilter = (>>= dbCata mempty pure mempty)
Say, I have a data type
data FooBar a = Foo String Char [a]
| Bar String Int [a]
I need to create values of this type and give empty list as the second field:
Foo "hello" 'a' []
or
Bar "world" 1 []
1) I do this everywhere in my code and I think it would be nice if I could omit the empty list part somehow and have the empty list assigned implicitly. Is this possible? Something similar to default function arguments in other languages.
2) Because of this [] "default" value, I often need to have a partial constructor application that results in a function that takes the first two values:
mkFoo x y = Foo x y []
mkBar x y = Bar x y []
Is there a "better" (more idiomatic, etc) way to do it? to avoid defining new functions?
3) I need a way to add things to the list:
add (Foo u v xs) x = Foo u v (x:xs)
add (Bar u v xs) x = Bar u v (x:xs)
Is this how it is done idiomatically? Just a general purpose function?
As you see I am a beginner, so maybe these questions make little sense. Hope not.
I'll address your questions one by one.
Default arguments do not exist in Haskell. They are simply not worth the added complexity and loss of compositionally. Being a functional language, you do a lot more function manipulation in Haskell, so funkiness like default arguments would be tough to handle.
One thing I didn't realize when I started Haskell is that data constructors are functions just like everything else. In your example,
Foo :: String -> Char -> [a] -> FooBar a
Thus you can write functions for filling in various arguments of other functions, and then those functions will work with Foo or Bar or whatever.
fill1 :: a -> (a -> b) -> b
fill1 a f = f a
--Note that fill1 = flip ($)
fill2 :: b -> (a -> b -> c) -> (a -> c)
--Equivalently, fill2 :: b -> (a -> b -> c) -> a -> c
fill2 b f = \a -> f a b
fill3 :: c -> (a -> b -> c -> d) -> (a -> b -> d)
fill3 c f = \a b -> f a b c
fill3Empty :: (a -> b -> [c] -> d) -> (a -> b -> d)
fill3Empty f = fill3 [] f
--Now, we can write
> fill3Empty Foo x y
Foo x y []
The lens package provides elegant solutions to questions like this. However, you can tell at a glance that this package is enormously complicated. Here is the net result of how you would call the lens package:
_list :: Lens (FooBar a) (FooBar b) [a] [b]
_list = lens getter setter
where getter (Foo _ _ as) = as
getter (Bar _ _ as) = as
setter (Foo s c _) bs = Foo s c bs
setter (Bar s i _) bs = Bar s i bs
Now we can do
> over _list (3:) (Foo "ab" 'c' [2,1])
Foo "ab" 'c' [3,2,1]
Some explanation: the lens function produces a Lens type when given a getter and a setter for some type. Lens s t a b is a type that says "s holds an a and t holds a b. Thus, if you give me a function a -> b, I can give you a function s -> t". That is exactly what over does: you provide it a lens and a function (in our case, (3:) was a function that adds 3 to the front of a List) and it applies the function "where the lens indicates". This is very similar to a functor, however, we have significantly more freedom (in this example, the functor instance would be obligated to change every element of the lists, not operate on the lists themselves).
Note that our new _list lens is very generic: it works equally well over Foo and Bar and the lens package provides many functions other than over for doing magical things.
The idiomatic thing is to take those parameters of a function or constructor that you commonly want to partially apply, and move them toward the beginning:
data FooBar a = Foo [a] String Char
| Bar [a] String Int
foo :: String -> Char -> FooBar a
foo = Foo []
bar :: String -> Int -> FooBar a
bar = Bar []
Similarly, reordering the parameters to add lets you partially apply add to get functions of type FooBar a -> FooBar a, which can be easily composed:
add :: a -> FooBar a -> FooBar a
add x (Foo xs u v) = Foo (x:xs) u v
add123 :: FooBar Int -> FooBar Int
add123 = add 1 . add 2 . add 3
add123 (foo "bar" 42) == Foo [1, 2, 3] "bar" 42
(2) and (3) are perfectly normal and idiomatic ways of doing such things. About (2) in particular, one expression you will occasionally hear is "smart constructor". That just means a function like your mkFoo/mkBar that produces a FooBar a (or a Maybe (FooBar a) etc.) with some extra logic to ensure only reasonable values can be constructed.
Here are some additional tricks that might (or might not!) make sense, depending on what you are trying to do with FooBar.
If you use Foo values and Barvalues in similar ways most of the time (i.e. the difference between having the Char field and the Int one is a minor detail), it makes sense to factor out the similarities and use a single constructor:
data FooBar a = FooBar String FooBarTag [a]
data FooBarTag = Foo Char | Bar Int
Beyond avoiding case analysis when you don't care about the FooBarTag, that allows you to safely use record syntax (records and types with multiple constructors do not mix well).
data FooBar a = FooBar
{ fooBarName :: String
, fooBarTag :: FooBarTag
, fooBarList :: [a]
}
Records allow you to use the fields without having to pattern match the whole thing.
If there are sensible defaults for all fields in a FooBar, you can go one step beyond mkFoo-like constructors and define a default value.
defaultFooBar :: FooBar a
defaultFooBar = FooBar
{ fooBarName = ""
, fooBarTag = Bar 0
, fooBarList = []
}
You don't need records to use a default, but they allow overriding default fields conveniently.
myFooBar = defaultFooBar
{ fooBarTag = Foo 'x'
}
If you ever get tired of typing long names for the defaults over and over, consider the data-default package:
instance Default (FooBar a) where
def = defaultFooBar
myFooBar = def { fooBarTag = Foo 'x' }
Do note that a significant number of people do not like the Default class, and not without reason. Still, for types which are very specific to your application (e.g. configuration settings) Default is perfectly fine IMO.
Finally, updating record fields can be messy. If you end up annoyed by that, you will find lens very useful. Note that it is a big library, and it might be a little overwhelming to a beginner, so take a deep breath beforehand. Here is a small sample:
{-# LANGUAGE TemplateHaskell #-} -- At the top of the file. Needed for makeLenses.
import Control.Lens
-- Note the underscores.
-- If you are going to use lenses, it is sensible not to export the field names.
data FooBar a = FooBar
{ _fooBarName :: String
, _fooBarTag :: FooBarTag
, _fooBarList :: [a]
}
makeLenses ''FooBar -- Defines lenses for the fields automatically.
defaultFooBar :: FooBar a
defaultFooBar = FooBar
{ _fooBarName = ""
, _fooBarTag = Bar 0
, _fooBarList = []
}
-- Using a lens (fooBarTag) to set a field without record syntax.
-- Note the lack of underscores in the name of the lens.
myFooBar = set fooBarTag (Foo 'x') defaultFooBar
-- Using a lens to access a field.
myTag = view fooBarTag myFooBar -- Results in Foo 'x'
-- Using a lens (fooBarList) to modify a field.
add :: a -> FooBar a -> FooBar a
add x fb = over fooBarList (x :) fb
-- set, view and over have operator equivalents, (.~). (^.) and (%~) respectively.
-- Note that (^.) is flipped with respect to view.
Here is a gentle introduction to lens which focuses on aspects I have not demonstrated here, specially in how nicely lenses can be composed.
I have a list of data types and I want to find the one that matches the first value, if it exists. If it does not exist, I want to return a default value.
data MyType = MyType String Int
findOrMake :: [MyType] -> String -> Int
findOrMake list x = do i <- -- find index
-- if i is a value, return the x[i]
-- if i is not a value, return (MyType x 0)
I have an intuition that I should use fmap and find, but I have never used either before.
How about a simple recursive solution?
data MyType = MyType String Int
findOrMake :: [MyType] -> String -> Int
findOrMake [] s = 42
findOrMake ((MyType mstr mint):ms) s = if mstr == s then mint else findOrMake ms s
To provide a default when the item is not found, you can use fromMaybe:
fromMaybe :: a -> Maybe a -> a
Combined with find, it should look something like this:
fromMaybe defaultValue $ find predicate list
I'm following this introduction to Haskell, and this particular place (user defined types 2.2) I'm finding particularly obscure. To the point, I don't even understand what part of it is code, and what part is the thoughts of the author. (What is Pt - it is never defined anywhere?). Needless to say, I can't execute / compile it.
As an example that would make it easier for me to understand, I wanted to define a type, which is a pair of an Integer and a String, or a String and an Integer, but nothing else.
The theoretical function that would use it would look like so:
combine :: StringIntPair -> String
combine a b = (show a) ++ b
combine a b = a ++ (show b)
If you need a working code, that does the same, here's CL code for doing it:
(defgeneric combine (a b)
(:documentation "Combines strings and integers"))
(defmethod combine ((a string) (b integer))
(concatenate 'string a (write-to-string b)))
(defmethod combine ((a integer) (b string))
(concatenate 'string (write-to-string a) b))
(combine 100 "500")
Here's one way to define the datatype:
data StringIntPair = StringInt String Int |
IntString Int String
deriving (Show, Eq, Ord)
Note that I've defined two constructors for type StringIntPair, and they are StringInt and IntString.
Now in the definition of combine:
combine :: StringIntPair -> String
combine (StringInt s i) = s ++ (show i)
combine (IntString i s) = (show i) ++ s
I'm using pattern matching to match the constructors and select the correct behavior.
Here are some examples of usage:
*Main> let y = StringInt "abc" 123
*Main> let z = IntString 789 "a string"
*Main> combine y
"abc123"
*Main> combine z
"789a string"
*Main> :t y
y :: StringIntPair
*Main> :t z
z :: StringIntPair
A few things to note about the examples:
StringIntPair is a type; doing :t <expression> in the interpreter shows the type of an expression
StringInt and IntString are constructors of the same type
the vertical bar (|) separates constructors
a well-written function should match each constructor of its argument's types; that's why I've written combine with two patterns, one for each constructor
data StringIntPair = StringInt String Int
| IntString Int String
combine :: StringIntPair -> String
combine (StringInt s i) = s ++ (show i)
combine (IntString i s) = (show i) ++ s
So it can be used like that:
> combine $ StringInt "asdf" 3
"asdf3"
> combine $ IntString 4 "fasdf"
"4fasdf"
Since Haskell is strongly typed, you always know what type a variable has. Additionally, you will never know more. For instance, consider the function length that calculates the length of a list. It has the type:
length :: [a] -> Int
That is, it takes a list of arbitrary a (although all elements have the same type) and returns and Int. The function may never look inside one of the lists node and inspect what is stored in there, since it hasn't and can't get any informations about what type that stuff stored has. This makes Haskell pretty efficient, since, as opposed to typical OOP languages such as Java, no type information has to be stored at runtime.
To make it possible to have different types of variables in one parameter, one can use an Algebraic Data Type (ADT). One, that stores either a String and an Int or an Int and a String can be defined as:
data StringIntPair = StringInt String Int
| IntString Int String
You can find out about which of the two is taken by pattern matching on the parameter. (Notice that you have only one, since both the string and the in are encapsulated in an ADT):
combine :: StringIntPair -> String
combine (StringInt str int) = str ++ show int
combine (IntString int str) = show int ++ str
Suppose I have
data Foo = A String Int | B Int
I want to take an xs :: [Foo] and sort it such that all the As are at the beginning, sorted by their strings, but with the ints in the order they appeared in the list, and then have all the Bs at the end, in the same order they appeared.
In particular, I want to create a new list containg the first A of each string and the first B.
I did this by defining a function taking Foos to (Int, String)s and using sortBy and groupBy.
Is there a cleaner way to do this? Preferably one that generalizes to at least 10 constructors.
Typeable, maybe? Something else that's nicer?
EDIT: This is used for processing a list of Foos that is used elsewhere. There is already an Ord instance which is the normal ordering.
You can use
sortBy (comparing foo)
where foo is a function that extracts the interesting parts into something comparable (e.g. Ints).
In the example, since you want the As sorted by their Strings, a mapping to Int with the desired properties would be too complicated, so we use a compound target type.
foo (A s _) = (0,s)
foo (B _) = (1,"")
would be a possible helper. This is more or less equivalent to Tikhon Jelvis' suggestion, but it leaves space for the natural Ord instance.
To make it easier to build comparison function for ADTs with large number of constructors, you can map values to their constructor index with SYB:
{-# LANGUAGE DeriveDataTypeable #-}
import Data.Generics
data Foo = A String Int | B Int deriving (Show, Eq, Typeable, Data)
cIndex :: Data a => a -> Int
cIndex = constrIndex . toConstr
Example:
*Main Data.Generics> cIndex $ A "foo" 42
1
*Main Data.Generics> cIndex $ B 0
2
Edit:After re-reading your question, I think the best option is to make Foo an instance of Ord. I do not think there is any way to do this automatically that will act the way you want (just using deriving will create different behavior).
Once Foo is an instance of Ord, you can just use sort from Data.List.
In your exact example, you can do something like this:
data Foo = A String Int | B Int deriving (Eq)
instance Ord Foo where
(A _ _) <= (B _) = True
(A s _) <= (A s' _) = s <= s'
(B _) <= (B _) = True
When something is an instance of Ord, it means the data type has some ordering. Once we know how to order something, we can use a bunch of existing functions (like sort) on it and it will behave how you want. Anything in Ord has to be part of Eq, which is what the deriving (Eq) bit does automatically.
You can also derive Ord. However, the behavior will not be exactly what you want--it will order by all of the fields if it has to (e.g. it will put As with the same string in order by their integers).
Further edit: I was thinking about it some more and realized my solution is probably semantically wrong.
An Ord instance is a statement about your whole data type. For example, I'm saying that Bs are always equal with each other when the derived Eq instance says otherwise.
If the data your representing always behaves like this (that is, Bs are all equal and As with the same string are all equal) then an Ord instance makes sense. Otherwise, you should not actually do this.
However, you can do something almost exactly like this: write your own special compare function (Foo -> Foo -> Ordering) that encapsulates exactly what you want to do then use sortBy. This properly codifies that your particular sorting is special rather than the natural ordering of the data type.
You could use some template haskell to fill in the missing transitive cases. The mkTransitiveLt creates the transitive closure of the given cases (if you order them least to greatest). This gives you a working less-than, which can be turned into a function that returns an Ordering.
{-# LANGUAGE TemplateHaskell #-}
import MkTransitiveLt
import Data.List (sortBy)
data Foo = A String Int | B Int | C | D | E deriving(Show)
cmp a b = $(mkTransitiveLt [|
case (a, b) of
(A _ _, B _) -> True
(B _, C) -> True
(C, D) -> True
(D, E) -> True
(A s _, A s' _) -> s < s'
otherwise -> False|])
lt2Ord f a b =
case (f a b, f b a) of
(True, _) -> LT
(_, True) -> GT
otherwise -> EQ
main = print $ sortBy (lt2Ord cmp) [A "Z" 1, A "A" 1, B 1, A "A" 0, C]
Generates:
[A "A" 1,A "A" 0,A "Z" 1,B 1,C]
mkTransitiveLt must be defined in a separate module:
module MkTransitiveLt (mkTransitiveLt)
where
import Language.Haskell.TH
mkTransitiveLt :: ExpQ -> ExpQ
mkTransitiveLt eq = do
CaseE e ms <- eq
return . CaseE e . reverse . foldl go [] $ ms
where
go ms m#(Match (TupP [a, b]) body decls) = (m:ms) ++
[Match (TupP [x, b]) body decls | Match (TupP [x, y]) _ _ <- ms, y == a]
go ms m = m:ms