Let's say that I defined my own data-Type like
data MyData = A arg| B arg2| C arg3
How would I write a function (for instance: isMyDataType) that checks wether the given argument is one out of the particular types in MyData and successively returns a boolean (True or False) , e.g. typing in Ghci:
isMyDataType B returns True and isMyDataType Int returns False.
I believe you want functions to test for particular constructors:
isA :: MyData -> Bool
isB :: MyData -> Bool
If so, then you can write these yourself or derive them. The implementation would look like:
isA (A _) = True
isA _ = False
isB (B _) = True
isB _ = False
To derive them automatically, just use the derive library and add, in your source code:
{-# LANGUAGE TemplateHaskell #-}
import Data.DeriveTH
data MyData = ...
deriving (Eq, Ord, Show}
derive makeIs ''MyData
-- Older GHCs require more syntax: $( derive makeIs ''MyData)
Also note: your data declaration is invalid, the name must be capitalized, MyData instead of myData.
Finally, this whole answer is based on the assumption you want to test constructors, not data types as you said (which are statically checked at compile time, as Tarrasch said).
Haskell always checks that the types makes sense. The compiler would complain immediately if you wrote isMyDataType 4, because 4 is not of type MyData, it's of type Int.
I'm not sure this is what you asked for, but either way I strongly suggest for you to try out what you've asked here in practice, so you can see for yourself. Most important is that you check out type signatures in haskell, it is key for learning haskell.
You can use Maybes. You can create a set of functions that check for each of the types
getA, getB, getC :: MyData a -> Maybe a
getA x = case x of {(A v) -> Just v; _ -> Nothing}
getB x = case x of {(B v) -> Just v; _ -> Nothing}
getC x = case x of {(C v) -> Just v; _ -> Nothing}
This affords some practical idioms for certain tasks:
allAs :: [MyData a] -> [a]
allAs xs = mapMaybe getA xs
printIfA :: Show a => MyData a -> IO ()
printIfA x = maybe (return ()) print $ getA x
Related
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 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.
Is there a way in haskell to erase type information/downcast to a polymorphic value ?
In the example I have a boxed type T which can contain either an Int or a Char
And I want to write a function which extract this value without knowing which type it is.
{#- LANGUAGE RankNTypes -#}
data T = I Int | C Char
-- This is not working because GHC cannot bind "a"
-- with specific type Int and Char at the same time.
-- I just want a polymorphic value back ;(
getValue :: T -> (forall a. a)
getValue (I val) = val
getValue (C val) = val
-- This on the other hand works, because the function
-- is local to the pattern matching expression
onValue :: T -> (forall a. a -> a) -> T
onValue (I val) f = I $ f val
onValue (C val) f = C $ f val
Is there a way to write a function that can extract this value without forcing a type at the end ?
a getValue function like the first one ?
Let me know if it is not clear enough.
Answer
So the question was stupid as AndrewC (in the comment) and YellPika pointed out. An infinite type has no meaning.
J. Abrahamson provides an explanation for what I am looking for, so I put his answer as the solution.
P.S: I do not want to use GADT as I do not want a new type each time.
What you probably want is not to return a value (forall a . a) as it is wrong on several fronts. For one, you do not have any value but instead just one of two. For two, such a type cannot exist in a well-behaved program: it corresponds to the type of infinite loops and exceptions, e.g. bottom.
Finally, such a type allows the person who owns it to make the choice to instantiate it more concretely. Since you're giving it to the caller of your function that means that they would get to choose which of an Int or Char you had. Clearly that doesn't make sense.
Instead, what you most likely want is to make a demand of the user of your function: "you have to work regardless of what this type is".
foo :: (forall a . a -> r) -> (T -> r)
foo f (I i) = f i
foo f (C c) = f c
You'll find this function to be really similar to the following
bar :: r -> T -> r
bar x (I _) = x
bar x (C _) = x
In other words, if you force the consumer of your function to disregard all type information then, well, actually nothing at all remains: e.g. a constant function.
You can use GADTs:
{-# LANGUAGE GADTs #-}
data T a where
I :: Int -> T Int
C :: Char -> T Char
getValue :: T a -> a
getValue (I i) = i
getValue (C c) = c
If you turn on ExistentialTypes, you can write:
data Anything = forall a. Anything a
getValue :: T -> Anything
getValue (I val) = Anything val
getValue (C val) = Anything val
However, this is pretty useless. Say we pattern match on an Anything:
doSomethingWith (Anything x) = ?
We don't know anything about x other than that it exists... (well, not even - it might be undefined). There's no type information, so we can't do anything with it.
Given a datatype
data Foo = IFoo Int | SFoo String deriving (Data, Typeable)
what is a simple definition of
gconstr :: (Typeable a, Data t) => a -> t
such that
gconstr (5 :: Int) :: Foo == IFoo 5
gconstr "asdf" :: Foo == SFoo "asdf"
gconstr True :: Foo == _|_
It would be essentially the opposite of syb's gfindtype.
Or does such a thing exist already? I've tried hoogle-ing the type and haven't found much, but the syb types are kind of hard to interpret. A function returning Nothing on error is also acceptable.
This seems to be possible, though it's not completely trivial.
Preliminaries:
{-# LANGUAGE DeriveDataTypeable #-}
import Control.Monad ( msum )
import Data.Data
import Data.Maybe
First a helper function gconstrn, which tries to do the same thing as required of gconstr, but for a specific constructor only:
gconstrn :: (Typeable a, Data t) => Constr -> a -> Maybe t
gconstrn constr arg = gunfold addArg Just constr
where
addArg :: Data b => Maybe (b -> r) -> Maybe r
addArg Nothing = Nothing
addArg (Just f) =
case cast arg of
Just v -> Just (f v)
Nothing -> Nothing
The key part is that the addArg function will use arg as an argument to the constructor, if the types match.
Essentially gunfold starts unfolding with Just IFoo or Just SFoo, and then the next step is to try addArg to provide it with its argument.
For multi-argument constructors this would be called repeatedly, so if you defined an IIFoo constructor that took two Ints, it would also get successfully filled in by gconstrn. Obviously with a bit more work you could do something more sophisticated like providing a list of arguments.
Then it's just a question of trying this with all possible constructors. The recursive definition between result and dt is just to get the right type argument for dataTypeOf, the actual value being passed in doesn't matter at all. ScopedTypeVariables would be an alternative for achieving this.
gconstr :: (Typeable a, Data t) => a -> Maybe t
gconstr arg = result
where result = msum [gconstrn constr arg | constr <- dataTypeConstrs dt]
dt = dataTypeOf (fromJust result)
As discussed in the comments, both functions can be simplified with <*> from Control.Applicative to the following, though it's a bit harder to see what's going on in the gunfold:
gconstr :: (Typeable a, Data t) => a -> Maybe t
gconstr arg = result
where
result = msum $ map (gunfold (<*> cast arg) Just) (dataTypeConstrs dt)
dt = dataTypeOf (fromJust result)
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