functors in scala and haskell part 2

2010-07-08 comments | scala, haskell, functors, programming

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functors in scala and haskell part 1

this is part 2 of the functor survey with some fresh examples.

first the haskell examples:

import Control.Monad.Instances

-- output
main::IO()
main = do
    putStrLn $ show $ fmap (replicate 3) [1..4]
    putStrLn $ show $ fmap (replicate 3) (Just 4)
    putStrLn $ show $ fmap (replicate 3) Nothing
    putStrLn $ show $ fmap (replicate 3) (Right "foo")
    putStrLn $ show $ fmap (replicate 3) (Left "foo")

which generates the following output:

> runhaskell fmaps.hs
[[1,1,1],[2,2,2],[3,3,3],[4,4,4]]
Just [4,4,4]
Nothing
Right ["foo","foo","foo"]
Left "foo"

very readable and handy...

instead of haskell's fmap function, scalaz enables the map function to do the same thing using implicit functor instances. (take a look at the implementation and my article about type classes for more informations)

import Scalaz._

def replicate[A](num: Int)(value: A): List[A] = value.replicate[List](num)

assert((List(1,2,3,4) map replicate(3) _) === List(List(1,1,1), List(2,2,2),
                                                   List(3,3,3), List(4,4,4)))

assert((Some(4) map replicate(3) _) === Some(List(4,4,4)))

assert(((None: Option[_]) map replicate(3) _) == None)

// unlike haskell, Left and Right is handled the same

assert((Right("foo").right map replicate(3) _).right ===
        Right(List("foo", "foo", "foo")).right)

assert((Left("foo").left map replicate(3) _).left ===
        Left(List("foo", "foo", "foo")).left)

you can see, haskell and scalaz define a lot of functor instances for common data structures like Maybe / Option, Either or lists.

not much stunning today, but maybe in the next part.

hth