Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Welcome to Software Development on Codidact!

Will you help us build our independent community of developers helping developers? We're small and trying to grow. We welcome questions about all aspects of software development, from design to code to QA and more. Got questions? Got answers? Got code you'd like someone to review? Please join us.

Comments on How to implement `map` using the fish (>=>, Kleisli composition) operator in F#?

Parent

How to implement `map` using the fish (>=>, Kleisli composition) operator in F#?

+0
−0

I'm learning monadic composition through Scott Wlaschin's Railway-oriented Programming post. Oncebind, switch, and >=> functions are defined, he introduces map to show how to "turn a one-track function into a two-track function". That is:

f: a -> b     =>    f': T<a,c> -> T<b,c>

The implementation in the article is the following:

let map oneTrackFunction twoTrackInput =
    match twoTrackInput with
    | Success s -> Success (oneTrackFunction s)
    | Failure f -> Failure f

Did an an equivalent implementation using switch and bind as an exercise,

let map' f = bind (switch f)

but when I tried to implement map with >=>, I arrived at this ugly mess:

let map'' f result =
    match result with
        | Ok o -> ((fun _ -> result) >=> (switch f)) o
        | Error e -> Error e

Note to self: o could be any value of type 'a (if result : Result<'a,'c>), because f's input is already saved in the closure used as >=>'s first operand, but this was the only way I could think of to keep it more generic.

Is there a "cleaner" implementation similar to map's?


Notes

I used the following example to test the maps above:

map  ((+) 2) ((Ok 27) : Result<int,string>)

Used implementations of bind, switch, >=>:

let bind
    (     f : 'a -> Result<'b,'c>)
    (result :       Result<'a,'c>)
    =
    match result with 
   |    Ok o -> f o
   | Error e -> Error e

let switch
   (f : 'a -> 'b)
   (x : 'a      )
   =
   f x |> Ok

let (>=>)
    (f : 'a -> Result<'b,'error>)
    (g : 'b -> Result<'c,'error>)
    =
    f >> (bind g)
History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.
Why should this post be closed?

0 comment threads

Post
+2
−0

Is there a "cleaner" implementation similar to map's?

Yes:

let map f = id >=> switch f

This follows from two of your other equations:

map f = bind (switch f)
g >=> h = g >> bind h

So if you want to get bind (switch f) out of (>=>), you can start by making h = switch f, then get rid of the superfluous composition by letting g be id and you're done.

 g >=> h        =  g >> bind h    <------ (h = switch f)
 g >=> switch f =  g >> bind (switch f)
 g >=> switch f =  g >> map f     <------ (g = id)
id >=> switch f = id >> map f
id >=> switch f = map f
History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.

1 comment thread

Works for me (5 comments)
Works for me
toraritte‭ wrote 8 months ago

Wow, the simplicity of this blew my mind. Did you come up with this on the spot or is this a well known formula in other (pure) functional programming languages?

I'm also trying to make sense how id can be the first argument to >=>, so here's another question if you are interested: Why does let map f = id >=> switch f work in F#?

r~~‭ wrote 8 months ago

I don't think this particular formulation is typical in other FPLs—the switch combinator is a bit unusual. But it follows easily from your other definitions; I'll expand my answer to detail how.

toraritte‭ wrote 8 months ago · edited 8 months ago

Thank you for the clarification! I made an edit suggestion lining up the terms - it took me unnecessarily long to understand it as I have no experience in theorem proving, so "explain it to me like I'm 5" is how I roll for now.. Is my assumption correct that you picked h = switch f intuitively?

r~~‭ wrote 8 months ago

Intuitively, sure, although it's not a very big intuitive leap if you have bind h and you know you want bind (switch f). It's as mechanical as algebra once you're used to it.

toraritte‭ wrote 8 months ago

Well, it surely wasn't obvious to me right away, but once it clicked, I was surprised how I could've missed such an easy step. Thanks again and have a great day!