Given the following record in F#:
type Model =
{ Text: string option }
What is the F# equivalent of C#'s,
string.IsNullOrEmpty(Model.Text)
TIA
Assuming you want to treat a None value as null or empty you can use Option.fold:
let m = { Text = Some "label" }
m.Text |> Option.fold (fun _ s -> String.IsNullOrEmpty(s)) true
a drawback of using fold is the ignored accumulator parameter in the accumulator function. In this case you just need a function to apply in the case of Some and a default value to use if the option is None e.g.
let getOr ifNone f = function
| None -> ifNone
| Some(x) -> f x
then you can use
m.Text |> getOr true String.IsNullOrEmpty
Lees answer is probably the most functionally idiomatic i.e. when you want to process a data type, you can squash it into an answer using fold. But note that you can drop the "s", to make it
m.Text |> Option.fold (fun _ -> String.IsNullOrEmpty) true
if folding isnt something that you are yet at ease with then a more set oriented version would be, "are all of them empty?" (if there are none, then they are)
m.Text |> Option.forall (fun s -> String.IsNullOrEmpty s)
or in short hand
m.Text |> Option.forall String.IsNullOrEmpty
(I'd personally use this one)
The Option.toObj function converts an option containing a reference type to a nullable object. A None will be converted to null. It's quite useful for interop with APIs expecting nulls:
model.Text |> Option.toObj |> String.IsNullOrEmpty
Related
I'm using quite a lot this piece of code:
let inline (||>) (a: 'a option) (b: 'a -> unit) = if a.IsSome then b a.Value
so I can do things like
myData ||> DoSomethingWithIt
without having to test if myData is Some or None since there are many functions that don't generally need to test for an option. This avoid to put the test in the function itself.
I would like to extend this to methods of a type where I could do like C#'s:
myData?.DoSomethingWithIt
essentially replacing:
if myData.IsSome then myData.Value.DoSomethingWithIt
with some syntactic sugar.
but I have no idea how I could do the operator so that it allows to get access to the type's method in the expression. Is that possible in F#?
I'm also open to learn about why it could be a bad idea if it is :)
Depending on your return type of DoSomethingWithIt the F# library offers a few standard functions for working with Options that can be turned into operators.
let x = Some 1
let aPrinter a = printfn "%i" a
let add1 a = a + 1
let (|?>) opt f = Option.iter f opt
let (|??>) opt f = Option.map f opt
x |?> aPrinter
let y = x |??> add1
You can also consider redefining your DoSomethingWithIt to work with an option by partial application.
let DoSomethingWithIt' = Option.iter DoSomethingWithIt
let something' = Option.iter (fun (b:B) -> b.DoSomethingWithIt()) //For instance methods
That may end up being a lot of work depending how many functions you are dealing with.
Ultimately you shouldn't try to hide the fact you are working with Options. By making something an Option you are telling the compiler that you aren't sure whether it exists or not. It is trying to help you by forcing you to deal with the None case. If there are lots of cases in your code where you know your Option is Some then there's probably a larger architectural issue in your code and you should try to lift all your Option<'T> to just T prior to doing work with them. e.g.:
let lift xs =
[
for x in xs do
match x with
| Some x -> yield x
| None -> ()
]
Have a look at Option.iter. It has the same signature as your operator.
There is no analogical syntax for such constructions but F# have alternatives.
The easiest way is to use FSharpx.Extras library and FSharpx.Option.maybe computation expression which will allow you to use Option related operations.
open FSharpx.Option
let a = Some 1
let b = maybe {
let! v = a
return v + 3
} // b is (Some 4)
let c : int option = None
let d = maybe {
let! v = c
return v + 3 // this line won't be reached
} // d is None
I believe that the ?. operator in c# is a syntactic sugar that hides the if statement checking for null before invoking a member of the type. Even if you could make it work the way you plan, I feel that it would go against the FP principles and could cause more problems down the line.
The Option module contains probably most of what you need already. The iter function allows to call a function on the value of the Option if that value is present (Some).
If you have situation that your input parametes can be nulls, but not options, you can use the Option.ofObj function that will convert the parameter to an Option with Some if the parameter is not null, else None.
So assuming that your function DoSomethingWithit accepts a string and returns unit:
let DoSomethingWithIt = //(string -> unit)
printf "%s; "
You can use this more verbose syntax to (for example) iterate over nullable values in your list:
let lst = [ "data"; "data 2"; null; "data3" ]
lst
|> List.iter (fun v -> v |> Option.ofObj |> Option.iter DoSomethingWithIt)
Alternatively you can compose the Optioni.ofObj and Option.iter DoSomethingWithIt functions and do something like
let SafeDoSomethingWithIt = //(string -> unit)
Option.ofObj >> Option.iter DoSomethingWithIt
This gives you safe invocation:
let lst2 = [ "data"; "data 2"; null; "data3" ]
lst2
|> List.iter SafeDoSomethingWithIt
You can generalize the combination of the functions returning unit (but not only)
let makeSafe fn =
Option.ofObj >> Option.iter fn
Then you can create a series of safe functions:
let SafeDoSomethingWithIt = makeSafe DoSomethingWithIt
let safePrint = makeSafe (printf "%s; ")
//...etc
Then this still works:
lst2
|> List.iter SafeDoSomethingWithIt
lst2
|> List.iter safePrint
You can also write a wrapper for functions returning values using Option.bind function.
let makeSafeReturn fn = //(string -> string option)
Option.ofObj >> Option.bind fn
I have a text file that contains the following and I need to retrieve the value assigned to taskId, which in this case is AWc34YBAp0N7ZCmVka2u.
projectKey=ProjectName
serverUrl=http://localhost:9090
serverVersion=10.5.32.3
strong text**interfaceUrl=http://localhost:9090/interface?id=ProjectName
taskId=AWc34YBAp0N7ZCmVka2u
taskUrl=http://localhost:9090/api/ce/task?id=AWc34YBAp0N7ZCmVka2u
I have two different ways of reading the file that I've wrote.
let readLines (filePath:string) = seq {
use sr = new StreamReader (filePath)
while not sr.EndOfStream do
yield sr.ReadLine ()
}
readLines (FindFile currentDirectory "../**/sample.txt")
|> Seq.iter (fun line ->
printfn "%s" line
)
and
let readLines (filePath:string) =
(File.ReadAllLines filePath)
readLines (FindFile currentDirectory "../**/sample.txt")
|> Seq.iter (fun line ->
printfn "%s" line
)
At this point, I don't know how to approach getting the value I need. Options that, I think, are on the table are:
use Contains()
Regex
Record type
Active Pattern
How can I get this value returned and fail if it doesn't exist?
I think all the options would be reasonable - it depends on how complex the file will actually be. If there is no escaping then you can probably just look for = in the line and use that to split the line into a key value pair. If the syntax is more complex, this might not always work though.
My preferred method would be to use Split on string - you can then filter to find values with your required key, map to get the value and use Seq.head to get the value:
["foo=bar"]
|> Seq.map (fun line -> line.Split('='))
|> Seq.filter (fun kvp -> kvp.[0] = "foo")
|> Seq.map (fun kvp -> kvp.[1])
|> Seq.head
Using active patterns, you could define a pattern that takes a string and splits it using = into a list:
let (|Split|) (s:string) = s.Split('=') |> List.ofSeq
This then lets you get the value using Seq.pick with a pattern matching that looks for strings where the substring before = is e.g. foo:
["foo=bar"] |> Seq.pick (function
| Split ["foo"; value] -> Some value
| _ -> None)
The active pattern trick is quite neat, but it might be unnecessarily complicating the code if you only need this in one place.
I want to be able to just
let upcast'<'T,'TResult when 'T :> 'TResult> (y:'T) = y |> upcast
However, that then constrains 'T to be 'TResult instead of it being something that can be cast to 'TResult
I know I can
|> fun x -> x :> 'TResult
|> fun x -> upcast x
|> fun x -> x :> _
but then if I'm doing anything else on that line I have to go back and put () around the fun x -> upcast x or it thinks what I'm doing is part of the fun x function.
can I define or does there exist a way to be able to
|> upcast |> doesn't work
|> ( ( :> ) 'TResult) doesn't work and is messy
edit
In response to Thomas Petricek - minimal failing auto-upcast sample:
module Test =
let inline f'<'t>():IReadOnlyCollection<'t> =
List.empty
|> ResizeArray
|> System.Collections.ObjectModel.ReadOnlyCollection
|> fun x -> x :> IReadOnlyCollection<_>
let inline f<'t> () :IReadOnlyCollection<'t> =
List.empty
|> ResizeArray
|> System.Collections.ObjectModel.ReadOnlyCollection
As far as I know, specifying the kind of constraint between 'T and 'TResult is not possible. There is a related question about this with links to more information and a feature request.
That said, I wonder why do you need this? The F# compiler is able to insert upcasts automatically, even when using pipes, so if you want to do this as part of a longer pipe, it should not be needed. Here is a simple illustration:
type Animal = interface end
type Dog = inherit Animal
let makeDog () = { new Dog }
let consumeAnimal (a:Animal) = 0
makeDog () |> consumeAnimal
I guess you might need pipe-able upcast if you wanted to have it at the end of the pipeline, but then I'd just do the upcast on a separate line. Or is your question motivated by some more complicated cases where the implicit upcast does not work?
EDIT 1: Here is a minimal example using ReadOnlyCollection and IReadOnlyList which works:
let foo () : System.Collections.ObjectModel.ReadOnlyCollection<int> = failwith "!"
let bar (x:System.Collections.Generic.IReadOnlyList<int>) = 0
foo() |> bar
EDIT 2: To comment on the update - the problem here is that automatic upcasts are only inserted when passing arguments to functions, but in the second example, the type mismatch is between the result of the pipe and the return type of the function. You can get that to work by adding an identity function of type IReadOnlyCollection<'T> -> IReadOnlyCollection<'T> to the end of the pipe:
let inline f<'t> () :IReadOnlyCollection<'t> =
List.empty
|> ResizeArray
|> System.Collections.ObjectModel.ReadOnlyCollection
|> id<IReadOnlyCollection<_>>
This works, because now the upcast is inserted automatically when passing the argument to the id function - and this then returns a type that matches with the return type of the function.
much simpler and unexpected
let inline f2<'t>() : IReadOnlyCollection<'t> =
List.empty
|> ResizeArray
|> System.Collections.ObjectModel.ReadOnlyCollection
:> _
The following code returns Some "Test" stead of None. Basically, I'm trying to implement the C# code of cObj?.B.A.P.
// Setup
[<AllowNullLiteral>]
type A() =
member x.P = "Test"
[<AllowNullLiteral>]
type B(a:A) =
member x.A = a
[<AllowNullLiteral>]
type C(b:B) =
member x.B = b
// Test
let aObj: A = null
let cObj = new C(new B(aObj))
let r =
cObj |> Option.ofObj
|> Option.map(fun c -> c.B)
|> Option.map(fun b -> b.A)
|> Option.map(fun a -> a.P) // Expect return None since a is null
// printfn "%A" a; will print <null>.
// How can F# got property of null object?
r
It seems F# doesn't treat null as None in the Option.map. Is there a simple fix to make it return None as soon as a null is found?
F#, unlike C#, tries to be explicit everywhere. In the long run this leads to more maintainable and correct programs.
In particular, null has absolutely nothing to do with Option. null is not the same as None. None is a value of type Option, while null is this very vague concept - a value that can be of any type.
If you would like to return None when the argument is null and Some otherwise, what you need is Option.bind, not Option.map. Option.bind takes a function that takes a value (extracted from a previous Option) and returns another Option. Something like this:
let maybeC = Option.ofObj cObj
let maybeB = maybeC |> Option.bind (c -> Option.ofObj c.B)
let maybeA = maybeB |> Option.bind (b -> Option.ofObj b.A)
let maybeP = maybeA |> Option.bind (a -> Option.ofObj a.P)
Or in one go:
let maybeP =
Option.ofObj cObj
|> Option.bind (c -> Option.ofObj c.B)
|> Option.bind (b -> Option.ofObj b.A)
|> Option.bind (a -> Option.ofObj a.P)
If you do this sort of thing very frequently, you can combine Option.bind and Option.ofObj calls and encode that as a separate function:
let maybeNull f = Option.bind (x -> Option.ofObj (f x))
let maybeP =
Option.ofObj cObj
|> maybeNull (c -> c.B)
|> maybeNull (b -> b.A)
|> maybeNull (a -> a.P)
However, if you find yourself buried in nulls like that, I would suggest that perhaps your domain design is not thought through very well. Nulls are not a good modeling tool, they should be avoided as much as possible. I encourage you to rethink your design.
The first argument to Option.map is a function 'T -> 'U. Its parameter is of type 'T, not 'T option. So, in your last lambda fun a -> a.P, a null argument denotes a null of type A, not a null of type A option.
Because the member P of type A just returns the string "Test," the call succeeds and returns even though the receiver is null. If you try to use the self identifier in the body of P, you will instead get a null reference exception.
I have a Dictionary over which I initially iterated thusly:
myDictionary |> Seq.iter (fun kvp -> doSomething kvp.Key kvp.Value)
Later, I discovered that I could make use of the KeyValue active pattern, and do this:
myDictionary |> Seq.iter (fun (KeyValue (k, v)) -> doSomething k v)
Knowing that active patterns aren't some form of preprocessor directive, how am I able to substitute the kvp argument in the lambda for a function that decomposes it?
Functions arguments call always be destructured using pattern matching. For instance:
let getSingleton = fun [x] -> x
let getFirst = fun (a,b) -> a
let failIfNotOne = fun 1 -> ()
let failIfNeitherOne = fun (x,1 | 1,x) -> ()
Semantically, fun<pat>-><body> is roughly equivalent to
fun x -> match x with |<pat>-><body>
| _ -> raise MatchFailureException(...)
I think the answer from #kvb covers in enough details why you can use patterns in the arguments of fun. This is not an ad-hoc feature - in F#, you can use patterns anywhere where you can bind a variable. To show some of the examples by #kvb in another contexts:
// When declaring normal functions
let foo [it] = it // Return the value from a singleton list
let fst (a, b) = a // Return first element of a pair
// When assigning value to a pattern using let
let [it] = list
let (a, b) = pair
Similarly, you can use patterns when writing fun. The match construct is a bit more powerful, because you can specify multiple clauses.
Now, active patterns are not really that magical. They are just normal functions with special names. The compiler searches for active patterns in scope when it finds a named pattern. For example, the pattern you're using is just a function:
val (|KeyValue|) : KeyValuePair<'a,'b> -> 'a * 'b
The pattern turns a KevValuePair object into a normal F# tuple that is then matched by a nested pattern (k, v) (which assigns the first element to k and the second to v). The compiler essentially translates your code to:
myDictionary |> Seq.iter (fun _arg0 ->
let _arg1 = (|KeyValue|) _arg0
let (k, v) = _arg1
doSomething k v )