Awaiting an RX subject in F# - f#

This is the same as How do I await a response from an RX Subject without introducing a race condition?, but in F#.
The C# solution looks like:
static async void Foo()
{
var subject = new Subject<int>();
var firstInt = subject.FirstAsync().PublishLast();
firstInt.Connect();
subject.OnNext(42);
var x = await firstInt;
Console.WriteLine("Done waiting: " + x);
}
My attempt in F# is this:
let foo () =
async {
use subject = new Subject<int>()
let firstInt = subject.FirstAsync().PublishLast()
firstInt.Connect() |> ignore
subject.OnNext(42)
let! x = firstInt
printfn "Done waiting: %d" x
return ()
}
The let x! = firstInt gives the compile error This expression was expected to have type Async<'a> but here has type IConnectableObservable<int> so apparently C# does something under the hood that F# doesn't.
Is there a C# implicit interface cast at work here, that I need to do explicitly in F#? If so, I can't figure out what it is.

After further digging, it seems that C# calls GetAwaiter() under the hood when you await something. For a Subject or an IObservable, GetAwaiter returns an AsyncSubject, which isn't immediately useful in F#, but the ToTask extension method in System.Reactive.Threading.Tasks makes it useful. Apparently, you can apply ToTask directly to a Subject (or an IObservable) without going by way of GetAwaiter, so my problem is solved by changing the let! x ... statement to:
let! x = firstInt.ToTask() |> Async.AwaitTask
edit:
There's a better way
Using FSharpx.Async is a much better way of accomplishing the same thing:
open FSharpx.Control.Observable
let foo () =
async {
use subject = new Subject<int>()
subject.OnNext(42)
let! x = Async.AwaitObservable subject
printfn "Done waiting: %d" x
return ()
}

Related

How to use while loop in F# Async expression?

How would I go about writing the following in F#?
var reader = await someDatabaseCommand.ExecuteReaderAsync();
while (await reader.ReadAsync())
{
var foo = reader.GetDouble(1);
// ...
}
I'm very new to F# so this is the best I can come up with
task {
let! reader = someDatabaseCommand.ExecuteReaderAsync ()
let! tmp1 = reader.ReadAsync ()
let mutable hasNext = tmp1
while hasNext do
// ...
let! tmp2 = reader.ReadAsync ()
hasNext <- tmp2
}
I know it's a C# library so it's not going to be perfect, but I'd like to avoid needing to store the result of ReadAsync in a variable, let alone have two temporaries. I don't know of a way to get the "result" of a Task without binding it to a name. Perhaps a recursive solution would work?
This library works very nicely with C#, because you can use await in the condition of the loop. I think that using recursive computation expression in F# is a bit nicer than the imperative solution (I do not think you can simplify that), but it is about the same length:
task {
let! reader = someDatabaseCommand.ExecuteReaderAsync ()
let rec loop () = task {
let! hasNext = reader.ReadAsync ()
if hasNext then
// ..
return! loop () }
return! loop ()
}
A more elaborate solution would be to use F# asynchronous sequences (from the FSharp.Control.AsyncSeq library). I think this only works for async (and so you'd have to use that instead of task), but it makes the code nicer. You can define a function that runs a command and returns an asynchronous sequence of results (for simplicity, I just return the reader, which is a bit dirty, but works):
#r "nuget: FSharp.Control.AsyncSeq"
#r "nuget: System.Data.SqlClient"
open FSharp.Control
let runCommand (cmd:System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand) = asyncSeq {
let! reader = cmd.ExecuteReaderAsync () |> Async.AwaitTask
let rec loop () = asyncSeq {
let! hasNext = reader.ReadAsync () |> Async.AwaitTask
if hasNext then
yield reader
yield! loop () }
yield! loop () }
Given this, you can very nicely iterate over the results using plain for loop inside async (using an overload added by the AsyncSeq library):
async {
for reader in runCommand someDatabaseCommand do
let foo = reader.GetDouble(1)
() }

Reader monad transformer sample with FSharpPlus

I'm trying to understand the reader monad transformer. I'm using FSharpPlus and try to compile the following sample which first reads something from the reader environment, then performs some async computation and finally combines both results:
open FSharpPlus
open FSharpPlus.Data
let sampleReader = monad {
let! value = ask
return value * 2
}
let sampleWorkflow = monad {
do! Async.Sleep 5000
return 4
}
let doWork = monad {
let! envValue = sampleReader
let! workValue = liftAsync sampleWorkflow
return envValue + workValue
}
ReaderT.run doWork 3 |> Async.RunSynchronously |> printfn "Result: %d"
With this I get a compilation error at the line where it says let! value = ask with the following totally unhelpful (at least for me) error message:
Type constraint mismatch when applying the default type 'obj' for a type inference variable. No overloads match for method 'op_GreaterGreaterEquals'.
Known return type: Async
Known type parameters: < obj , (int -> Async) >
It feels like I'm just missing some operator somewhere, but I can't figure it out.
Your code is correct, but F# type inference is not that smart in cases like this.
If you add a type annotation to sampleReader it will compile fine:
let sampleReader : ReaderT<int,Async<_>> = monad {
let! value = ask
return value * 2
}
// val sampleReader : FSharpPlus.Data.ReaderT<int,Async<int>> =
// ReaderT <fun:sampleReader#7>
Update:
After reading your comments.
If what you want is to make it generic, first of all your function has to be declared inline otherwise type constraints can't be applied:
let inline sampleReader = monad ...
But that takes you to the second problem: a constant can't be declared inline (actually there is a way but it's too complicated) only functions can.
So the easiest is to make it a function:
let inline sampleReader () = monad ...
And now the third problem the code doesn't compile :)
Here again, you can give type inference a minimal hint, just to say at the call site that you expect a ReaderT<_,_> will be enough:
let inline sampleReader () = monad {
let! value = ask
return value * 2
}
let sampleWorkflow = monad {
do! Async.Sleep 5000
return 4
}
let doWork = monad {
let! envValue = sampleReader () : ReaderT<_,_>
let! workValue = liftAsync sampleWorkflow
return envValue + workValue
}
ReaderT.run doWork 3 |> Async.RunSynchronously |> printfn "Result: %d"
Conclusion:
Defining a generic function is not that trivial task in F#.
If you look into the source of F#+ you'll see what I mean.
After running your example you'll see all the constraints being generated and you'll probably noted how the compile-time increased by making your function inline and generic.
These are all indications that we're pushing F# type system to the limits.
Although F#+ defines some ready-to-use generic functions, and these functions can sometimes be combined in such a way that you create your own generic functions, that's not the goal of the library, I mean you can but then you're on your own, in some scenarios like exploratory development it might make sense.

How to do await an Async method, similar to C#

How to do an simple await in F# ?
In C# I have code like this:
await collection.InsertOneAsync(DO);
var r = collection.ReplaceOneAsync((fun d -> d.Id = DO.Id), DO)
So I created a let await = ... to my F# code become more similar with my C# code.
My current F# code is this:
let awaits (t: Threading.Tasks.Task) = t |> Async.AwaitTask |> Async.RunSynchronously
let await (t: Threading.Tasks.Task<'T>) = t |> Async.AwaitTask |> Async.RunSynchronously
let Busca (numero) =
let c = collection.Find(fun d -> d.Numero=numero).ToList()
c
let Insere(DO: DiarioOficial) =
//collection.InsertOneAsync(DO) |> Async.AwaitTask |> Async.RunSynchronously
collection.InsertOneAsync(DO) |> awaits
let Salva (DO: DiarioOficial) =
//let r = collection.ReplaceOneAsync((fun d -> d.Id = DO.Id), DO) |> Async.AwaitTask |> Async.RunSynchronously
let r = collection.ReplaceOneAsync((fun d -> d.Id = DO.Id), DO) |> await
r
I want to have only one definition for await (awaits), but the best I could do is this, because on Insere, type is Task, but on Salva, type is Task<'T>
If i use only the await, I get this compile error:
FS0001 The type 'Threading.Tasks.Task' is not compatible with the type 'Threading.Tasks.Task<'a>'
If I use only the awaits, it compiles, but I lose the return type from the async Task
I want to merge the await and awaits in a single
let await = ...
How can I do this?
In F# we tend to use another syntax. It is described e.g. here: https://fsharpforfunandprofit.com/posts/concurrency-async-and-parallel/.
or here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/fsharp/tutorials/asynchronous-and-concurrent-programming/async
The idea of working with C# Tasks is to "convert" them to async with Async.Await<'T>
You can do it probably another way, but it is the most straightforward.
There are two parts of writing async code in both F# and C#.
You need to mark the method or code block as asynchronous. In C#, this is done using the async keyword. The F# equivalent is to use the async { ... } block (which is an expression, but otherwise, it is similar).
Inside async method or async { .. } block, you can make non-blocking calls. In C#, this is done using await and in F# it is done using let!. Note that this is not just a function call - the compiler handles this in a special way.
F# also uses Async<T> type rather than Task<T>, but those are easy to convert - e.g. using Async.AwaitTask. So, you probably want something like this:
let myAsyncFunction () = async {
let! _ = collection.InsertOneAsync(DO) |> Async.AwaitTask
let r = collection.ReplaceOneAsync((fun d -> d.Id = DO.Id), DO)
// More code goes here
}
I used let! to show the idea, but if you have an asynchronous operation that returns unit, you can also use do!
do! collection.InsertOneAsync(DO) |> Async.AwaitTask

Using TaskCompletionSource in F# for use in a .NET library

Considering the following
type MyClass () =
member x.ReadStreamAsync(stream:Stream) =
async {
let tcs = new TaskCompletionSource<int>()
let buffer = Array.create 2048 0uy
let! bytesReadCount = stream.ReadAsync(buffer, 0, buffer.Length) |> Async.AwaitTask
if bytesReadCount > 0 then
for i in 0..bytesReadCount do
if buffer.[i] = 10uy then
tcs.SetResult(i)
// Omitted more code to handle the case if 10uy is not found..
return tcs.Task
}
The code reads from a stream until in meets a certain character (represented by a byte value) at which point the task returned by the method completes.
The function signature of DoSomethingAsync is unit -> Async<Task<int>>, but I would like it to be unit -> Task<int> such that it can be used more generally in .NET.
Can this be done in F# using an asynchronous expression, or do I can to rely more on the Task constructs of .NET?
Given that you don't actually use the async workflow for anything in your example, the easiest solution would be to forgo it entirely:
member x.DoSomethingAsync() =
let tcs = new TaskCompletionSource<int>()
Task.Delay(100).Wait()
tcs.SetResult(10)
tcs.Task
This implementation of DoSomethingAsync has the type unit -> Task<int>.
It's not clear to me exactly what you're trying to do, but why don't you just do the following?
member x.DoSomethingAsync() =
async {
do! Async.Sleep 100
return 10 } |> Async.StartAsTask
This implementation also has the type unit -> Task<int>.
Based on the updated question, here's a way to do it:
member x.DoSomethingAsync(stream:Stream) =
async {
let buffer = Array.create 2048 0uy
let! bytesReadCount =
stream.ReadAsync(buffer, 0, buffer.Length) |> Async.AwaitTask
if bytesReadCount > 0
then
let res =
[0..bytesReadCount]
|> List.tryFind (fun i -> buffer.[i] = 10uy)
return defaultArg res -1
else return -1
}
|> Async.StartAsTask
The DoSomethingAsync function has the type Stream -> System.Task<int>. I didn't know what to do in the else case, so I just put -1, but I'm sure you can replace it with something more correct.

How do I use an async workflow in a Seq.pick in F#

I am new to functional programming in general and started learning F# recently. I wanted to use an async workflow returning Async<'U option> to pick an item in a Sequence. I find a nice Seq.pick function, but I am not sure how I could use that with an async workflow.
If that is not possible, is there another alternative to using an imperative style program to pick the item from the list. The following is a modified variation of my program. Any feedback is highly appreciated.
let run = async {
while not stopped do
use! resource = acquireResourceLockAsync
let! items = fetchItemsAsync 5
let! item = Seq.pick returnIfLocked items
let! status = performTaskAsync item
do! updateStatusAsync status
do! Async.Sleep 1000
}
Thanks in anticipation.
EDIT: Updated my question based on the answer by jpalmer. I noticed both Seq.filter and Seq.pick earlier and decided that Seq.pick will meet my need better, as I need the first item that I am able to lock. However, I forgot to change the return value of my function - instead of returning true, it should return Some(item). Now with that update, is there an elegant way to approach this without 1) blocking a thread to convert Async<'U option> to 'U and 2) resorting to an imperative style looping?
I am unclear exactly what you are trying to do. If you want to convert from Async<'T> to 'T non-blocking, then you want to use let! in an async workflow. So the seq-like logic probably needs to be written as its own loop, as suggested below. If that doesn't help, then perhaps share more code, especially the intended types of items/item/returnIfLocked, as I'm unclear what's async in your example.
let asyncPick f (s:seq<_>) =
async {
use e = s.GetEnumerator()
let r = ref None
while Option.isNone(!r) && e.MoveNext() do
let! x = f e.Current
r := x
match !r with
| Some z -> return z
| None -> return failwith "no matching item found"
}
let chooser ax =
async {
let! x = ax
if x%3 = 0 then
return Some x
else
return None
}
let s = seq { for i in 1..10 do yield async { return i } }
let main() =
async {
let! firstChosen = s |> asyncPick chooser
return firstChosen
}
|> Async.RunSynchronously
|> printfn "%d"
main()
It is important to look at the signature of the function you are using,
Seq.pick expects a function which returns option<'t>, you want to use Seq.Filter which takes a function which returns a bool.
You will still have another problem though in that you have Async<bool> - you will need to convert that to a normal bool, but you could do this inside your 'Seq.Filter' function

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