Preface

The aims of this book are two-fold: to introduce monads, functors, and other functional programming patterns as a way to structure program design, and to explain how these concepts are implemented in Cats.

Monads, and related concepts, are the functional programming equivalent of object-oriented design patterns—architectural building blocks that turn up over and over again in code. They differ from object-oriented patterns in two main ways:

• they are formally, and thus precisely, defined; and
• they are extremely (extremely) general.

This generality means they can be difficult to understand. Everyone finds abstraction difficult. However, it is generality that allows concepts like monads to be applied in such a wide variety of situations.

In this book we aim to show the concepts in a number of different ways, to help you build a mental model of how they work and where they are appropriate. We have extended case studies, a simple graphical notation, many smaller examples, and of course the mathematical definitions. Between them we hope you’ll find something that works for you.

Ok, let’s get started!

Versions

This book is written for Scala 2.12.3 and Cats 1.0.0. Here is a minimal build.sbt containing the relevant dependencies and settings¹:

scalaVersion := "2.12.3"

libraryDependencies +=
  "org.typelevel" %% "cats-core" % "1.0.0"

scalacOptions ++= Seq(
  "-Xfatal-warnings",
  "-Ypartial-unification"
)

Template Projects

For convenience, we have created a Giter8 template to get you started. To clone the template type the following:

$ sbt new underscoreio/cats-seed.g8

This will generate a sandbox project with Cats as a dependency. See the generated README.md for instructions on how to run the sample code and/or start an interactive Scala console.

The cats-seed template is as minimal as it gets. If you’d prefer a more batteries-included starting point, check out Typelevel’s sbt-catalysts template:

$ sbt new typelevel/sbt-catalysts.g8

This will generate a project with a suite of library dependencies and compiler plugins, together with templates for unit tests and tut-enabled documentation. See the project pages for catalysts and sbt-catalysts for more information.

Conventions Used in This Book

This book contains a lot of technical information and program code. We use the following typographical conventions to reduce ambiguity and highlight important concepts:

Typographical Conventions

New terms and phrases are introduced in italics. After their initial introduction they are written in normal roman font.

Terms from program code, filenames, and file contents, are written in monospace font. Note that we do not distinguish between singular and plural forms. For example, we might write String or Strings to refer to java.lang.String.

References to external resources are written as hyperlinks. References to API documentation are written using a combination of hyperlinks and monospace font, for example: scala.Option.

Source Code

Source code blocks are written as follows. Syntax is highlighted appropriately where applicable:

object MyApp extends App {
  println("Hello world!") // Print a fine message to the user!
}

Most code passes through tut to ensure it compiles. tut uses the Scala console behind the scenes, so we sometimes show console-style output as comments:

"Hello Cats!".toUpperCase
// res0: String = HELLO CATS!

Callout Boxes

We use two types of callout box to highlight particular content:

Acknowledgements

We’d like to thank our colleagues at Underscore, our friends at Typelevel, and everyone who helped contribute to this book. Special thanks to Jenny Clements for her fantastic artwork and Richard Dallaway for his proof reading expertise. Here is an alphabetical list of contributors:

Alessandro Marrella, Cody Koeninger, Connie Chen, Conor Fennell, Dani Rey, Daniela Sfregola, Danielle Ashley, David Castillo, David Piggott, Denis Zjukow, Dennis Hunziker, Deokhwan Kim, Edd Steel, Evgeny Veretennikov, Francis Devereux, Ghislain Vaillant, Gregor Ihmor, Henk-Jan Meijer, Janne Pelkonen, Jason Scott, Javier Arrieta, Jenny Clements, Jérémie Jost, Joachim Hofer, Jonathon Ferguson, Lance Paine, Leif Wickland, ltbs, Marc Prud’hommeaux, Martin Carolan, mizuno, Mr-SD, Narayan Iyer, Niccolo’ Paravanti, niqdev, Noor Nashid, Pablo Francisco Pérez Hidalgo, Pawel Jurczenko, Phil Derome, Philip Schwarz, Riccardo Sirigu, Richard Dallaway, Robert Stoll, Rodney Jacobsen, Rodrigo B. de Oliveira, Rud Wangrungarun, Seoh Char, Sergio Magnacco, Tim McIver, Toby Weston, Victor Osolovskiy, and Yinka Erinle.

If you spot an error or potential improvement, please raise an issue or submit a PR on the book’s Github page.

Backers

We’d also like to extend very special thanks to our backers—fine people who helped fund the development of the book by buying a copy before we released it as open source. This book wouldn’t exist without you:

A battle-hardened technologist, Aaron Pritzlaff, Abhishek Srivastava, Aleksey “Daron” Terekhin, Algolia, Allen George (@allenageorge), Andrew Johnson, Andrew Kerr, Andy Dwelly, Anler, anthony@dribble.ai, Aravindh Sridaran, Araxis Ltd, ArtemK, Arthur Kushka (@arhelmus), Artur Zhurat, Arturas Smorgun, Attila Mravik, Axel Gschaider, Bamboo Le, bamine, Barry Kern, Ben Darfler (@bdarfler), Ben Letton, Benjamin Neil, Benoit Hericher, Bernt Andreas Langøien, Bill Leck, Blaze K, Boniface Kabaso, Brian Wongchaowart, Bryan Dragon, @cannedprimates, Ceschiatti (@6qat), Chris Gojlo, Chris Phelps, @CliffRedmond, Cody Koeninger, Constantin Gonciulea, Dadepo Aderemi, Damir Vandic, Damon Rolfs, Dan Todor, Daniel Arndt, Daniela Sfregola, David Greco, David Poltorak, Dennis Hunziker, Dennis Vriend, Derek Morr, Dimitrios Liapis, Don McNamara, Doug Clinton, Doug Lindholm (dlindhol), Edgar Mueller, Edward J Renauer Jr, Emiliano Martinez, esthom, Etienne Peiniau, Fede Silva, Filipe Azevedo, Franck Rasolo, Gary Coady, George Ball, Gerald Loeffler, Integrational, Giles Taylor, Guilherme Dantas (@gamsd), Harish Hurchurn, Hisham Ismail, Iurii Susuk, Ivan (SkyWriter) Kasatenko, Ivano Pagano, Jacob Baumbach, James Morris, Jan Vincent Liwanag, Javier Gonzalez, Jeff Gentry, Joel Chovanec, Jon Bates, Jorge Aliss (@jaliss), Juan Macias (@1macias1), Juan Ortega, Juan Pablo Romero Méndez, Jungsun Kim, Kaushik Chakraborty (@kaychaks), Keith Mannock, Ken Hoffman, Kevin Esler, Kevin Kyyro, kgillies, Klaus Rehm, Kostas Skourtis, Lance Linder, Liang, Guang Hua, Loïc Girault, Luke Tebbs, Makis A, Malcolm Robbins, Mansur Ashraf (@mansur_ashraf), Marcel Lüthi, Marek Prochera @hicolour, Marianudo (Mariano Navas), Mark Eibes, Mark van Rensburg, Martijn Blankestijn, Martin Studer, Matthew Edwards, Matthew Pflueger, mauropalsgraaf, mbarak, Mehitabel, Michael Pigg, Mikael Moghadam, Mike Gehard (@mikegehard), MonadicBind, arjun.mukherjee@gmail.com, Stephen Arbogast, Narayan Iyer, @natewave, Netanel Rabinowitz, Nick Peterson, Nicolas Sitbon, Oier Blasco Linares, Oliver Daff, Oliver Schrenk, Olly Shaw, P Villela, pandaforme, Patrick Garrity, Pawel Wlodarski from JUG Lodz, @peel, Peter Perhac, Phil Glover, Philipp Leser-Wolf, Rachel Bowyer, Radu Gancea (@radusw), Rajit Singh, Ramin Alidousti, Raymond Tay, Riccardo Sirigu, Richard (Yin-Wu) Chuo, Rob Vermazeren, Robert “Kemichal” Andersson, Robin Taylor (@badgermind), Rongcui Dong, Rui Morais, Rupert Bates, Rustem Suniev, Sanjiv Sahayam, Shane Delmore, Stefan Plantikow, Sundy Wiliam Yaputra, Tal Pressman, Tamas Neltz, theLXK, Tim Pigden, Tobias Lutz, Tom Duhourq, @tomzalt, Utz Westermann, Vadym Shalts, Val Akkapeddi, Vasanth Loka, Vladimir Bacvanski, Vladimir Bystrov aka udav_pit, William Benton, Wojciech Langiewicz, Yann Ollivier (@ya2o), Yoshiro Naito, zero323, and zeronone.

1 Introduction

Cats contains a wide variety of functional programming tools and allows developers to pick and choose the ones we want to use. The majority of these tools are delivered in the form of type classes that we can apply to existing Scala types.

Type classes are a programming pattern originating in Haskell². They allow us to extend existing libraries with new functionality, without using traditional inheritance, and without altering the original library source code.

In this chapter we will refresh our memory of type classes from Underscore’s Essential Scala book, and take a first look at the Cats codebase. We will look at two example type classes—Show and Eq—using them to identify patterns that lay the foundations for the rest of the book.

We’ll finish by tying type classes back into algebraic data types, pattern matching, value classes, and type aliases, presenting a structured approach to functional programming in Scala.

1.1 Anatomy of a Type Class

There are three important components to the type class pattern: the type class itself, instances for particular types, and the interface methods that we expose to users.

1.1.1 The Type Class

A type class is an interface or API that represents some functionality we want to implement. In Cats a type class is represented by a trait with at least one type parameter. For example, we can represent generic “serialize to JSON” behaviour as follows:

// Define a very simple JSON AST
sealed trait Json
final case class JsObject(get: Map[String, Json]) extends Json
final case class JsString(get: String) extends Json
final case class JsNumber(get: Double) extends Json
case object JsNull extends Json

// The "serialize to JSON" behaviour is encoded in this trait
trait JsonWriter[A] {
  def write(value: A): Json
}

JsonWriter is our type class in this example, with Json and its subtypes providing supporting code.

1.1.2 Type Class Instances

The instances of a type class provide implementations for the types we care about, including types from the Scala standard library and types from our domain model.

In Scala we define instances by creating concrete implementations of the type class and tagging them with the implicit keyword:

final case class Person(name: String, email: String)

object JsonWriterInstances {
  implicit val stringWriter: JsonWriter[String] =
    new JsonWriter[String] {
      def write(value: String): Json =
        JsString(value)
    }

  implicit val personWriter: JsonWriter[Person] =
    new JsonWriter[Person] {
      def write(value: Person): Json =
        JsObject(Map(
          "name" -> JsString(value.name),
          "email" -> JsString(value.email)
        ))
    }

  // etc...
}

1.1.3 Type Class Interfaces

A type class interface is any functionality we expose to users. Interfaces are generic methods that accept instances of the type class as implicit parameters.

There are two common ways of specifying an interface: Interface Objects and Interface Syntax.

Interface Objects

The simplest way of creating an interface is to place methods in a singleton object:

object Json {
  def toJson[A](value: A)(implicit w: JsonWriter[A]): Json =
    w.write(value)
}

To use this object, we import any type class instances we care about and call the relevant method:

import JsonWriterInstances._

Json.toJson(Person("Dave", "dave@example.com"))
// res4: Json = JsObject(Map(name -> JsString(Dave), email -> JsString(dave@example.com)))

The compiler spots that we’ve called the toJson method without providing the implicit parameters. It tries to fix this by searching for type class instances of the relevant types and inserting them at the call site:

Json.toJson(Person("Dave", "dave@example.com"))(personWriter)

Interface Syntax

We can alternatively use extension methods to extend existing types with interface methods³. Cats refers to this as “syntax” for the type class:

object JsonSyntax {
  implicit class JsonWriterOps[A](value: A) {
    def toJson(implicit w: JsonWriter[A]): Json =
      w.write(value)
  }
}

We use interface syntax by importing it alongside the instances for the types we need:

import JsonWriterInstances._
import JsonSyntax._

Person("Dave", "dave@example.com").toJson
// res6: Json = JsObject(Map(name -> JsString(Dave), email -> JsString(dave@example.com)))

Again, the compiler searches for candidates for the implicit parameters and fills them in for us:

Person("Dave", "dave@example.com").toJson(personWriter)

The implicitly Method

The Scala standard library provides a generic type class interface called implicitly. Its definition is very simple:

def implicitly[A](implicit value: A): A =
  value

We can use implicitly to summon any value from implicit scope. We provide the type we want and implicitly does the rest:

import JsonWriterInstances._
// import JsonWriterInstances._

implicitly[JsonWriter[String]]
// res8: JsonWriter[String] = JsonWriterInstances$$anon$1@38563298

Most type classes in Cats provide other means to summon instances. However, implicitly is a good fallback for debugging purposes. We can insert a call to implicitly within the general flow of our code to ensure the compiler can find an instance of a type class and ensure that there are no ambiguous implicit errors.

1.2 Working with Implicits

Working with type classes in Scala means working with implicit values and implicit parameters. There are a few rules we need to know to do this effectively.

1.2.1 Packaging Implicits

In a curious quirk of the language, any definitions marked implicit in Scala must be placed inside an object or trait rather than at the top level. In the example above we packaged our type class instances in an object called JsonWriterInstances. We could equally have placed them in a companion object to JsonWriter. Placing instances in a companion object to the type class has special significance in Scala because it plays into something called implicit scope.

1.2.2 Implicit Scope

As we saw above, the compiler searches for candidate type class instances by type. For example, in the following expression it will look for an instance of type JsonWriter[String]:

Json.toJson("A string!")

The compiler searches for candidate instances in the implicit scope at the call site, which roughly consists of:

• local or inherited definitions;

• imported definitions;

• definitions in the companion object of the type class or the parameter type (in this case JsonWriter or String).

Definitions are only included in implicit scope if they are tagged with the implicit keyword. Furthermore, if the compiler sees multiple candidate definitions, it fails with an ambiguous implicit values error:

implicit val writer1: JsonWriter[String] =
  JsonWriterInstances.stringWriter

implicit val writer2: JsonWriter[String] =
  JsonWriterInstances.stringWriter

Json.toJson("A string")
// <console>:23: error: ambiguous implicit values:
//  both value stringWriter in object JsonWriterInstances of type => JsonWriter[String]
//  and value writer1 of type => JsonWriter[String]
//  match expected type JsonWriter[String]
//          Json.toJson("A string")
//                     ^

The precise rules of implicit resolution are more complex than this, but the complexity is largely irrelevant for this book⁴. For our purposes, we can package type class instances in roughly four ways:

1. by placing them in an object such as JsonWriterInstances;
2. by placing them in a trait;
3. by placing them in the companion object of the type class;
4. by placing them in the companion object of the parameter type.

With option 1 we bring instances into scope by importing them. With option 2 we bring them into scope with inheritance. With options 3 and 4, instances are always in implicit scope, regardless of where we try to use them.

1.2.3 Recursive Implicit Resolution

The power of type classes and implicits lies in the compiler’s ability to combine implicit definitions when searching for candidate instances.

Earlier we insinuated that all type class instances are implicit vals. This was a simplification. We can actually define instances in two ways:

1. by defining concrete instances as implicit vals of the required type⁵;

2. by defining implicit methods to construct instances from other type class instances.

Why would we construct instances from other instances? As a motivational example, consider defining a JsonWriter for Options. We would need a JsonWriter[Option[A]] for every A we care about in our application. We could try to brute force the problem by creating a library of implicit vals:

implicit val optionIntWriter: JsonWriter[Option[Int]] =
  ???

implicit val optionPersonWriter: JsonWriter[Option[Person]] =
  ???

// and so on...

However, this approach clearly doesn’t scale. We end up requiring two implicit vals for every type A in our application: one for A and one for Option[A].

Fortunately, we can abstract the code for handling Option[A] into a common constructor based on the instance for A:

• if the option is Some(aValue), write aValue using the writer for A;

• if the option is None, return JsNull.

Here is the same code written out as an implicit def:

implicit def optionWriter[A]
    (implicit writer: JsonWriter[A]): JsonWriter[Option[A]] =
  new JsonWriter[Option[A]] {
    def write(option: Option[A]): Json =
      option match {
        case Some(aValue) => writer.write(aValue)
        case None         => JsNull
      }
  }

This method constructs a JsonWriter for Option[A] by relying on an implicit parameter to fill in the A-specific functionality. When the compiler sees an expression like this:

Json.toJson(Option("A string"))

it searches for an implicit JsonWriter[Option[String]]. It finds the implicit method for JsonWriter[Option[A]]:

Json.toJson(Option("A string"))(optionWriter[String])

and recursively searches for a JsonWriter[String] to use as the parameter to optionWriter:

Json.toJson(Option("A string"))(optionWriter(stringWriter))

In this way, implicit resolution becomes a search through the space of possible combinations of implicit definitions, to find a combination that summons a type class instance of the correct overall type.

implicit def optionWriter[A]
    (writer: JsonWriter[A]): JsonWriter[Option[A]] =
  ???
// <console>:18: warning: implicit conversion method optionWriter should be enabled
// by making the implicit value scala.language.implicitConversions visible.
// This can be achieved by adding the import clause 'import scala.language.implicitConversions'
// or by setting the compiler option -language:implicitConversions.
// See the Scaladoc for value scala.language.implicitConversions for a discussion
// why the feature should be explicitly enabled.
//        implicit def optionWriter[A]
//                     ^
// error: No warnings can be incurred under -Xfatal-warnings.

1.3 Exercise: Printable Library

Scala provides a toString method to let us convert any value to a String. However, this method comes with a few disadvantages: it is implemented for every type in the language, many implementations are of limited use, and we can’t opt-in to specific implementations for specific types.

Let’s define a Printable type class to work around these problems:

1. Define a type class Printable[A] containing a single method format. format should accept a value of type A and return a String.

2. Create an object PrintableInstances containing instances of Printable for String and Int.

3. Define an object Printable with two generic interface methods:

   format accepts a value of type A and a Printable of the corresponding type. It uses the relevant Printable to convert the A to a String.

   print accepts the same parameters as format and returns Unit. It prints the A value to the console using println.

trait Printable[A] {
  def format(value: A): String
}

object PrintableInstances {
  implicit val stringPrintable = new Printable[String] {
    def format(input: String) = input
  }

  implicit val intPrintable = new Printable[Int] {
    def format(input: Int) = input.toString
  }
}

object Printable {
  def format[A](input: A)(implicit p: Printable[A]): String =
    p.format(input)

  def print[A](input: A)(implicit p: Printable[A]): Unit =
    println(format(input))
}

Using the Library

The code above forms a general purpose printing library that we can use in multiple applications. Let’s define an “application” now that uses the library.

First we’ll define a data type to represent a well-known type of furry animal:

final case class Cat(name: String, age: Int, color: String)

Next we’ll create an implementation of Printable for Cat that returns content in the following format:

NAME is a AGE year-old COLOR cat.

Finally, use the type class on the console or in a short demo app: create a Cat and print it to the console:

// Define a cat:
val cat = Cat(/* ... */)

// Print the cat!

final case class Cat(name: String, age: Int, color: String)

import PrintableInstances._

implicit val catPrintable = new Printable[Cat] {
  def format(cat: Cat) = {
    val name  = Printable.format(cat.name)
    val age   = Printable.format(cat.age)
    val color = Printable.format(cat.color)
    s"$name is a $age year-old $color cat."
  }
}

val cat = Cat("Garfield", 38, "ginger and black")
// cat: Cat = Cat(Garfield,38,ginger and black)

Printable.print(cat)
// Garfield is a 38 year-old ginger and black cat.

Better Syntax

Let’s make our printing library easier to use by defining some extension methods to provide better syntax:

1. Create an object called PrintableSyntax.

2. Inside PrintableSyntax define an implicit class PrintableOps[A] to wrap up a value of type A.

3. In PrintableOps define the following methods:

   • format accepts an implicit Printable[A] and returns a String representation of the wrapped A;

   • print accepts an implicit Printable[A] and returns Unit. It prints the wrapped A to the console.

4. Use the extension methods to print the example Cat you created in the previous exercise.

object PrintableSyntax {
  implicit class PrintableOps[A](value: A) {
    def format(implicit p: Printable[A]): String =
      p.format(value)

    def print(implicit p: Printable[A]): Unit =
      println(format(p))
  }
}

import PrintableSyntax._

Cat("Garfield", 38, "ginger and black").print
// Garfield is a 38 year-old ginger and black cat.

import java.util.Date

new Date().print
// <console>:23: error: could not find implicit value for parameter p: Printable[java.util.Date]
//        new Date().print
//                   ^

1.4 Meet Cats

In the previous section we saw how to implement type classes in Scala. In this section we will look at how type classes are implemented in Cats.

Cats is written using a modular structure that allows us to choose which type classes, instances, and interface methods we want to use. Let’s take a first look using cats.Show as an example.

Show is Cats’ equivalent of the Printable type class we defined in the last section. It provides a mechanism for producing developer-friendly console output without using toString. Here’s an abbreviated definition:

package cats

trait Show[A] {
  def show(value: A): String
}

1.4.1 Importing Type Classes

The type classes in Cats are defined in the cats package. We can import Show directly from this package:

import cats.Show

The companion object of every Cats type class has an apply method that locates an instance for any type we specify:

val showInt = Show.apply[Int]
// <console>:13: error: could not find implicit value for parameter instance: cats.Show[Int]
//        val showInt = Show.apply[Int]
//                                ^

Oops—that didn’t work! The apply method uses implicits to look up individual instances, so we’ll have to bring some instances into scope.

1.4.2 Importing Default Instances

The cats.instances package provides default instances for a wide variety of types. We can import these as shown in the table below. Each import provides instances of all Cats’ type classes for a specific parameter type:

• cats.instances.int provides instances for Int
• cats.instances.string provides instances for String
• cats.instances.list provides instances for List
• cats.instances.option provides instances for Option
• cats.instances.all provides all instances that are shipped out of the box with Cats

See the cats.instances package for a complete list of available imports.

Let’s import the instances of Show for Int and String:

import cats.instances.int._    // for Show
import cats.instances.string._ // for Show

val showInt:    Show[Int]    = Show.apply[Int]
val showString: Show[String] = Show.apply[String]

That’s better! We now have access to two instances of Show, and can use them to print Ints and Strings:

val intAsString: String =
  showInt.show(123)
// intAsString: String = 123

val stringAsString: String =
  showString.show("abc")
// stringAsString: String = abc

1.4.3 Importing Interface Syntax

We can make Show easier to use by importing the interface syntax from cats.syntax.show. This adds an extension method called show to any type for which we have an instance of Show in scope:

import cats.syntax.show._ // for show

val shownInt = 123.show
// shownInt: String = 123

val shownString = "abc".show
// shownString: String = abc

Cats provides separate syntax imports for each type class. We will introduce these as we encounter them in later sections and chapters.

1.4.4 Importing All The Things!

In this book we will use specific imports to show you exactly which instances and syntax you need in each example. However, this can be time consuming for many use cases. You should feel free to take one of the following shortcuts to simplify your imports:

• import cats._ imports all of Cats’ type classes in one go;

• import cats.instances.all._ imports all of the type class instances for the standard library in one go;

• import cats.syntax.all._ imports all of the syntax in one go;

• import cats.implicits._ imports all of the standard type class instances and all of the syntax in one go.

Most people start their files with the following imports, reverting to more specific imports only if they encounter naming conflicts or problems with ambiguous implicits:

import cats._
import cats.implicits._

1.4.5 Defining Custom Instances

We can define an instance of Show simply by implementing the trait for a given type:

import java.util.Date

implicit val dateShow: Show[Date] =
  new Show[Date] {
    def show(date: Date): String =
      s"${date.getTime}ms since the epoch."
  }

However, Cats also provides a couple of convenient methods to simplify the process. There are two construction methods on the companion object of Show that we can use to define instances for our own types:

object Show {
  // Convert a function to a `Show` instance:
  def show[A](f: A => String): Show[A] =
    ???

  // Create a `Show` instance from a `toString` method:
  def fromToString[A]: Show[A] =
    ???
}

These allow us to quickly construct instances with less ceremony than defining them from scratch:

implicit val dateShow: Show[Date] =
  Show.show(date => s"${date.getTime}ms since the epoch.")

As you can see, the code using construction methods is much terser than the code without. Many type classes in Cats provide helper methods like these for constructing instances, either from scratch or by transforming existing instances for other types.

1.4.6 Exercise: Cat Show

Re-implement the Cat application from the previous section using Show instead of Printable.

import cats.Show
import cats.instances.int._    // for Show
import cats.instances.string._ // for Show
import cats.syntax.show._      // for show

final case class Cat(name: String, age: Int, color: String)

implicit val catShow = Show.show[Cat] { cat =>
  val name  = cat.name.show
  val age   = cat.age.show
  val color = cat.color.show
  s"$name is a $age year-old $color cat."
}

println(Cat("Garfield", 38, "ginger and black").show)
// Garfield is a 38 year-old ginger and black cat.

1.5 Example: Eq

We will finish off this chapter by looking at another useful type class: cats.Eq. Eq is designed to support type-safe equality and address annoyances using Scala’s built-in == operator.

Almost every Scala developer has written code like this before:

List(1, 2, 3).map(Option(_)).filter(item => item == 1)
// res0: List[Option[Int]] = List()

Ok, many of you won’t have made such a simple mistake as this, but the principle is sound. The predicate in the filter clause always returns false because it is comparing an Int to an Option[Int].

This is programmer error—we should have compared item to Some(1) instead of 1. However, it’s not technically a type error because == works for any pair of objects, no matter what types we compare. Eq is designed to add some type safety to equality checks and work around this problem.

1.5.1 Equality, Liberty, and Fraternity

We can use Eq to define type-safe equality between instances of any given type:

package cats

trait Eq[A] {
  def eqv(a: A, b: A): Boolean
  // other concrete methods based on eqv...
}

The interface syntax, defined in cats.syntax.eq, provides two methods for performing equality checks provided there is an instance Eq[A] in scope:

• === compares two objects for equality;
• =!= compares two objects for inequality.

1.5.2 Comparing Ints

Let’s look at a few examples. First we import the type class:

import cats.Eq

Now let’s grab an instance for Int:

import cats.instances.int._ // for Eq

val eqInt = Eq[Int]

We can use eqInt directly to test for equality:

eqInt.eqv(123, 123)
// res2: Boolean = true

eqInt.eqv(123, 234)
// res3: Boolean = false

Unlike Scala’s == method, if we try to compare objects of different types using eqv we get a compile error:

eqInt.eqv(123, "234")
// <console>:18: error: type mismatch;
//  found   : String("234")
//  required: Int
//        eqInt.eqv(123, "234")
//                       ^

We can also import the interface syntax in cats.syntax.eq to use the === and =!= methods:

import cats.syntax.eq._ // for === and =!=

123 === 123
// res5: Boolean = true

123 =!= 234
// res6: Boolean = true

Again, comparing values of different types causes a compiler error:

123 === "123"
// <console>:20: error: type mismatch;
//  found   : String("123")
//  required: Int
//        123 === "123"
//                ^

1.5.3 Comparing Options

Now for a more interesting example—Option[Int]. To compare values of type Option[Int] we need to import instances of Eq for Option as well as Int:

import cats.instances.int._    // for Eq
import cats.instances.option._ // for Eq

Now we can try some comparisons:

Some(1) === None
// <console>:26: error: value === is not a member of Some[Int]
//        Some(1) === None
//                ^

We have received an error here because the types don’t quite match up. We have Eq instances in scope for Int and Option[Int] but the values we are comparing are of type Some[Int]. To fix the issue we have to re-type the arguments as Option[Int]:

(Some(1) : Option[Int]) === (None : Option[Int])
// res9: Boolean = false

We can do this in a friendlier fashion using the Option.apply and Option.empty methods from the standard library:

Option(1) === Option.empty[Int]
// res10: Boolean = false

or using special syntax from cats.syntax.option:

import cats.syntax.option._ // for some and none

1.some === none[Int]
// res11: Boolean = false

1.some =!= none[Int]
// res12: Boolean = true

1.5.4 Comparing Custom Types

We can define our own instances of Eq using the Eq.instance method, which accepts a function of type (A, A) => Boolean and returns an Eq[A]:

import java.util.Date
import cats.instances.long._ // for Eq

implicit val dateEq: Eq[Date] =
  Eq.instance[Date] { (date1, date2) =>
    date1.getTime === date2.getTime
  }

val x = new Date() // now
val y = new Date() // a bit later than now

x === x
// res13: Boolean = true

x === y
// res14: Boolean = false

1.5.5 Exercise: Equality, Liberty, and Felinity

Implement an instance of Eq for our running Cat example:

final case class Cat(name: String, age: Int, color: String)

Use this to compare the following pairs of objects for equality and inequality:

val cat1 = Cat("Garfield",   38, "orange and black")
val cat2 = Cat("Heathcliff", 33, "orange and black")

val optionCat1 = Option(cat1)
val optionCat2 = Option.empty[Cat]

import cats.Eq
import cats.syntax.eq._ // for ===

final case class Cat(name: String, age: Int, color: String)

import cats.instances.int._    // for Eq
import cats.instances.string._ // for Eq

implicit val catEqual: Eq[Cat] =
  Eq.instance[Cat] { (cat1, cat2) =>
    (cat1.name  === cat2.name ) &&
    (cat1.age   === cat2.age  ) &&
    (cat1.color === cat2.color)
  }

val cat1 = Cat("Garfield",   38, "orange and black")
// cat1: Cat = Cat(Garfield,38,orange and black)

val cat2 = Cat("Heathcliff", 32, "orange and black")
// cat2: Cat = Cat(Heathcliff,32,orange and black)

cat1 === cat2
// res17: Boolean = false

cat1 =!= cat2
// res18: Boolean = true

import cats.instances.option._ // for Eq

val optionCat1 = Option(cat1)
// optionCat1: Option[Cat] = Some(Cat(Garfield,38,orange and black))

val optionCat2 = Option.empty[Cat]
// optionCat2: Option[Cat] = None

optionCat1 === optionCat2
// res19: Boolean = false

optionCat1 =!= optionCat2
// res20: Boolean = true

1.6 Controlling Instance Selection

When working with type classes we must consider two issues that control instance selection:

• What is the relationship between an instance defined on a type and its subtypes?

  For example, if we define a JsonWriter[Option[Int]], will the expression Json.toJson(Some(1)) select this instance? (Remember that Some is a subtype of Option).

• How do we choose between type class instances when there are many available?

  What if we define two JsonWriters for Person? When we write Json.toJson(aPerson), which instance is selected?

1.6.1 Variance

When we define type classes we can add variance annotations to the type parameter to affect the variance of the type class and the compiler’s ability to select instances during implicit resolution.

To recap Essential Scala, variance relates to subtypes. We say that B is a subtype of A if we can use a value of type B anywhere we expect a value of type A.

Co- and contravariance annotations arise when working with type constructors. For example, we denote covariance with a + symbol:

trait F[+A] // the "+" means "covariant"

Covariance

Covariance means that the type F[B] is a subtype of the type F[A] if B is a subtype of A. This is useful for modelling many types, including collections like List and Option:

trait List[+A]
trait Option[+A]

The covariance of Scala collections allows us to substitute collections of one type for another in our code. For example, we can use a List[Circle] anywhere we expect a List[Shape] because Circle is a subtype of Shape:

sealed trait Shape
case class Circle(radius: Double) extends Shape

val circles: List[Circle] = ???
val shapes: List[Shape] = circles

What about contravariance? We write contravariant type constructors with a - symbol like this:

trait F[-A]

Contravariance

Confusingly, contravariance means that the type F[B] is a subtype of F[A] if A is a subtype of B. This is useful for modelling types that represent processes, like our JsonWriter type class above:

trait JsonWriter[-A] {
  def write(value: A): Json
}
// defined trait JsonWriter

Let’s unpack this a bit further. Remember that variance is all about the ability to substitute one value for another. Consider a scenario where we have two values, one of type Shape and one of type Circle, and two JsonWriters, one for Shape and one for Circle:

val shape: Shape = ???
val circle: Circle = ???

val shapeWriter: JsonWriter[Shape] = ???
val circleWriter: JsonWriter[Circle] = ???

def format[A](value: A, writer: JsonWriter[A]): Json =
  writer.write(value)

Now ask yourself the question: “Which combinations of value and writer can I pass to format?” We can combine circle with either writer because all Circles are Shapes. Conversely, we can’t combine shape with circleWriter because not all Shapes are Circles.

This relationship is what we formally model using contravariance. JsonWriter[Shape] is a subtype of JsonWriter[Circle] because Circle is a subtype of Shape. This means we can use shapeWriter anywhere we expect to see a JsonWriter[Circle].

Invariance

Invariance is actually the easiest situation to describe. It’s what we get when we don’t write a + or - in a type constructor:

trait F[A]

This means the types F[A] and F[B] are never subtypes of one another, no matter what the relationship between A and B. This is the default semantics for Scala type constructors.

When the compiler searches for an implicit it looks for one matching the type or subtype. Thus we can use variance annotations to control type class instance selection to some extent.

There are two issues that tend to arise. Let’s imagine we have an algebraic data type like:

sealed trait A
final case object B extends A
final case object C extends A

The issues are:

1. Will an instance defined on a supertype be selected if one is available? For example, can we define an instance for A and have it work for values of type B and C?

2. Will an instance for a subtype be selected in preference to that of a supertype. For instance, if we define an instance for A and B, and we have a value of type B, will the instance for B be selected in preference to A?

It turns out we can’t have both at once. The three choices give us behaviour as follows:

It’s clear there is no perfect system. Cats generally prefers to use invariant type classes. This allows us to specify more specific instances for subtypes if we want. It does mean that if we have, for example, a value of type Some[Int], our type class instance for Option will not be used. We can solve this problem with a type annotation like Some(1) : Option[Int] or by using “smart constructors” like the Option.apply, Option.empty, some, and none methods we saw in Section 1.5.3.

1.7 Summary

In this chapter we took a first look at type classes. We implemented our own Printable type class using plain Scala before looking at two examples from Cats—Show and Eq.

We have now seen the general patterns in Cats type classes:

• The type classes themselves are generic traits in the cats package.

• Each type class has a companion object with, an apply method for materializing instances, one or more construction methods for creating instances, and a collection of other relevant helper methods.

• Default instances are provided via objects in the cats.instances package, and are organized by parameter type rather than by type class.

• Many type classes have syntax provided via the cats.syntax package.

In the remaining chapters of Part I we will look at several broad and powerful type classes—Semigroup, Monoid, Functor, Monad, Semigroupal, Applicative, Traverse, and more. In each case we will learn what functionality the type class provides, the formal rules it follows, and how it is implemented in Cats. Many of these type classes are more abstract than Show or Eq. While this makes them harder to learn, it makes them far more useful for solving general problems in our code.

2 Monoids and Semigroups

In this section we explore our first type classes, monoid and semigroup. These allow us to add or combine values. There are instances for Ints, Strings, Lists, Options, and many more. Let’s start by looking at a few simple types and operations to see what common principles we can extract.

Integer addition

Addition of Ints is a binary operation that is closed, meaning that adding two Ints always produces another Int:

2 + 1
// res0: Int = 3

There is also the identity element 0 with the property that a + 0 == 0 + a == a for any Int a:

2 + 0
// res1: Int = 2

0 + 2
// res2: Int = 2

There are also other properties of addition. For instance, it doesn’t matter in what order we add elements because we always get the same result. This is a property known as associativity:

(1 + 2) + 3
// res3: Int = 6

1 + (2 + 3)
// res4: Int = 6

Integer multiplication

The same properties for addition also apply for multiplication, provided we use 1 as the identity instead of 0:

1 * 3
// res5: Int = 3

3 * 1
// res6: Int = 3

Multiplication, like addition, is associative:

(1 * 2) * 3
// res7: Int = 6

1 * (2 * 3)
// res8: Int = 6

String and sequence concatenation

We can also add Strings, using string concatenation as our binary operator:

"One" ++ "two"
// res9: String = Onetwo

and the empty string as the identity:

"" ++ "Hello"
// res10: String = Hello

"Hello" ++ ""
// res11: String = Hello

Once again, concatenation is associative:

("One" ++ "Two") ++ "Three"
// res12: String = OneTwoThree

"One" ++ ("Two" ++ "Three")
// res13: String = OneTwoThree

Note that we used ++ above instead of the more usual + to suggest a parallel with sequences. We can do the same with other types of sequence, using concatenation as the binary operator and the empty sequence as our identity.

2.1 Definition of a Monoid

We’ve seen a number of “addition” scenarios above each with an associative binary addition and an identity element. It will be no surprise to learn that this is a monoid. Formally, a monoid for a type A is:

• an operation combine with type (A, A) => A
• an element empty of type A

This definition translates nicely into Scala code. Here is a simplified version of the definition from Cats:

trait Monoid[A] {
  def combine(x: A, y: A): A
  def empty: A
}

In addition to providing the combine and empty operations, monoids must formally obey several laws. For all values x, y, and z, in A, combine must be associative and empty must be an identity element:

def associativeLaw[A](x: A, y: A, z: A)
      (implicit m: Monoid[A]): Boolean = {
  m.combine(x, m.combine(y, z)) ==
    m.combine(m.combine(x, y), z)
}

def identityLaw[A](x: A)
      (implicit m: Monoid[A]): Boolean = {
  (m.combine(x, m.empty) == x) &&
    (m.combine(m.empty, x) == x)
}

Integer subtraction, for example, is not a monoid because subtraction is not associative:

(1 - 2) - 3
// res15: Int = -4

1 - (2 - 3)
// res16: Int = 2

In practice we only need to think about laws when we are writing our own Monoid instances. Unlawful instances are dangerous because they can yield unpredictable results when used with the rest of Cats’ machinery. Most of the time we can rely on the instances provided by Cats and assume the library authors know what they’re doing.

2.2 Definition of a Semigroup

A semigroup is just the combine part of a monoid. While many semigroups are also monoids, there are some data types for which we cannot define an empty element. For example, we have just seen that sequence concatenation and integer addition are monoids. However, if we restrict ourselves to non-empty sequences and positive integers, we are no longer able to define a sensible empty element. Cats has a NonEmptyList data type that has an implementation of Semigroup but no implementation of Monoid.

A more accurate (though still simplified) definition of Cats’ Monoid is:

trait Semigroup[A] {
  def combine(x: A, y: A): A
}

trait Monoid[A] extends Semigroup[A] {
  def empty: A
}

We’ll see this kind of inheritance often when discussing type classes. It provides modularity and allows us to re-use behaviour. If we define a Monoid for a type A, we get a Semigroup for free. Similarly, if a method requires a parameter of type Semigroup[B], we can pass a Monoid[B] instead.

2.3 Exercise: The Truth About Monoids

We’ve seen a few examples of monoids but there are plenty more to be found. Consider Boolean. How many monoids can you define for this type? For each monoid, define the combine and empty operations and convince yourself that the monoid laws hold. Use the following definitions as a starting point:

trait Semigroup[A] {
  def combine(x: A, y: A): A
}

trait Monoid[A] extends Semigroup[A] {
  def empty: A
}

object Monoid {
  def apply[A](implicit monoid: Monoid[A]) =
    monoid
}

implicit val booleanAndMonoid: Monoid[Boolean] =
  new Monoid[Boolean] {
    def combine(a: Boolean, b: Boolean) = a && b
    def empty = true
  }

implicit val booleanOrMonoid: Monoid[Boolean] =
  new Monoid[Boolean] {
    def combine(a: Boolean, b: Boolean) = a || b
    def empty = false
  }

implicit val booleanEitherMonoid: Monoid[Boolean] =
  new Monoid[Boolean] {
    def combine(a: Boolean, b: Boolean) =
      (a && !b) || (!a && b)

    def empty = false
  }

implicit val booleanXnorMonoid: Monoid[Boolean] =
  new Monoid[Boolean] {
    def combine(a: Boolean, b: Boolean) =
      (!a || b) && (a || !b)

    def empty = true
  }

2.4 Exercise: All Set for Monoids

What monoids and semigroups are there for sets?

implicit def setUnionMonoid[A]: Monoid[Set[A]] =
  new Monoid[Set[A]] {
    def combine(a: Set[A], b: Set[A]) = a union b
    def empty = Set.empty[A]
  }

val intSetMonoid = Monoid[Set[Int]]
val strSetMonoid = Monoid[Set[String]]

intSetMonoid.combine(Set(1, 2), Set(2, 3))
// res2: Set[Int] = Set(1, 2, 3)

strSetMonoid.combine(Set("A", "B"), Set("B", "C"))
// res3: Set[String] = Set(A, B, C)

implicit def setIntersectionSemigroup[A]: Semigroup[Set[A]] =
  new Semigroup[Set[A]] {
    def combine(a: Set[A], b: Set[A]) =
      a intersect b
  }

implicit def symDiffMonoid[A]: Monoid[Set[A]] =
  new Monoid[Set[A]] {
    def combine(a: Set[A], b: Set[A]): Set[A] =
      (a diff b) union (b diff a)
    def empty: Set[A] = Set.empty
  }

2.5 Monoids in Cats

Now we’ve seen what monoids are, let’s look at their implementation in Cats. Once again we’ll look at the three main aspects of the implementation: the type class, the instances, and the interface.

2.5.1 The Monoid Type Class

The monoid type class is cats.kernel.Monoid, which is aliased as cats.Monoid. Monoid extends cats.kernel.Semigroup, which is aliased as cats.Semigroup. When using Cats we normally import type classes from the cats package:

import cats.Monoid
import cats.Semigroup

2.5.2 Monoid Instances

Monoid follows the standard Cats pattern for the user interface: the companion object has an apply method that returns the type class instance for a particular type. For example, if we want the monoid instance for String, and we have the correct implicits in scope, we can write the following:

import cats.Monoid
import cats.instances.string._ // for Monoid

Monoid[String].combine("Hi ", "there")
// res0: String = Hi there

Monoid[String].empty
// res1: String = ""

which is equivalent to:

Monoid.apply[String].combine("Hi ", "there")
// res2: String = Hi there

Monoid.apply[String].empty
// res3: String = ""

As we know, Monoid extends Semigroup. If we don’t need empty we can equivalently write:

import cats.Semigroup

Semigroup[String].combine("Hi ", "there")
// res4: String = Hi there

The type class instances for Monoid are organised under cats.instances in the standard way described in Chapter 1. For example, if we want to pull in instances for Int we import from cats.instances.int:

import cats.Monoid
import cats.instances.int._ // for Monoid

Monoid[Int].combine(32, 10)
// res5: Int = 42

Similarly, we can assemble a Monoid[Option[Int]] using instances from cats.instances.int and cats.instances.option:

import cats.Monoid
import cats.instances.int._    // for Monoid
import cats.instances.option._ // for Monoid

val a = Option(22)
// a: Option[Int] = Some(22)

val b = Option(20)
// b: Option[Int] = Some(20)

Monoid[Option[Int]].combine(a, b)
// res6: Option[Int] = Some(42)

Refer back to Chapter 1 for a more comprehensive list of imports.

2.5.3 Monoid Syntax

Cats provides syntax for the combine method in the form of the |+| operator. Because combine technically comes from Semigroup, we access the syntax by importing from cats.syntax.semigroup:

import cats.instances.string._ // for Monoid
import cats.syntax.semigroup._ // for |+|

val stringResult = "Hi " |+| "there" |+| Monoid[String].empty
// stringResult: String = Hi there

import cats.instances.int._ // for Monoid

val intResult = 1 |+| 2 |+| Monoid[Int].empty
// intResult: Int = 3

2.5.4 Exercise: Adding All The Things

The cutting edge SuperAdder v3.5a-32 is the world’s first choice for adding together numbers. The main function in the program has signature def add(items: List[Int]): Int. In a tragic accident this code is deleted! Rewrite the method and save the day!

def add(items: List[Int]): Int =
  items.foldLeft(0)(_ + _)

import cats.Monoid
import cats.instances.int._    // for Monoid
import cats.syntax.semigroup._ // for |+|

def add(items: List[Int]): Int =
  items.foldLeft(Monoid[Int].empty)(_ |+| _)

Well done! SuperAdder’s market share continues to grow, and now there is demand for additional functionality. People now want to add List[Option[Int]]. Change add so this is possible. The SuperAdder code base is of the highest quality, so make sure there is no code duplication!

import cats.Monoid
import cats.instances.int._    // for Monoid
import cats.syntax.semigroup._ // for |+|

def add[A](items: List[A])(implicit monoid: Monoid[A]): A =
  items.foldLeft(monoid.empty)(_ |+| _)

def add[A: Monoid](items: List[A]): A =
  items.foldLeft(Monoid[A].empty)(_ |+| _)

import cats.instances.int._ // for Monoid

add(List(1, 2, 3))
// res9: Int = 6

import cats.instances.option._ // for Monoid

add(List(Some(1), None, Some(2), None, Some(3)))
// res10: Option[Int] = Some(6)

add(List(Some(1), Some(2), Some(3)))
// <console>:61: error: could not find implicit value for evidence parameter of type cats.Monoid[Some[Int]]
//        add(List(Some(1), Some(2), Some(3)))
//           ^

SuperAdder is entering the POS (point-of-sale, not the other POS) market. Now we want to add up Orders:

case class Order(totalCost: Double, quantity: Double)

We need to release this code really soon so we can’t make any modifications to add. Make it so!

implicit val monoid: Monoid[Order] = new Monoid[Order] {
  def combine(o1: Order, o2: Order) =
    Order(
      o1.totalCost + o2.totalCost,
      o1.quantity + o2.quantity
    )

  def empty = Order(0, 0)
}

2.6 Applications of Monoids

We now know what a monoid is—an abstraction of the concept of adding or combining—but where is it useful? Here are a few big ideas where monoids play a major role. These are explored in more detail in case studies later in the book.

2.6.1 Big Data

In big data applications like Spark and Hadoop we distribute data analysis over many machines, giving fault tolerance and scalability. This means each machine will return results over a portion of the data, and we must then combine these results to get our final result. In the vast majority of cases this can be viewed as a monoid.

If we want to calculate how many total visitors a web site has received, that means calculating an Int on each portion of the data. We know the monoid instance of Int is addition, which is the right way to combine partial results.

If we want to find out how many unique visitors a website has received, that’s equivalent to building a Set[User] on each portion of the data. We know the monoid instance for Set is the set union, which is the right way to combine partial results.

If we want to calculate 99% and 95% response times from our server logs, we can use a data structure called a QTree for which there is a monoid.

Hopefully you get the idea. Almost every analysis that we might want to do over a large data set is a monoid, and therefore we can build an expressive and powerful analytics system around this idea. This is exactly what Twitter’s Algebird and Summingbird projects have done. We explore this idea further in the map-reduce case study.

2.6.2 Distributed Systems

In a distributed system, different machines may end up with different views of data. For example, one machine may receive an update that other machines did not receive. We would like to reconcile these different views, so every machine has the same data if no more updates arrive. This is called eventual consistency.

A particular class of data types support this reconciliation. These data types are called commutative replicated data types (CRDTs). The key operation is the ability to merge two data instances, with a result that captures all the information in both instances. This operation relies on having a monoid instance. We explore this idea further in the CRDT case study.

2.6.3 Monoids in the Small

The two examples above are cases where monoids inform the entire system architecture. There are also many cases where having a monoid around makes it easier to write a small code fragment. We’ll see lots of examples in the case studies in this book.

2.7 Summary

We hit a big milestone in this chapter—we covered our first type classes with fancy functional programming names:

• a Semigroup represents an addition or combination operation;
• a Monoid extends a Semigroup by adding an identity or “zero” element.

We can use Semigroups and Monoids by importing three things: the type classes themselves, the instances for the types we care about, and the semigroup syntax to give us the |+| operator:

import cats.Monoid
import cats.instances.string._ // for Monoid
import cats.syntax.semigroup._ // for |+|

"Scala" |+| " with " |+| "Cats"
// res0: String = Scala with Cats

With the correct instances in scope, we can set about adding anything we want:

import cats.instances.int._    // for Monoid
import cats.instances.option._ // for Monoid

Option(1) |+| Option(2)
// res1: Option[Int] = Some(3)

import cats.instances.map._ // for Monoid

val map1 = Map("a" -> 1, "b" -> 2)
val map2 = Map("b" -> 3, "d" -> 4)

map1 |+| map2
// res3: Map[String,Int] = Map(b -> 5, d -> 4, a -> 1)

import cats.instances.tuple._  // for Monoid


val tuple1 = ("hello", 123)
val tuple2 = ("world", 321)

tuple1 |+| tuple2
// res6: (String, Int) = (helloworld,444)

We can also write generic code that works with any type for which we have an instance of Monoid:

def addAll[A](values: List[A])
      (implicit monoid: Monoid[A]): A =
  values.foldRight(monoid.empty)(_ |+| _)

addAll(List(1, 2, 3))
// res7: Int = 6

addAll(List(None, Some(1), Some(2)))
// res8: Option[Int] = Some(3)

Monoids are a great gateway to Cats. They’re easy to understand and simple to use. However, they’re just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the abstractions Cats enables us to make. In the next chapter we’ll look at functors, the type class personification of the beloved map method. That’s where the fun really begins!

3 Functors

In this chapter we will investigate functors, an abstraction that allows us to represent sequences of operations within a context such as a List, an Option, or any one of a thousand other possibilities. Functors on their own aren’t so useful, but special cases of functors such as monads and applicative functors are some of the most commonly used abstractions in Cats.

3.1 Examples of Functors

Informally, a functor is anything with a map method. You probably know lots of types that have this: Option, List, and Either, to name a few.

We typically first encounter map when iterating over Lists. However, to understand functors we need to think of the method in another way. Rather than traversing the list, we should think of it as transforming all of the values inside in one go. We specify the function to apply, and map ensures it is applied to every item. The values change but the structure of the list remains the same:

List(1, 2, 3).map(n => n + 1)
// res0: List[Int] = List(2, 3, 4)

Similarly, when we map over an Option, we transform the contents but leave the Some or None context unchanged. The same principle applies to Either with its Left and Right contexts. This general notion of transformation, along with the common pattern of type signatures shown in Figure 1, is what connects the behaviour of map across different data types.

Figure 1: Type chart: mapping over List, Option, and Either

Because map leaves the structure of the context unchanged, we can call it repeatedly to sequence multiple computations on the contents of an initial data structure:

List(1, 2, 3).
  map(n => n + 1).
  map(n => n * 2).
  map(n => n + "!")
// res1: List[String] = List(4!, 6!, 8!)

We should think of map not as an iteration pattern, but as a way of sequencing computations on values ignoring some complication dictated by the relevant data type:

• Option—the value may or may not be present;
• Either—there may be a value or an error;
• List—there may be zero or more values.

3.2 More Examples of Functors

The map methods of List, Option, and Either apply functions eagerly. However, the idea of sequencing computations is more general than this. Let’s investigate the behaviour of some other functors that apply the pattern in different ways.

Futures

Future is a functor that sequences asynchronous computations by queueing them and applying them as their predecessors complete. The type signature of its map method, shown in Figure 2, has the same shape as the signatures above. However, the behaviour is very different.

Figure 2: Type chart: mapping over a Future

When we work with a Future we have no guarantees about its internal state. The wrapped computation may be ongoing, complete, or rejected. If the Future is complete, our mapping function can be called immediately. If not, some underlying thread pool queues the function call and comes back to it later. We don’t know when our functions will be called, but we do know what order they will be called in. In this way, Future provides the same sequencing behaviour seen in List, Option, and Either:

import scala.concurrent.{Future, Await}
import scala.concurrent.ExecutionContext.Implicits.global
import scala.concurrent.duration._

val future: Future[String] =
  Future(123).
    map(n => n + 1).
    map(n => n * 2).
    map(n => n + "!")

Await.result(future, 1.second)
// res3: String = 248!

import scala.util.Random

val future1 = {
  // Initialize Random with a fixed seed:
  val r = new Random(0L)

  // nextInt has the side-effect of moving to
  // the next random number in the sequence:
  val x = Future(r.nextInt)

  for {
    a <- x
    b <- x
  } yield (a, b)
}

val future2 = {
  val r = new Random(0L)

  for {
    a <- Future(r.nextInt)
    b <- Future(r.nextInt)
  } yield (a, b)
}

val result1 = Await.result(future1, 1.second)
// result1: (Int, Int) = (-1155484576,-1155484576)

val result2 = Await.result(future2, 1.second)
// result2: (Int, Int) = (-1155484576,-723955400)

If Future isn’t referentially transparent, perhaps we should look at another similar data-type that is. You should recognise this one…

Functions (?!)

It turns out that single argument functions are also functors. To see this we have to tweak the types a little. A function A => B has two type parameters: the parameter type A and the result type B. To coerce them to the correct shape we can fix the parameter type and let the result type vary:

• start with X => A;
• supply a function A => B;
• get back X => B.

If we alias X => A as MyFunc[A], we see the same pattern of types we saw with the other examples in this chapter. We also see this in Figure 3:

• start with MyFunc[A];
• supply a function A => B;
• get back MyFunc[B].

Figure 3: Type chart: mapping over a Function1

In other words, “mapping” over a Function1 is function composition:

import cats.instances.function._ // for Functor
import cats.syntax.functor._     // for map

val func1: Int => Double =
  (x: Int) => x.toDouble

val func2: Double => Double =
  (y: Double) => y * 2

(func1 map func2)(1)     // composition using map
// res7: Double = 2.0

(func1 andThen func2)(1) // composition using andThen
// res8: Double = 2.0

func2(func1(1))          // composition written out by hand
// res9: Double = 2.0

How does this relate to our general pattern of sequencing operations? If we think about it, function composition is sequencing. We start with a function that performs a single operation and every time we use map we append another operation to the chain. Calling map doesn’t actually run any of the operations, but if we can pass an argument to the final function all of the operations are run in sequence. We can think of this as lazily queueing up operations similar to Future:

val func =
  ((x: Int) => x.toDouble).
    map(x => x + 1).
    map(x => x * 2).
    map(x => x + "!")

func(123)
// res10: String = 248.0!

scalacOptions += "-Ypartial-unification"

func1.map(func2)
// <console>: error: value map is not a member of Int => Double
//        func1.map(func2)
                ^

3.3 Definition of a Functor

Every example we’ve looked at so far is a functor: a class that encapsulates sequencing computations. Formally, a functor is a type F[A] with an operation map with type (A => B) => F[B]. The general type chart is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Type chart: generalised functor map

Cats encodes Functor as a type class, cats.Functor, so the method looks a little different. It accepts the initial F[A] as a parameter alongside the transformation function. Here’s a simplified version of the definition:

package cats

import scala.language.higherKinds

trait Functor[F[_]] {
  def map[A, B](fa: F[A])(f: A => B): F[B]
}

If you haven’t seen syntax like F[_] before, it’s time to take a brief detour to discuss type constructors and higher kinded types. We’ll explain that scala.language import as well.

fa.map(a => a) == fa

fa.map(g(f(_))) == fa.map(f).map(g)

3.4 Aside: Higher Kinds and Type Constructors

Kinds are like types for types. They describe the number of “holes” in a type. We distinguish between regular types that have no holes and “type constructors” that have holes we can fill to produce types.

For example, List is a type constructor with one hole. We fill that hole by specifying a parameter to produce a regular type like List[Int] or List[A]. The trick is not to confuse type constructors with generic types. List is a type constructor, List[A] is a type:

List    // type constructor, takes one parameter
List[A] // type, produced using a type parameter

There’s a close analogy here with functions and values. Functions are “value constructors”—they produce values when we supply parameters:

math.abs    // function, takes one parameter
math.abs(x) // value, produced using a value parameter

In Scala we declare type constructors using underscores. Once we’ve declared them, however, we refer to them as simple identifiers:

// Declare F using underscores:
def myMethod[F[_]] = {

  // Reference F without underscores:
  val functor = Functor.apply[F]

  // ...
}

This is analogous to specifying a function’s parameters in its definition and omitting them when referring to it:

// Declare f specifying parameters:
val f = (x: Int) => x * 2

// Reference f without parameters:
val f2 = f andThen f

Armed with this knowledge of type constructors, we can see that the Cats definition of Functor allows us to create instances for any single-parameter type constructor, such as List, Option, Future, or a type alias such as MyFunc.

import scala.language.higherKinds

scalacOptions += "-language:higherKinds"

3.5 Functors in Cats

Let’s look at the implementation of functors in Cats. We’ll examine the aspects we did for monoids: the type class, the instances, and the syntax.

3.5.1 The Functor Type Class

The functor type class is cats.Functor. We obtain instances using the standard Functor.apply method on the companion object. As usual, default instances are arranged by type in the cats.instances package:

import scala.language.higherKinds
import cats.Functor
import cats.instances.list._   // for Functor
import cats.instances.option._ // for Functor

val list1 = List(1, 2, 3)
// list1: List[Int] = List(1, 2, 3)

val list2 = Functor[List].map(list1)(_ * 2)
// list2: List[Int] = List(2, 4, 6)

val option1 = Option(123)
// option1: Option[Int] = Some(123)

val option2 = Functor[Option].map(option1)(_.toString)
// option2: Option[String] = Some(123)

Functor also provides the lift method, which converts a function of type A => B to one that operates over a functor and has type F[A] => F[B]:

val func = (x: Int) => x + 1
// func: Int => Int = <function1>

val liftedFunc = Functor[Option].lift(func)
// liftedFunc: Option[Int] => Option[Int] = cats.Functor$$Lambda$11698/1847181061@41c6929b

liftedFunc(Option(1))
// res0: Option[Int] = Some(2)

3.5.2 Functor Syntax

The main method provided by the syntax for Functor is map. It’s difficult to demonstrate this with Options and Lists as they have their own built-in map methods and the Scala compiler will always prefer a built-in method over an extension method. We’ll work around this with two examples.

First let’s look at mapping over functions. Scala’s Function1 type doesn’t have a map method (it’s called andThen instead) so there are no naming conflicts:

import cats.instances.function._ // for Functor
import cats.syntax.functor._     // for map

val func1 = (a: Int) => a + 1
val func2 = (a: Int) => a * 2
val func3 = (a: Int) => a + "!"
val func4 = func1.map(func2).map(func3)

func4(123)
// res1: String = 248!

Let’s look at another example. This time we’ll abstract over functors so we’re not working with any particular concrete type. We can write a method that applies an equation to a number no matter what functor context it’s in:

def doMath[F[_]](start: F[Int])
    (implicit functor: Functor[F]): F[Int] =
  start.map(n => n + 1 * 2)

import cats.instances.option._ // for Functor
import cats.instances.list._   // for Functor

doMath(Option(20))
// res3: Option[Int] = Some(22)

doMath(List(1, 2, 3))
// res4: List[Int] = List(3, 4, 5)

To illustrate how this works, let’s take a look at the definition of the map method in cats.syntax.functor. Here’s a simplified version of the code:

implicit class FunctorOps[F[_], A](src: F[A]) {
  def map[B](func: A => B)
      (implicit functor: Functor[F]): F[B] =
    functor.map(src)(func)
}

The compiler can use this extension method to insert a map method wherever no built-in map is available:

foo.map(value => value + 1)

Assuming foo has no built-in map method, the compiler detects the potential error and wraps the expression in a FunctorOps to fix the code:

new FunctorOps(foo).map(value => value + 1)

The map method of FunctorOps requires an implicit Functor as a parameter. This means this code will only compile if we have a Functor for F in scope. If we don’t, we get a compiler error:

final case class Box[A](value: A)

val box = Box[Int](123)

box.map(value => value + 1)
// <console>:34: error: value map is not a member of Box[Int]
//        box.map(value => value + 1)
//            ^

3.5.3 Instances for Custom Types

We can define a functor simply by defining its map method. Here’s an example of a Functor for Option, even though such a thing already exists in cats.instances. The implementation is trivial—we simply call Option's map method:

implicit val optionFunctor: Functor[Option] =
  new Functor[Option] {
    def map[A, B](value: Option[A])(func: A => B): Option[B] =
      value.map(func)
  }

Sometimes we need to inject dependencies into our instances. For example, if we had to define a custom Functor for Future (another hypothetical example—Cats provides one in cats.instances.future) we would need to account for the implicit ExecutionContext parameter on future.map. We can’t add extra parameters to functor.map so we have to account for the dependency when we create the instance:

import scala.concurrent.{Future, ExecutionContext}

implicit def futureFunctor
    (implicit ec: ExecutionContext): Functor[Future] =
  new Functor[Future] {
    def map[A, B](value: Future[A])(func: A => B): Future[B] =
      value.map(func)
  }

Whenever we summon a Functor for Future, either directly using Functor.apply or indirectly via the map extension method, the compiler will locate futureFunctor by implicit resolution and recursively search for an ExecutionContext at the call site. This is what the expansion might look like:

// We write this:
Functor[Future]

// The compiler expands to this first:
Functor[Future](futureFunctor)

// And then to this:
Functor[Future](futureFunctor(executionContext))

3.5.4 Exercise: Branching out with Functors

Write a Functor for the following binary tree data type. Verify that the code works as expected on instances of Branch and Leaf:

sealed trait Tree[+A]

final case class Branch[A](left: Tree[A], right: Tree[A])
  extends Tree[A]

final case class Leaf[A](value: A) extends Tree[A]

import cats.Functor

implicit val treeFunctor: Functor[Tree] =
  new Functor[Tree] {
    def map[A, B](tree: Tree[A])(func: A => B): Tree[B] =
      tree match {
        case Branch(left, right) =>
          Branch(map(left)(func), map(right)(func))
        case Leaf(value) =>
          Leaf(func(value))
      }
  }

Branch(Leaf(10), Leaf(20)).map(_ * 2)
// <console>:42: error: value map is not a member of wrapper.Branch[Int]
//        Branch(Leaf(10), Leaf(20)).map(_ * 2)
//                                   ^

object Tree {
  def branch[A](left: Tree[A], right: Tree[A]): Tree[A] =
    Branch(left, right)

  def leaf[A](value: A): Tree[A] =
    Leaf(value)
}

Tree.leaf(100).map(_ * 2)
// res10: wrapper.Tree[Int] = Leaf(200)

Tree.branch(Tree.leaf(10), Tree.leaf(20)).map(_ * 2)
// res11: wrapper.Tree[Int] = Branch(Leaf(20),Leaf(40))

3.6 Contravariant and Invariant Functors

As we have seen, we can think of Functor's map method as “appending” a transformation to a chain. We’re now going to look at two other type classes, one representing prepending operations to a chain, and one representing building a bidirectional chain of operations. These are called contravariant and invariant functors respectively.

3.6.1 Contravariant Functors and the contramap Method

The first of our type classes, the contravariant functor, provides an operation called contramap that represents “prepending” an operation to a chain. The general type signature is shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5: Type chart: the contramap method

The contramap method only makes sense for data types that represent transformations. For example, we can’t define contramap for an Option because there is no way of feeding a value in an Option[B] backwards through a function A => B. However, we can define contramap for the Printable type class we discussed in Chapter 1:

trait Printable[A] {
  def format(value: A): String
}

A Printable[A] represents a transformation from A to String. Its contramap method accepts a function func of type B => A and creates a new Printable[B]:

trait Printable[A] {
  def format(value: A): String

  def contramap[B](func: B => A): Printable[B] =
    ???
}

def format[A](value: A)(implicit p: Printable[A]): String =
  p.format(value)

3.6.1.1 Exercise: Showing off with Contramap

Implement the contramap method for Printable above. Start with the following code template and replace the ??? with a working method body:

trait Printable[A] {
  def format(value: A): String

  def contramap[B](func: B => A): Printable[B] =
    new Printable[B] {
      def format(value: B): String =
        ???
    }
}

If you get stuck, think about the types. You need to turn value, which is of type B, into a String. What functions and methods do you have available and in what order do they need to be combined?

trait Printable[A] {
  self =>

  def format(value: A): String

  def contramap[B](func: B => A): Printable[B] =
    new Printable[B] {
      def format(value: B): String =
        self.format(func(value))
    }
}

def format[A](value: A)(implicit p: Printable[A]): String =
  p.format(value)

For testing purposes, let’s define some instances of Printable for String and Boolean:

implicit val stringPrintable: Printable[String] =
  new Printable[String] {
    def format(value: String): String =
      "\"" + value + "\""
  }

implicit val booleanPrintable: Printable[Boolean] =
  new Printable[Boolean] {
    def format(value: Boolean): String =
      if(value) "yes" else "no"
  }

format("hello")
// res3: String = "hello"

format(true)
// res4: String = yes

Now define an instance of Printable for the following Box case class. You’ll need to write this as an implicit def as described in Section 1.2.3:

final case class Box[A](value: A)

Rather than writing out the complete definition from scratch (new Printable[Box] etc…), create your instance from an existing instance using contramap.

implicit def boxPrintable[A](implicit p: Printable[A]) =
  new Printable[Box[A]] {
    def format(box: Box[A]): String =
      p.format(box.value)
  }

implicit def boxPrintable[A](implicit p: Printable[A]) =
  p.contramap[Box[A]](_.value)

Your instance should work as follows:

format(Box("hello world"))
// res5: String = "hello world"

format(Box(true))
// res6: String = yes

If we don’t have a Printable for the type inside the Box, calls to format should fail to compile:

format(Box(123))
// <console>:21: error: could not find implicit value for parameter p: Printable[Box[Int]]
//        format(Box(123))
//              ^

3.6.2 Invariant functors and the imap method

Invariant functors implement a method called imap that is informally equivalent to a combination of map and contramap. If map generates new type class instances by appending a function to a chain, and contramap generates them by prepending an operation to a chain, imap generates them via a pair of bidirectional transformations.

The most intuitive examples of this are a type class that represents encoding and decoding as some data type, such as Play JSON’s Format and scodec’s Codec. We can build our own Codec by enhancing Printable to support encoding and decoding to/from a String:

trait Codec[A] {
  def encode(value: A): String
  def decode(value: String): A
  def imap[B](dec: A => B, enc: B => A): Codec[B] = ???
}

def encode[A](value: A)(implicit c: Codec[A]): String =
  c.encode(value)

def decode[A](value: String)(implicit c: Codec[A]): A =
  c.decode(value)

The type chart for imap is shown in Figure 6. If we have a Codec[A] and a pair of functions A => B and B => A, the imap method creates a Codec[B]:

Figure 6: Type chart: the imap method

As an example use case, imagine we have a basic Codec[String], whose encode and decode methods are both a no-op:

implicit val stringCodec: Codec[String] =
  new Codec[String] {
    def encode(value: String): String = value
    def decode(value: String): String = value
  }

We can construct many useful Codecs for other types by building off of stringCodec using imap:

implicit val intCodec: Codec[Int] =
  stringCodec.imap(_.toInt, _.toString)

implicit val booleanCodec: Codec[Boolean] =
  stringCodec.imap(_.toBoolean, _.toString)

3.6.2.1 Transformative Thinking with imap

Implement the imap method for Codec above.

trait Codec[A] {
  def encode(value: A): String
  def decode(value: String): A

  def imap[B](dec: A => B, enc: B => A): Codec[B] = {
    val self = this
    new Codec[B] {
      def encode(value: B): String =
        self.encode(enc(value))

      def decode(value: String): B =
        dec(self.decode(value))
    }
  }
}

Demonstrate your imap method works by creating a Codec for Double.

implicit val doubleCodec: Codec[Double] =
  stringCodec.imap[Double](_.toDouble, _.toString)

Finally, implement a Codec for the following Box type:

case class Box[A](value: A)

implicit def boxCodec[A](implicit c: Codec[A]): Codec[Box[A]] =
  c.imap[Box[A]](Box(_), _.value)

Your instances should work as follows:

encode(123.4)
// res0: String = 123.4

decode[Double]("123.4")
// res1: Double = 123.4

encode(Box(123.4))
// res2: String = 123.4

decode[Box[Double]]("123.4")
// res3: Box[Double] = Box(123.4)

3.7 Contravariant and Invariant in Cats

Let’s look at the implementation of contravariant and invariant functors in Cats, provided by the cats.Contravariant and cats.Invariant type classes. Here’s a simplified version of the code:

trait Contravariant[F[_]] {
  def contramap[A, B](fa: F[A])(f: B => A): F[B]
}

trait Invariant[F[_]] {
  def imap[A, B](fa: F[A])(f: A => B)(g: B => A): F[B]
}

3.7.1 Contravariant in Cats

We can summon instances of Contravariant using the Contravariant.apply method. Cats provides instances for data types that consume parameters, including Eq, Show, and Function1. Here’s an example:

import cats.Contravariant
import cats.Show
import cats.instances.string._

val showString = Show[String]

val showSymbol = Contravariant[Show].
  contramap(showString)((sym: Symbol) => s"'${sym.name}")

showSymbol.show('dave)
// res2: String = 'dave

More conveniently, we can use cats.syntax.contravariant, which provides a contramap extension method:

import cats.syntax.contravariant._ // for contramap

showString.contramap[Symbol](_.name).show('dave)
// res3: String = dave

3.7.2 Invariant in Cats

Among other types, Cats provides an instance of Invariant for Monoid. This is a little different from the Codec example we introduced in Section 3.6.2. If you recall, this is what Monoid looks like:

package cats

trait Monoid[A] {
  def empty: A
  def combine(x: A, y: A): A
}

Imagine we want to produce a Monoid for Scala’s Symbol type. Cats doesn’t provide a Monoid for Symbol but it does provide a Monoid for a similar type: String. We can write our new semigroup with an empty method that relies on the empty String, and a combine method that works as follows:

1. accept two Symbols as parameters;
2. convert the Symbols to Strings;
3. combine the Strings using Monoid[String];
4. convert the result back to a Symbol.

We can implement combine using imap, passing functions of type String => Symbol and Symbol => String as parameters. Here’ the code, written out using the imap extension method provided by cats.syntax.invariant:

import cats.Monoid
import cats.instances.string._ // for Monoid
import cats.syntax.invariant._ // for imap
import cats.syntax.semigroup._ // for |+|

implicit val symbolMonoid: Monoid[Symbol] =
  Monoid[String].imap(Symbol.apply)(_.name)

Monoid[Symbol].empty
// res5: Symbol = '

'a |+| 'few |+| 'words
// res6: Symbol = 'afewwords

3.8 Aside: Partial Unification

In Section 3.2 we saw a curious compiler error. The following code compiled perfectly if we had the -Ypartial-unification compiler flag enabled:

import cats.Functor
import cats.instances.function._ // for Functor
import cats.syntax.functor._     // for map

val func1 = (x: Int)    => x.toDouble
val func2 = (y: Double) => y * 2

val func3 = func1.map(func2)
// func3: Int => Double = scala.runtime.AbstractFunction1$$Lambda$7404/1466963433@46f792aa

but failed if the flag was missing:

val func3 = func1.map(func2)
// <console>: error: value map is not a member of Int => Double
//        val func3 = func1.map(func2)
                            ^

Obviously “partial unification” is some kind of optional compiler behaviour, without which our code will not compile. We should take a moment to describe this behaviour and discuss some gotchas and workarounds.

3.8.1 Unifying Type Constructors

In order to compile an expression like func1.map(func2) above, the compiler has to search for a Functor for Function1. However, Functor accepts a type constructor with one parameter:

trait Functor[F[_]] {
  def map[A, B](fa: F[A])(func: A => B): F[B]
}

and Function1 has two type parameters (the function argument and the result type):

trait Function1[-A, +B] {
  def apply(arg: A): B
}

The compiler has to fix one of the two parameters of Function1 to create a type constructor of the correct kind to pass to Functor. It has two options to choose from:

type F[A] = Int => A
type F[A] = A => Double

We know that the former of these is the correct choice. However, earlier versions of the Scala compiler were not able to make this inference. This infamous limitation, known as SI-2712, prevented the compiler from “unifying” type constructors of different arities. This compiler limitation is now fixed, although we have to enable the fix via a compiler flag in build.sbt:

scalacOptions += "-Ypartial-unification"

3.8.2 Left-to-Right Elimination

The partial unification in the Scala compiler works by fixing type parameters from left to right. In the above example, the compiler fixes the Int in Int => Double and looks for a Functor for functions of type Int => ?:

type F[A] = Int => A

val functor = Functor[F]

This left-to-right elimination works for a wide variety of common scenarios, including Functors for types such as Function1 and Either:

import cats.instances.either._ // for Functor

val either: Either[String, Int] = Right(123)
// either: Either[String,Int] = Right(123)

either.map(_ + 1)
// res2: scala.util.Either[String,Int] = Right(124)

However, there are situations where left-to-right elimination is not the correct choice. One example is the Or type in Scalactic, which is a conventionally left-biased equivalent of Either:

type PossibleResult = ActualResult Or Error

Another example is the Contravariant functor for Function1.

While the covariant Functor for Function1 implements andThen-style left-to-right function composition, the Contravariant functor implements compose-style right-to-left composition. In other words, the following expressions are all equivalent:

val func3a: Int => Double =
  a => func2(func1(a))

val func3b: Int => Double =
  func2.compose(func1)

// Hypothetical example. This won't actually compile:
val func3c: Int => Double =
  func2.contramap(func1)

If we try this for real, however, our code won’t compile:

import cats.syntax.contravariant._ // for contramap

val func3c = func2.contramap(func1)
// <console>:27: error: value contramap is not a member of Double => Double
//        val func3c = func2.contramap(func1)
//                           ^

The problem here is that the Contravariant for Function1 fixes the return type and leaves the parameter type varying, requiring the compiler to eliminate type parameters from right to left, as shown below and in Figure 7:

type F[A] = A => Double

Figure 7: Type chart: contramapping over a Function1

The compiler fails simply because of its left-to-right bias. We can prove this by creating a type alias that flips the parameters on Function1:

type <=[B, A] = A => B

type F[A] = Double <= A

If we re-type func2 as an instance of <=, we reset the required order of elimination and we can call contramap as desired:

val func2b: Double <= Double = func2

val func3c = func2b.contramap(func1)
// func3c: Double <= Int = scala.runtime.AbstractFunction1$$Lambda$7404/1466963433@64b50874

The difference between func2 and func2b is purely syntactic—both refer to the same value and the type aliases are otherwise completely compatible. Incredibly, however, this simple rephrasing is enough to give the compiler the hint it needs to solve the problem.

It is rare that we have to do this kind of right-to-left elimination. Most multi-parameter type constructors are designed to be right-biased, requiring the left-to-right elimination that is supported by the compiler out of the box. However, it is useful to know about -Ypartial-unification and this quirk of elimination order in case you ever come across an odd scenario like the one above.

3.9 Summary

Functors represent sequencing behaviours. We covered three types of functor in this chapter:

• Regular covariant Functors, with their map method, represent the ability to apply functions to a value in some context. Successive calls to map apply these functions in sequence, each accepting the result of its predecessor as a parameter.

• Contravariant functors, with their contramap method, represent the ability to “prepend” functions to a function-like context. Successive calls to contramap sequence these functions in the opposite order to map.

• Invariant functors, with their imap method, represent bidirectional transformations.

Regular Functors are by far the most common of these type classes, but even then it is rare to use them on their own. Functors form a foundational building block of several more interesting abstractions that we use all the time. In the following chapters we will look at two of these abstractions: monads and applicative functors.

Functors for collections are extremely important, as they transform each element independently of the rest. This allows us to parallelise or distribute transformations on large collections, a technique leveraged heavily in “map-reduce” frameworks like Hadoop. We will investigate this approach in more detail in the Map-reduce case study later in the book.

The Contravariant and Invariant type classes are less widely applicable but are still useful for building data types that represent transformations. We will revisit them to discuss the Semigroupal type class later in Chapter 6.

4 Monads

Monads are one of the most common abstractions in Scala. Many Scala programmers quickly become intuitively familiar with monads, even if we don’t know them by name.

Informally, a monad is anything with a constructor and a flatMap method. All of the functors we saw in the last chapter are also monads, including Option, List, and Future. We even have special syntax to support monads: for comprehensions. However, despite the ubiquity of the concept, the Scala standard library lacks a concrete type to encompass “things that can be flatMapped”. This type class is one of the benefits brought to us by Cats.

In this chapter we will take a deep dive into monads. We will start by motivating them with a few examples. We’ll proceed to their formal definition and their implementation in Cats. Finally, we’ll tour some interesting monads that you may not have seen, providing introductions and examples of their use.

4.1 What is a Monad?

This is the question that has been posed in a thousand blog posts, with explanations and analogies involving concepts as diverse as cats, Mexican food, space suits full of toxic waste, and monoids in the category of endofunctors (whatever that means). We’re going to solve the problem of explaining monads once and for all by stating very simply:

A monad is a mechanism for sequencing computations.

That was easy! Problem solved, right? But then again, last chapter we said functors were a control mechanism for exactly the same thing. Ok, maybe we need some more discussion…

In Section 3.1 we said that functors allow us to sequence computations ignoring some complication. However, functors are limited in that they only allow this complication to occur once at the beginning of the sequence. They don’t account further complications at each step in the sequence.

This is where monads come in. A monad’s flatMap method allows us to specify what happens next, taking into account an intermediate complication. The flatMap method of Option takes intermediate Options into account. The flatMap method of List handles intermediate Lists. And so on. In each case, the function passed to flatMap specifies the application-specific part of the computation, and flatMap itself takes care of the complication allowing us to flatMap again. Let’s ground things by looking at some examples.

Options

Option allows us to sequence computations that may or may not return values. Here are some examples:

def parseInt(str: String): Option[Int] =
  scala.util.Try(str.toInt).toOption

def divide(a: Int, b: Int): Option[Int] =
  if(b == 0) None else Some(a / b)

Each of these methods may “fail” by returning None. The flatMap method allows us to ignore this when we sequence operations:

def stringDivideBy(aStr: String, bStr: String): Option[Int] =
  parseInt(aStr).flatMap { aNum =>
    parseInt(bStr).flatMap { bNum =>
      divide(aNum, bNum)
    }
  }

We know the semantics well:

• the first call to parseInt returns a None or a Some;
• if it returns a Some, the flatMap method calls our function and passes us the integer aNum;
• the second call to parseInt returns a None or a Some;
• if it returns a Some, the flatMap method calls our function and passes us bNum;
• the call to divide returns a None or a Some, which is our result.

At each step, flatMap chooses whether to call our function, and our function generates the next computation in the sequence. This is shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8: Type chart: flatMap for Option

The result of the computation is an Option, allowing us to call flatMap again and so the sequence continues. This results in the fail-fast error handling behaviour that we know and love, where a None at any step results in a None overall:

stringDivideBy("6", "2")
// res1: Option[Int] = Some(3)

stringDivideBy("6", "0")
// res2: Option[Int] = None

stringDivideBy("6", "foo")
// res3: Option[Int] = None

stringDivideBy("bar", "2")
// res4: Option[Int] = None

Every monad is also a functor (see below for proof), so we can rely on both flatMap and map to sequence computations that do and don’t introduce a new monad. Plus, if we have both flatMap and map we can use for comprehensions to clarify the sequencing behaviour:

def stringDivideBy(aStr: String, bStr: String): Option[Int] =
  for {
    aNum <- parseInt(aStr)
    bNum <- parseInt(bStr)
    ans  <- divide(aNum, bNum)
  } yield ans

Lists

When we first encounter flatMap as budding Scala developers, we tend to think of it as a pattern for iterating over Lists. This is reinforced by the syntax of for comprehensions, which look very much like imperative for loops:

for {
  x <- (1 to 3).toList
  y <- (4 to 5).toList
} yield (x, y)
// res5: List[(Int, Int)] = List((1,4), (1,5), (2,4), (2,5), (3,4), (3,5))

However, there is another mental model we can apply that highlights the monadic behaviour of List. If we think of Lists as sets of intermediate results, flatMap becomes a construct that calculates permutations and combinations.

For example, in the for comprehension above there are three possible values of x and two possible values of y. This means there are six possible values of (x, y). flatMap is generating these combinations from our code, which states the sequence of operations:

• get x
• get y
• create a tuple (x, y)

Futures

Future is a monad that sequences computations without worrying that they are asynchronous:

import scala.concurrent.Future
import scala.concurrent.ExecutionContext.Implicits.global
import scala.concurrent.duration._

def doSomethingLongRunning: Future[Int] = ???
def doSomethingElseLongRunning: Future[Int] = ???

def doSomethingVeryLongRunning: Future[Int] =
  for {
    result1 <- doSomethingLongRunning
    result2 <- doSomethingElseLongRunning
  } yield result1 + result2

Again, we specify the code to run at each step, and flatMap takes care of all the horrifying underlying complexities of thread pools and schedulers.

If you’ve made extensive use of Future, you’ll know that the code above is running each operation in sequence. This becomes clearer if we expand out the for comprehension to show the nested calls to flatMap:

def doSomethingVeryLongRunning: Future[Int] =
  doSomethingLongRunning.flatMap { result1 =>
    doSomethingElseLongRunning.map { result2 =>
      result1 + result2
    }
  }

Each Future in our sequence is created by a function that receives the result from a previous Future. In other words, each step in our computation can only start once the previous step is finished. This is born out by the type chart for flatMap in Figure 9, which shows the function parameter of type A => Future[B].

Figure 9: Type chart: flatMap for Future

We can run futures in parallel, of course, but that is another story and shall be told another time. Monads are all about sequencing.

4.1.1 Definition of a Monad

While we have only talked about flatMap above, monadic behaviour is formally captured in two operations:

• pure, of type A => F[A];
• flatMap⁶, of type (F[A], A => F[B]) => F[B].

pure abstracts over constructors, providing a way to create a new monadic context from a plain value. flatMap provides the sequencing step we have already discussed, extracting the value from a context and generating the next context in the sequence. Here is a simplified version of the Monad type class in Cats:

import scala.language.higherKinds

trait Monad[F[_]] {
  def pure[A](value: A): F[A]

  def flatMap[A, B](value: F[A])(func: A => F[B]): F[B]
}

pure(a).flatMap(func) == func(a)

m.flatMap(pure) == m

m.flatMap(f).flatMap(g) == m.flatMap(x => f(x).flatMap(g))

4.1.2 Exercise: Getting Func-y

Every monad is also a functor. We can define map in the same way for every monad using the existing methods, flatMap and pure:

import scala.language.higherKinds

trait Monad[F[_]] {
  def pure[A](a: A): F[A]

  def flatMap[A, B](value: F[A])(func: A => F[B]): F[B]

  def map[A, B](value: F[A])(func: A => B): F[B] =
    ???
}

Try defining map yourself now.

trait Monad[F[_]] {
  def pure[A](value: A): F[A]

  def flatMap[A, B](value: F[A])(func: A => F[B]): F[B]

  def map[A, B](value: F[A])(func: A => B): F[B] =
    flatMap(value)(a => ???)
}

trait Monad[F[_]] {
  def pure[A](value: A): F[A]

  def flatMap[A, B](value: F[A])(func: A => F[B]): F[B]

  def map[A, B](value: F[A])(func: A => B): F[B] =
    flatMap(value)(a => pure(func(a)))
}

4.2 Monads in Cats

It’s time to give monads our standard Cats treatment. As usual we’ll look at the type class, instances, and syntax.

4.2.1 The Monad Type Class

The monad type class is cats.Monad. Monad extends two other type classes: FlatMap, which provides the flatMap method, and Applicative, which provides pure. Applicative also extends Functor, which gives every Monad a map method as we saw in the exercise above. We’ll discuss Applicatives in Chapter 6.

Here are some examples using pure and flatMap, and map directly:

import cats.Monad
import cats.instances.option._ // for Monad
import cats.instances.list._   // for Monad

val opt1 = Monad[Option].pure(3)
// opt1: Option[Int] = Some(3)

val opt2 = Monad[Option].flatMap(opt1)(a => Some(a + 2))
// opt2: Option[Int] = Some(5)

val opt3 = Monad[Option].map(opt2)(a => 100 * a)
// opt3: Option[Int] = Some(500)

val list1 = Monad[List].pure(3)
// list1: List[Int] = List(3)

val list2 = Monad[List].
  flatMap(List(1, 2, 3))(a => List(a, a*10))
// list2: List[Int] = List(1, 10, 2, 20, 3, 30)

val list3 = Monad[List].map(list2)(a => a + 123)
// list3: List[Int] = List(124, 133, 125, 143, 126, 153)

Monad provides many other methods, including all of the methods from Functor. See the scaladoc for more information.

4.2.2 Default Instances

Cats provides instances for all the monads in the standard library (Option, List, Vector and so on) via cats.instances:

import cats.instances.option._ // for Monad

Monad[Option].flatMap(Option(1))(a => Option(a*2))
// res0: Option[Int] = Some(2)

import cats.instances.list._ // for Monad

Monad[List].flatMap(List(1, 2, 3))(a => List(a, a*10))
// res1: List[Int] = List(1, 10, 2, 20, 3, 30)

import cats.instances.vector._ // for Monad

Monad[Vector].flatMap(Vector(1, 2, 3))(a => Vector(a, a*10))
// res2: Vector[Int] = Vector(1, 10, 2, 20, 3, 30)

Cats also provides a Monad for Future. Unlike the methods on the Future class itself, the pure and flatMap methods on the monad can’t accept implicit ExecutionContext parameters (because the parameters aren’t part of the definitions in the Monad trait). To work around this, Cats requires us to have an ExecutionContext in scope when we summon a Monad for Future:

import cats.instances.future._ // for Monad
import scala.concurrent._
import scala.concurrent.duration._

val fm = Monad[Future]
// <console>:37: error: could not find implicit value for parameter instance: cats.Monad[scala.concurrent.Future]
//        val fm = Monad[Future]
//                      ^

Bringing the ExecutionContext into scope fixes the implicit resolution required to summon the instance:

import scala.concurrent.ExecutionContext.Implicits.global

val fm = Monad[Future]
// fm: cats.Monad[scala.concurrent.Future] = cats.instances.FutureInstances$$anon$1@53c37657

The Monad instance uses the captured ExecutionContext for subsequent calls to pure and flatMap:

val future = fm.flatMap(fm.pure(1))(x => fm.pure(x + 2))

Await.result(future, 1.second)
// res3: Int = 3

In addition to the above, Cats provides a host of new monads that we don’t have in the standard library. We’ll familiarise ourselves with some of these in a moment.

4.2.3 Monad Syntax

The syntax for monads comes from three places:

• cats.syntax.flatMap provides syntax for flatMap;
• cats.syntax.functor provides syntax for map;
• cats.syntax.applicative provides syntax for pure.

In practice it’s often easier to import everything in one go from cats.implicits. However, we’ll use the individual imports here for clarity.

We can use pure to construct instances of a monad. We’ll often need to specify the type parameter to disambiguate the particular instance we want.

import cats.instances.option._   // for Monad
import cats.instances.list._     // for Monad
import cats.syntax.applicative._ // for pure

1.pure[Option]
// res4: Option[Int] = Some(1)

1.pure[List]
// res5: List[Int] = List(1)

It’s difficult to demonstrate the flatMap and map methods directly on Scala monads like Option and List, because they define their own explicit versions of those methods. Instead we’ll write a generic function that performs a calculation on parameters that come wrapped in a monad of the user’s choice:

import cats.Monad
import cats.syntax.functor._ // for map
import cats.syntax.flatMap._ // for flatMap
import scala.language.higherKinds

def sumSquare[F[_]: Monad](a: F[Int], b: F[Int]): F[Int] =
  a.flatMap(x => b.map(y => x*x + y*y))

import cats.instances.option._ // for Monad
import cats.instances.list._   // for Monad

sumSquare(Option(3), Option(4))
// res8: Option[Int] = Some(25)

sumSquare(List(1, 2, 3), List(4, 5))
// res9: List[Int] = List(17, 26, 20, 29, 25, 34)

We can rewrite this code using for comprehensions. The compiler will “do the right thing” by rewriting our comprehension in terms of flatMap and map and inserting the correct implicit conversions to use our Monad:

def sumSquare[F[_]: Monad](a: F[Int], b: F[Int]): F[Int] =
  for {
    x <- a
    y <- b
  } yield x*x + y*y

sumSquare(Option(3), Option(4))
// res10: Option[Int] = Some(25)

sumSquare(List(1, 2, 3), List(4, 5))
// res11: List[Int] = List(17, 26, 20, 29, 25, 34)

That’s more or less everything we need to know about the generalities of monads in Cats. Now let’s take a look at some useful monad instances that we haven’t seen in the Scala standard library.

4.3 The Identity Monad

In the previous section we demonstrated Cats’ flatMap and map syntax by writing a method that abstracted over different monads:

import scala.language.higherKinds
import cats.Monad
import cats.syntax.functor._ // for map
import cats.syntax.flatMap._ // for flatMap

def sumSquare[F[_]: Monad](a: F[Int], b: F[Int]): F[Int] =
  for {
    x <- a
    y <- b
  } yield x*x + y*y

This method works well on Options and Lists but we can’t call it passing in plain values:

sumSquare(3, 4)
// <console>:22: error: no type parameters for method sumSquare: (a: F[Int], b: F[Int])(implicit evidence$1: cats.Monad[F])F[Int] exist so that it can be applied to arguments (Int, Int)
//  --- because ---
// argument expression's type is not compatible with formal parameter type;
//  found   : Int
//  required: ?F[Int]
//        sumSquare(3, 4)
//        ^
// <console>:22: error: type mismatch;
//  found   : Int(3)
//  required: F[Int]
//        sumSquare(3, 4)
//                  ^
// <console>:22: error: type mismatch;
//  found   : Int(4)
//  required: F[Int]
//        sumSquare(3, 4)
//                     ^

It would be incredibly useful if we could use sumSquare with parameters that were either in a monad or not in a monad at all. This would allow us to abstract over monadic and non-monadic code. Fortunately, Cats provides the Id type to bridge the gap:

import cats.Id

sumSquare(3 : Id[Int], 4 : Id[Int])
// res2: cats.Id[Int] = 25

Id allows us to call our monadic method using plain values. However, the exact semantics are difficult to understand. We cast the parameters to sumSquare as Id[Int] and received an Id[Int] back as a result!

What’s going on? Here is the definition of Id to explain:

package cats

type Id[A] = A

Id is actually a type alias that turns an atomic type into a single-parameter type constructor. We can cast any value of any type to a corresponding Id:

"Dave" : Id[String]
// res3: cats.Id[String] = Dave

123 : Id[Int]
// res4: cats.Id[Int] = 123

List(1, 2, 3) : Id[List[Int]]
// res5: cats.Id[List[Int]] = List(1, 2, 3)

Cats provides instances of various type classes for Id, including Functor and Monad. These let us call map, flatMap, and pure passing in plain values:

val a = Monad[Id].pure(3)
// a: cats.Id[Int] = 3

val b = Monad[Id].flatMap(a)(_ + 1)
// b: cats.Id[Int] = 4

import cats.syntax.functor._ // for map
import cats.syntax.flatMap._ // for flatMap

for {
  x <- a
  y <- b
} yield x + y
// res6: cats.Id[Int] = 7

The ability to abstract over monadic and non-monadic code is extremely powerful. For example, we can run code asynchronously in production using Future and synchronously in test using Id. We’ll see this in our first case study in Chapter 8.

4.3.1 Exercise: Monadic Secret Identities

Implement pure, map, and flatMap for Id! What interesting discoveries do you uncover about the implementation?

import cats.Id

def pure[A](value: A): Id[A] =
  ???

def map[A, B](initial: Id[A])(func: A => B): Id[B] =
  ???

def flatMap[A, B](initial: Id[A])(func: A => Id[B]): Id[B] =
  ???

def pure[A](value: A): Id[A] =
  value

pure(123)
// res10: cats.Id[Int] = 123

def map[A, B](initial: Id[A])(func: A => B): Id[B] =
  func(initial)

map(123)(_ * 2)
// res11: cats.Id[Int] = 246

def flatMap[A, B](initial: Id[A])(func: A => Id[B]): Id[B] =
  func(initial)
// flatMap: [A, B](initial: cats.Id[A])(func: A => cats.Id[B])cats.Id[B]

flatMap(123)(_ * 2)
// res12: cats.Id[Int] = 246

sumSquare(3 : Id[Int], 4 : Id[Int])

4.4 Either

Let’s look at another useful monad: the Either type from the Scala standard library. In Scala 2.11 and earlier, many people didn’t consider Either a monad because it didn’t have map and flatMap methods. In Scala 2.12, however, Either became right biased.

4.4.1 Left and Right Bias

In Scala 2.11, Either had no default map or flatMap method. This made the Scala 2.11 version of Either inconvenient to use in for comprehensions. We had to insert calls to .right in every generator clause:

val either1: Either[String, Int] = Right(10)
val either2: Either[String, Int] = Right(32)

for {
  a <- either1.right
  b <- either2.right
} yield a + b
// res0: scala.util.Either[String,Int] = Right(42)

In Scala 2.12, Either was redesigned. The modern Either makes the decision that the right side represents the success case and thus supports map and flatMap directly. This makes for comprehensions much more pleasant:

for {
  a <- either1
  b <- either2
} yield a + b
// res1: scala.util.Either[String,Int] = Right(42)

Cats back-ports this behaviour to Scala 2.11 via the cats.syntax.either import, allowing us to use right-biased Either in all supported versions of Scala. In Scala 2.12+ we can either omit this import or leave it in place without breaking anything:

import cats.syntax.either._ // for map and flatMap

for {
  a <- either1
  b <- either2
} yield a + b

4.4.2 Creating Instances

In addition to creating instances of Left and Right directly, we can also import the asLeft and asRight extension methods from cats.syntax.either:

import cats.syntax.either._ // for asRight

val a = 3.asRight[String]
// a: Either[String,Int] = Right(3)

val b = 4.asRight[String]
// b: Either[String,Int] = Right(4)

for {
  x <- a
  y <- b
} yield x*x + y*y
// res4: scala.util.Either[String,Int] = Right(25)

These “smart constructors” have advantages over Left.apply and Right.apply because they return results of type Either instead of Left and Right. This helps avoid type inference bugs caused by over-narrowing, like the bug in the example below:

def countPositive(nums: List[Int]) =
  nums.foldLeft(Right(0)) { (accumulator, num) =>
    if(num > 0) {
      accumulator.map(_ + 1)
    } else {
      Left("Negative. Stopping!")
    }
  }
// <console>:21: error: type mismatch;
//  found   : scala.util.Either[Nothing,Int]
//  required: scala.util.Right[Nothing,Int]
//              accumulator.map(_ + 1)
//                             ^
// <console>:23: error: type mismatch;
//  found   : scala.util.Left[String,Nothing]
//  required: scala.util.Right[Nothing,Int]
//              Left("Negative. Stopping!")
//                  ^

This code fails to compile for two reasons:

1. the compiler infers the type of the accumulator as Right instead of Either;
2. we didn’t specify type parameters for Right.apply so the compiler infers the left parameter as Nothing.

Switching to asRight avoids both of these problems. asRight has a return type of Either, and allows us to completely specify the type with only one type parameter:

def countPositive(nums: List[Int]) =
  nums.foldLeft(0.asRight[String]) { (accumulator, num) =>
    if(num > 0) {
      accumulator.map(_ + 1)
    } else {
      Left("Negative. Stopping!")
    }
  }

countPositive(List(1, 2, 3))
// res5: Either[String,Int] = Right(3)

countPositive(List(1, -2, 3))
// res6: Either[String,Int] = Left(Negative. Stopping!)

cats.syntax.either adds some useful extension methods to the Either companion object. The catchOnly and catchNonFatal methods are great for capturing Exceptions as instances of Either:

Either.catchOnly[NumberFormatException]("foo".toInt)
// res7: Either[NumberFormatException,Int] = Left(java.lang.NumberFormatException: For input string: "foo")

Either.catchNonFatal(sys.error("Badness"))
// res8: Either[Throwable,Nothing] = Left(java.lang.RuntimeException: Badness)

There are also methods for creating an Either from other data types:

Either.fromTry(scala.util.Try("foo".toInt))
// res9: Either[Throwable,Int] = Left(java.lang.NumberFormatException: For input string: "foo")

Either.fromOption[String, Int](None, "Badness")
// res10: Either[String,Int] = Left(Badness)

4.4.3 Transforming Eithers

cats.syntax.either also adds some useful methods for instances of Either. We can use orElse and getOrElse to extract values from the right side or return a default:

import cats.syntax.either._

"Error".asLeft[Int].getOrElse(0)
// res11: Int = 0

"Error".asLeft[Int].orElse(2.asRight[String])
// res12: Either[String,Int] = Right(2)

The ensure method allows us to check whether the right-hand value satisfies a predicate:

-1.asRight[String].ensure("Must be non-negative!")(_ > 0)
// res13: Either[String,Int] = Left(Must be non-negative!)

The recover and recoverWith methods provide similar error handling to their namesakes on Future:

"error".asLeft[Int].recover {
  case str: String => -1
}
// res14: Either[String,Int] = Right(-1)

"error".asLeft[Int].recoverWith {
  case str: String => Right(-1)
}
// res15: Either[String,Int] = Right(-1)

There are leftMap and bimap methods to complement map:

"foo".asLeft[Int].leftMap(_.reverse)
// res16: Either[String,Int] = Left(oof)

6.asRight[String].bimap(_.reverse, _ * 7)
// res17: Either[String,Int] = Right(42)

"bar".asLeft[Int].bimap(_.reverse, _ * 7)
// res18: Either[String,Int] = Left(rab)

The swap method lets us exchange left for right:

123.asRight[String]
// res19: Either[String,Int] = Right(123)

123.asRight[String].swap
// res20: scala.util.Either[Int,String] = Left(123)

Finally, Cats adds a host of conversion methods: toOption, toList, toTry, toValidated, and so on.

4.4.4 Error Handling

Either is typically used to implement fail-fast error handling. We sequence computations using flatMap as usual. If one computation fails, the remaining computations are not run:

for {
  a <- 1.asRight[String]
  b <- 0.asRight[String]
  c <- if(b == 0) "DIV0".asLeft[Int]
       else (a / b).asRight[String]
} yield c * 100
// res21: scala.util.Either[String,Int] = Left(DIV0)

When using Either for error handling, we need to determine what type we want to use to represent errors. We could use Throwable for this:

type Result[A] = Either[Throwable, A]

This gives us similar semantics to scala.util.Try. The problem, however, is that Throwable is an extremely broad type. We have (almost) no idea about what type of error occurred.

Another approach is to define an algebraic data type to represent errors that may occur in our program:

sealed trait LoginError extends Product with Serializable

final case class UserNotFound(username: String)
  extends LoginError

final case class PasswordIncorrect(username: String)
  extends LoginError

case object UnexpectedError extends LoginError

case class User(username: String, password: String)

type LoginResult = Either[LoginError, User]

This approach solves the problems we saw with Throwable. It gives us a fixed set of expected error types and a catch-all for anything else that we didn’t expect. We also get the safety of exhaustivity checking on any pattern matching we do:

// Choose error-handling behaviour based on type:
def handleError(error: LoginError): Unit =
  error match {
    case UserNotFound(u) =>
      println(s"User not found: $u")

    case PasswordIncorrect(u) =>
      println(s"Password incorrect: $u")

    case UnexpectedError =>
      println(s"Unexpected error")
  }

val result1: LoginResult = User("dave", "passw0rd").asRight
// result1: LoginResult = Right(User(dave,passw0rd))

val result2: LoginResult = UserNotFound("dave").asLeft
// result2: LoginResult = Left(UserNotFound(dave))

result1.fold(handleError, println)
// User(dave,passw0rd)

result2.fold(handleError, println)
// User not found: dave

4.4.5 Exercise: What is Best?

Is the error handling strategy in the previous examples well suited for all purposes? What other features might we want from error handling?

4.5 Aside: Error Handling and MonadError

Cats provides an additional type class called MonadError that abstracts over Either-like data types that are used for error handling. MonadError provides extra operations for raising and handling errors.

4.5.1 The MonadError Type Class

Here is a simplified version of the definition of MonadError:

package cats

trait MonadError[F[_], E] extends Monad[F] {
  // Lift an error into the `F` context:
  def raiseError[A](e: E): F[A]

  // Handle an error, potentially recovering from it:
  def handleError[A](fa: F[A])(f: E => A): F[A]

  // Test an instance of `F`,
  // failing if the predicate is not satisfied:
  def ensure[A](fa: F[A])(e: E)(f: A => Boolean): F[A]
}

MonadError is defined in terms of two type parameters:

• F is the type of the monad;
• E is the type of error contained within F.

To demonstrate how these parameters fit together, here’s an example where we instantiate the type class for Either:

import cats.MonadError
import cats.instances.either._ // for MonadError

type ErrorOr[A] = Either[String, A]

val monadError = MonadError[ErrorOr, String]

4.5.2 Raising and Handling Errors

The two most important methods of MonadError are raiseError and handleError. raiseError is like the pure method for Monad except that it creates an instance representing a failure:

val success = monadError.pure(42)
// success: ErrorOr[Int] = Right(42)

val failure = monadError.raiseError("Badness")
// failure: ErrorOr[Nothing] = Left(Badness)

handleError is the complement of raiseError. It allows us to consume an error and (possibly) turn it into a success, similar to the recover method of Future:

monadError.handleError(failure) {
  case "Badness" =>
    monadError.pure("It's ok")

  case other =>
    monadError.raiseError("It's not ok")
}
// res2: ErrorOr[ErrorOr[String]] = Right(Right(It's ok))

There is also a third useful method called ensure that implements filter-like behaviour. We test the value of a successful monad with a predicate and specify an error to raise if the predicate returns false:

import cats.syntax.either._ // for asRight

monadError.ensure(success)("Number too low!")(_ > 1000)
// res3: ErrorOr[Int] = Left(Number too low!)

Cats provides syntax for raiseError and handleError via cats.syntax.applicativeError and ensure via cats.syntax.monadError:

import cats.syntax.applicative._      // for pure
import cats.syntax.applicativeError._ // for raiseError etc
import cats.syntax.monadError._       // for ensure

val success = 42.pure[ErrorOr]
// success: ErrorOr[Int] = Right(42)

val failure = "Badness".raiseError[ErrorOr, Int]
// failure: ErrorOr[Int] = Left(Badness)

success.ensure("Number to low!")(_ > 1000)
// res4: Either[String,Int] = Left(Number to low!)

There are other useful variants of these methods. See the source of cats.MonadError and cats.ApplicativeError for more information.

4.5.3 Instances of MonadError

Cats provides instances of MonadError for numerous data types including Either, Future, and Try. The instance for Either is customisable to any error type, whereas the instances for Future and Try always represent errors as Throwables:

import scala.util.Try
import cats.instances.try_._ // for MonadError

val exn: Throwable =
  new RuntimeException("It's all gone wrong")

exn.raiseError[Try, Int]
// res6: scala.util.Try[Int] = Failure(java.lang.RuntimeException: It's all gone wrong)

4.5.4 Exercise: Abstracting

4.6 The Eval Monad

cats.Eval is a monad that allows us to abstract over different models of evaluation. We typically hear of two such models: eager and lazy. Eval throws in a further distinction of whether or not a result is memoized.

4.6.1 Eager, Lazy, Memoized, Oh My!

What do these terms mean?

Eager computations happen immediately whereas lazy computations happen on access. Memoized computations are run once on first access, after which the results are cached.

For example, Scala vals are eager and memoized. We can see this using a computation with a visible side-effect. In the following example, the code to compute the value of x happens at the definition site rather than on access (eager). Accessing x recalls the stored value without re-running the code (memoized).

val x = {
  println("Computing X")
  math.random
}
// Computing X
// x: Double = 0.013533499657218728

x // first access
// res0: Double = 0.013533499657218728

x // second access
// res1: Double = 0.013533499657218728

By contrast, defs are lazy and not memoized. The code to compute y below is not run until we access it (lazy), and is re-run on every access (not memoized):

def y = {
  println("Computing Y")
  math.random
}
// y: Double

y // first access
// Computing Y
// res2: Double = 0.5548281126990907

y // second access
// Computing Y
// res3: Double = 0.7681777032036599

Last but not least, lazy vals are lazy and memoized. The code to compute z below is not run until we access it for the first time (lazy). The result is then cached and re-used on subsequent accesses (memoized):

lazy val z = {
  println("Computing Z")
  math.random
}
// z: Double = <lazy>

z // first access
// Computing Z
// res4: Double = 0.45707125364871903

z // second access
// res5: Double = 0.45707125364871903

4.6.2 Eval’s Models of Evaluation

Eval has three subtypes: Now, Later, and Always. We construct these with three constructor methods, which create instances of the three classes and return them typed as Eval:

import cats.Eval

val now = Eval.now(math.random + 1000)
// now: cats.Eval[Double] = Now(1000.337992547842)

val later = Eval.later(math.random + 2000)
// later: cats.Eval[Double] = cats.Later@37f34fd2

val always = Eval.always(math.random + 3000)
// always: cats.Eval[Double] = cats.Always@486516b

We can extract the result of an Eval using its value method:

now.value
// res6: Double = 1000.337992547842

later.value
// res7: Double = 2000.863079768816

always.value
// res8: Double = 3000.710688646907

Each type of Eval calculates its result using one of the evaluation models defined above. Eval.now captures a value right now. Its semantics are similar to a val—eager and memoized:

val x = Eval.now {
  println("Computing X")
  math.random
}
// Computing X
// x: cats.Eval[Double] = Now(0.5415551857150346)

x.value // first access
// res9: Double = 0.5415551857150346

x.value // second access
// res10: Double = 0.5415551857150346

Eval.always captures a lazy computation, similar to a def:

val y = Eval.always {
  println("Computing Y")
  math.random
}
// y: cats.Eval[Double] = cats.Always@3289cc05

y.value // first access
// Computing Y
// res11: Double = 0.06355685569536818

y.value // second access
// Computing Y
// res12: Double = 0.27425753581857903

Finally, Eval.later captures a lazy, memoized computation, similar to a lazy val:

val z = Eval.later {
  println("Computing Z")
  math.random
}
// z: cats.Eval[Double] = cats.Later@7a533449

z.value // first access
// Computing Z
// res13: Double = 0.3819703252438429

z.value // second access
// res14: Double = 0.3819703252438429

The three behaviours are summarized below:

4.6.3 Eval as a Monad

Like all monads, Eval's map and flatMap methods add computations to a chain. In this case, however, the chain is stored explicitly as a list of functions. The functions aren’t run until we call Eval's value method to request a result:

val greeting = Eval.
  always { println("Step 1"); "Hello" }.
  map { str => println("Step 2"); s"$str world" }
// greeting: cats.Eval[String] = cats.Eval$$anon$8@79ddd73b

greeting.value
// Step 1
// Step 2
// res15: String = Hello world

Note that, while the semantics of the originating Eval instances are maintained, mapping functions are always called lazily on demand (def semantics):

val ans = for {
  a <- Eval.now { println("Calculating A"); 40 }
  b <- Eval.always { println("Calculating B"); 2 }
} yield {
  println("Adding A and B")
  a + b
}
// Calculating A
// ans: cats.Eval[Int] = cats.Eval$$anon$8@12da1eee

ans.value // first access
// Calculating B
// Adding A and B
// res16: Int = 42

ans.value // second access
// Calculating B
// Adding A and B
// res17: Int = 42

Eval has a memoize method that allows us to memoize a chain of computations. The result of the chain up to the call to memoize is cached, whereas calculations after the call retain their original semantics:

val saying = Eval.
  always { println("Step 1"); "The cat" }.
  map { str => println("Step 2"); s"$str sat on" }.
  memoize.
  map { str => println("Step 3"); s"$str the mat" }
// saying: cats.Eval[String] = cats.Eval$$anon$8@159a20cc

saying.value // first access
// Step 1
// Step 2
// Step 3
// res18: String = The cat sat on the mat

saying.value // second access
// Step 3
// res19: String = The cat sat on the mat

4.6.4 Trampolining and Eval.defer

One useful property of Eval is that its map and flatMap methods are trampolined. This means we can nest calls to map and flatMap arbitrarily without consuming stack frames. We call this property “stack safety”.

For example, consider this function for calculating factorials:

def factorial(n: BigInt): BigInt =
  if(n == 1) n else n * factorial(n - 1)

It is relatively easy to make this method stack overflow:

factorial(50000)
// java.lang.StackOverflowError
//   ...

We can rewrite the method using Eval to make it stack safe:

def factorial(n: BigInt): Eval[BigInt] =
  if(n == 1) {
    Eval.now(n)
  } else {
    factorial(n - 1).map(_ * n)
  }

factorial(50000).value
// java.lang.StackOverflowError
//   ...

Oops! That didn’t work—our stack still blew up! This is because we’re still making all the recursive calls to factorial before we start working with Eval's map method. We can work around this using Eval.defer, which takes an existing instance of Eval and defers its evaluation. The defer method is trampolined like map and flatMap, so we can use it as a quick way to make an existing operation stack safe:

def factorial(n: BigInt): Eval[BigInt] =
  if(n == 1) {
    Eval.now(n)
  } else {
    Eval.defer(factorial(n - 1).map(_ * n))
  }

factorial(50000).value
// res20: BigInt = 3347320509597144836915476094071486477912773223810454807730100321990168022144365641697381231071916930879848043819020829989361638474306669374263057284536378403832575628212335998726824407823597235604085385444137338375356856553637116832740516607615516592140615607546129420179056747966549862924222002254155351071815980161547645181061667497021799653747497254113933819163882350063030764425687485727139465108190987490964348626858922980787003103100896286115455397991161294065232739697149721103126114286073379350968783735581183060955172890660383359253285163596173088527981195739949529945030635444247849264102899006955963488352990055767655092917547592078804480762256241516513045904631806851740676636001232955645406572422517547342818312102919571559378742364111719451383859303800641313297631250...

Eval is a useful tool to enforce stack safety when working on very large computations and data structures. However, we must bear in mind that trampolining is not free. It avoids consuming stack by creating a chain of function objects on the heap. There are still limits on how deeply we can nest computations, but they are bounded by the size of the heap rather than the stack.

4.6.5 Exercise: Safer Folding using Eval

The naive implementation of foldRight below is not stack safe. Make it so using Eval:

def foldRight[A, B](as: List[A], acc: B)(fn: (A, B) => B): B =
  as match {
    case head :: tail =>
      fn(head, foldRight(tail, acc)(fn))
    case Nil =>
      acc
  }

import cats.Eval

def foldRightEval[A, B](as: List[A], acc: Eval[B])
    (fn: (A, Eval[B]) => Eval[B]): Eval[B] =
  as match {
    case head :: tail =>
      Eval.defer(fn(head, foldRightEval(tail, acc)(fn)))
    case Nil =>
      acc
  }

def foldRight[A, B](as: List[A], acc: B)(fn: (A, B) => B): B =
  foldRightEval(as, Eval.now(acc)) { (a, b) =>
    b.map(fn(a, _))
  }.value

foldRight((1 to 100000).toList, 0L)(_ + _)
// res22: Long = 5000050000

4.7 The Writer Monad

cats.data.Writer is a monad that lets us carry a log along with a computation. We can use it to record messages, errors, or additional data about a computation, and extract the log alongside the final result.

One common use for Writers is recording sequences of steps in multi-threaded computations where standard imperative logging techniques can result in interleaved messages from different contexts. With Writer the log for the computation is tied to the result, so we can run concurrent computations without mixing logs.

4.7.1 Creating and Unpacking Writers

A Writer[W, A] carries two values: a log of type W and a result of type A. We can create a Writer from values of each type as follows:

import cats.data.Writer
import cats.instances.vector._ // for Monoid

Writer(Vector(
  "It was the best of times",
  "it was the worst of times"
), 1859)
// res0: cats.data.WriterT[cats.Id,scala.collection.immutable.Vector[String],Int] = WriterT((Vector(It was the best of times, it was the worst of times),1859))

Notice that the type reported on the console is actually WriterT[Id, Vector[String], Int] instead of Writer[Vector[String], Int] as we might expect. In the spirit of code reuse, Cats implements Writer in terms of another type, WriterT. WriterT is an example of a new concept called a monad transformer, which we will cover in the next chapter.

Let’s try to ignore this detail for now. Writer is a type alias for WriterT, so we can read types like WriterT[Id, W, A] as Writer[W, A]:

type Writer[W, A] = WriterT[Id, W, A]

For convenience, Cats provides a way of creating Writers specifying only the log or the result. If we only have a result we can use the standard pure syntax. To do this we must have a Monoid[W] in scope so Cats knows how to produce an empty log:

import cats.instances.vector._   // for Monoid
import cats.syntax.applicative._ // for pure

type Logged[A] = Writer[Vector[String], A]

123.pure[Logged]
// res2: Logged[Int] = WriterT((Vector(),123))

If we have a log and no result we can create a Writer[Unit] using the tell syntax from cats.syntax.writer:

import cats.syntax.writer._ // for tell

Vector("msg1", "msg2", "msg3").tell
// res3: cats.data.Writer[scala.collection.immutable.Vector[String],Unit] = WriterT((Vector(msg1, msg2, msg3),()))

If we have both a result and a log, we can either use Writer.apply or we can use the writer syntax from cats.syntax.writer:

import cats.syntax.writer._ // for writer

val a = Writer(Vector("msg1", "msg2", "msg3"), 123)
// a: cats.data.WriterT[cats.Id,scala.collection.immutable.Vector[String],Int] = WriterT((Vector(msg1, msg2, msg3),123))

val b = 123.writer(Vector("msg1", "msg2", "msg3"))
// b: cats.data.Writer[scala.collection.immutable.Vector[String],Int] = WriterT((Vector(msg1, msg2, msg3),123))

We can extract the result and log from a Writer using the value and written methods respectively:

val aResult: Int =
  a.value
// aResult: Int = 123

val aLog: Vector[String] =
  a.written
// aLog: Vector[String] = Vector(msg1, msg2, msg3)

We can extract both values at the same time using the run method:

val (log, result) = b.run
// log: scala.collection.immutable.Vector[String] = Vector(msg1, msg2, msg3)
// result: Int = 123

4.7.2 Composing and Transforming Writers

The log in a Writer is preserved when we map or flatMap over it. flatMap appends the logs from the source Writer and the result of the user’s sequencing function. For this reason it’s good practice to use a log type that has an efficient append and concatenate operations, such as a Vector:

val writer1 = for {
  a <- 10.pure[Logged]
  _ <- Vector("a", "b", "c").tell
  b <- 32.writer(Vector("x", "y", "z"))
} yield a + b
// writer1: cats.data.WriterT[cats.Id,Vector[String],Int] = WriterT((Vector(a, b, c, x, y, z),42))

writer1.run
// res4: cats.Id[(Vector[String], Int)] = (Vector(a, b, c, x, y, z),42)

In addition to transforming the result with map and flatMap, we can transform the log in a Writer with the mapWritten method:

val writer2 = writer1.mapWritten(_.map(_.toUpperCase))
// writer2: cats.data.WriterT[cats.Id,scala.collection.immutable.Vector[String],Int] = WriterT((Vector(A, B, C, X, Y, Z),42))

writer2.run
// res5: cats.Id[(scala.collection.immutable.Vector[String], Int)] = (Vector(A, B, C, X, Y, Z),42)

We can transform both log and result simultaneously using bimap or mapBoth. bimap takes two function parameters, one for the log and one for the result. mapBoth takes a single function that accepts two parameters:

val writer3 = writer1.bimap(
  log => log.map(_.toUpperCase),
  res => res * 100
)
// writer3: cats.data.WriterT[cats.Id,scala.collection.immutable.Vector[String],Int] = WriterT((Vector(A, B, C, X, Y, Z),4200))

writer3.run
// res6: cats.Id[(scala.collection.immutable.Vector[String], Int)] = (Vector(A, B, C, X, Y, Z),4200)

val writer4 = writer1.mapBoth { (log, res) =>
  val log2 = log.map(_ + "!")
  val res2 = res * 1000
  (log2, res2)
}
// writer4: cats.data.WriterT[cats.Id,scala.collection.immutable.Vector[String],Int] = WriterT((Vector(a!, b!, c!, x!, y!, z!),42000))

writer4.run
// res7: cats.Id[(scala.collection.immutable.Vector[String], Int)] = (Vector(a!, b!, c!, x!, y!, z!),42000)

Finally, we can clear the log with the reset method and swap log and result with the swap method:

val writer5 = writer1.reset
// writer5: cats.data.WriterT[cats.Id,Vector[String],Int] = WriterT((Vector(),42))

writer5.run
// res8: cats.Id[(Vector[String], Int)] = (Vector(),42)

val writer6 = writer1.swap
// writer6: cats.data.WriterT[cats.Id,Int,Vector[String]] = WriterT((42,Vector(a, b, c, x, y, z)))

writer6.run
// res9: cats.Id[(Int, Vector[String])] = (42,Vector(a, b, c, x, y, z))

4.7.3 Exercise: Show Your Working

Writers are useful for logging operations in multi-threaded environments. Let’s confirm this by computing (and logging) some factorials.

The factorial function below computes a factorial and prints out the intermediate steps as it runs. The slowly helper function ensures this takes a while to run, even on the very small examples below:

def slowly[A](body: => A) =
  try body finally Thread.sleep(100)

def factorial(n: Int): Int = {
  val ans = slowly(if(n == 0) 1 else n * factorial(n - 1))
  println(s"fact $n $ans")
  ans
}

Here’s the output—a sequence of monotonically increasing values:

factorial(5)
// fact 0 1
// fact 1 1
// fact 2 2
// fact 3 6
// fact 4 24
// fact 5 120
// res11: Int = 120

If we start several factorials in parallel, the log messages can become interleaved on standard out. This makes it difficult to see which messages come from which computation:

import scala.concurrent._
import scala.concurrent.ExecutionContext.Implicits.global
import scala.concurrent.duration._

Await.result(Future.sequence(Vector(
  Future(factorial(3)),
  Future(factorial(3))
)), 5.seconds)
// fact 0 1
// fact 0 1
// fact 1 1
// fact 1 1
// fact 2 2
// fact 2 2
// fact 3 6
// fact 3 6
// res14: scala.collection.immutable.Vector[Int] =
//   Vector(120, 120)

Rewrite factorial so it captures the log messages in a Writer. Demonstrate that this allows us to reliably separate the logs for concurrent computations.

import cats.data.Writer
import cats.syntax.applicative._ // for pure

type Logged[A] = Writer[Vector[String], A]

42.pure[Logged]
// res13: Logged[Int] = WriterT((Vector(),42))

import cats.syntax.writer._ // for tell

Vector("Message").tell
// res14: cats.data.Writer[scala.collection.immutable.Vector[String],Unit] = WriterT((Vector(Message),()))

import cats.instances.vector._ // for Monoid

41.pure[Logged].map(_ + 1)
// res15: cats.data.WriterT[cats.Id,Vector[String],Int] = WriterT((Vector(),42))

def factorial(n: Int): Logged[Int] =
  for {
    ans <- if(n == 0) {
             1.pure[Logged]
           } else {
             slowly(factorial(n - 1).map(_ * n))
           }
    _   <- Vector(s"fact $n $ans").tell
  } yield ans

val (log, res) = factorial(5).run
// log: Vector[String] = Vector(fact 0 1, fact 1 1, fact 2 2, fact 3 6, fact 4 24, fact 5 120)
// res: Int = 120

val Vector((logA, ansA), (logB, ansB)) =
  Await.result(Future.sequence(Vector(
    Future(factorial(3).run),
    Future(factorial(5).run)
  )), 5.seconds)
// logA: Vector[String] = Vector(fact 0 1, fact 1 1, fact 2 2, fact 3 6)
// ansA: Int = 6
// logB: Vector[String] = Vector(fact 0 1, fact 1 1, fact 2 2, fact 3 6, fact 4 24, fact 5 120)
// ansB: Int = 120

4.8 The Reader Monad

cats.data.Reader is a monad that allows us to sequence operations that depend on some input. Instances of Reader wrap up functions of one argument, providing us with useful methods for composing them.

One common use for Readers is dependency injection. If we have a number of operations that all depend on some external configuration, we can chain them together using a Reader to produce one large operation that accepts the configuration as a parameter and runs our program in the order specified.

4.8.1 Creating and Unpacking Readers

We can create a Reader[A, B] from a function A => B using the Reader.apply constructor:

import cats.data.Reader

case class Cat(name: String, favoriteFood: String)
// defined class Cat

val catName: Reader[Cat, String] =
  Reader(cat => cat.name)
// catName: cats.data.Reader[Cat,String] = Kleisli(<function1>)

We can extract the function again using the Reader's run method and call it using apply as usual:

catName.run(Cat("Garfield", "lasagne"))
// res0: cats.Id[String] = Garfield

So far so simple, but what advantage do Readers give us over the raw functions?

4.8.2 Composing Readers

The power of Readers comes from their map and flatMap methods, which represent different kinds of function composition. We typically create a set of Readers that accept the same type of configuration, combine them with map and flatMap, and then call run to inject the config at the end.

The map method simply extends the computation in the Reader by passing its result through a function:

val greetKitty: Reader[Cat, String] =
  catName.map(name => s"Hello ${name}")

greetKitty.run(Cat("Heathcliff", "junk food"))
// res1: cats.Id[String] = Hello Heathcliff

The flatMap method is more interesting. It allows us to combine readers that depend on the same input type. To illustrate this, let’s extend our greeting example to also feed the cat:

val feedKitty: Reader[Cat, String] =
  Reader(cat => s"Have a nice bowl of ${cat.favoriteFood}")

val greetAndFeed: Reader[Cat, String] =
  for {
    greet <- greetKitty
    feed  <- feedKitty
  } yield s"$greet. $feed."

greetAndFeed(Cat("Garfield", "lasagne"))
// res3: cats.Id[String] = Hello Garfield. Have a nice bowl of lasagne.

greetAndFeed(Cat("Heathcliff", "junk food"))
// res4: cats.Id[String] = Hello Heathcliff. Have a nice bowl of junk food.

4.8.3 Exercise: Hacking on Readers

The classic use of Readers is to build programs that accept a configuration as a parameter. Let’s ground this with a complete example of a simple login system. Our configuration will consist of two databases: a list of valid users and a list of their passwords:

case class Db(
  usernames: Map[Int, String],
  passwords: Map[String, String]
)

Start by creating a type alias DbReader for a Reader that consumes a Db as input. This will make the rest of our code shorter.

type DbReader[A] = Reader[Db, A]

Now create methods that generate DbReaders to look up the username for an Int user ID, and look up the password for a String username. The type signatures should be as follows:

def findUsername(userId: Int): DbReader[Option[String]] =
  ???

def checkPassword(
      username: String,
      password: String): DbReader[Boolean] =
  ???

def findUsername(userId: Int): DbReader[Option[String]] =
  Reader(db => db.usernames.get(userId))

def checkPassword(
      username: String,
      password: String): DbReader[Boolean] =
  Reader(db => db.passwords.get(username).contains(password))

Finally create a checkLogin method to check the password for a given user ID. The type signature should be as follows:

def checkLogin(
      userId: Int,
      password: String): DbReader[Boolean] =
  ???

import cats.syntax.applicative._ // for pure

def checkLogin(
      userId: Int,
      password: String): DbReader[Boolean] =
  for {
    username   <- findUsername(userId)
    passwordOk <- username.map { username =>
                    checkPassword(username, password)
                  }.getOrElse {
                    false.pure[DbReader]
                  }
  } yield passwordOk

You should be able to use checkLogin as follows:

val users = Map(
  1 -> "dade",
  2 -> "kate",
  3 -> "margo"
)

val passwords = Map(
  "dade"  -> "zerocool",
  "kate"  -> "acidburn",
  "margo" -> "secret"
)

val db = Db(users, passwords)

checkLogin(1, "zerocool").run(db)
// res10: cats.Id[Boolean] = true

checkLogin(4, "davinci").run(db)
// res11: cats.Id[Boolean] = false

4.8.4 When to Use Readers?

Readers provide a tool for doing dependency injection. We write steps of our program as instances of Reader, chain them together with map and flatMap, and build a function that accepts the dependency as input.

There are many ways of implementing dependency injection in Scala, from simple techniques like methods with multiple parameter lists, through implicit parameters and type classes, to complex techniques like the cake pattern and DI frameworks.

Readers are most useful in situations where:

• we are constructing a batch program that can easily be represented by a function;

• we need to defer injection of a known parameter or set of parameters;

• we want to be able to test parts of the program in isolation.

By representing the steps of our program as Readers we can test them as easily as pure functions, plus we gain access to the map and flatMap combinators.

For more advanced problems where we have lots of dependencies, or where a program isn’t easily represented as a pure function, other dependency injection techniques tend to be more appropriate.

4.9 The State Monad

cats.data.State allows us to pass additional state around as part of a computation. We define State instances representing atomic state operations and thread them together using map and flatMap. In this way we can model mutable state in a purely functional way, without using mutation.

4.9.1 Creating and Unpacking State

Boiled down to their simplest form, instances of State[S, A] represent functions of type S => (S, A). S is the type of the state and A is the type of the result.

import cats.data.State

val a = State[Int, String] { state =>
  (state, s"The state is $state")
}
// a: cats.data.State[Int,String] = cats.data.IndexedStateT@6ceace82

In other words, an instance of State is a function that does two things:

• transforms an input state to an output state;
• computes a result.

We can “run” our monad by supplying an initial state. State provides three methods—run, runS, and runA—that return different combinations of state and result. Each method returns an instance of Eval, which State uses to maintain stack safety. We call the value method as usual to extract the actual result:

// Get the state and the result:
val (state, result) = a.run(10).value
// state: Int = 10
// result: String = The state is 10

// Get the state, ignore the result:
val state = a.runS(10).value
// state: Int = 10

// Get the result, ignore the state:
val result = a.runA(10).value
// result: String = The state is 10

4.9.2 Composing and Transforming State

As we’ve seen with Reader and Writer, the power of the State monad comes from combining instances. The map and flatMap methods thread the state from one instance to another. Each individual instance represents an atomic state transformation, and their combination represents a complete sequence of changes:

val step1 = State[Int, String] { num =>
  val ans = num + 1
  (ans, s"Result of step1: $ans")
}
// step1: cats.data.State[Int,String] = cats.data.IndexedStateT@76122894

val step2 = State[Int, String] { num =>
  val ans = num * 2
  (ans, s"Result of step2: $ans")
}
// step2: cats.data.State[Int,String] = cats.data.IndexedStateT@1eaaaa5d

val both = for {
  a <- step1
  b <- step2
} yield (a, b)
// both: cats.data.IndexedStateT[cats.Eval,Int,Int,(String, String)] = cats.data.IndexedStateT@47a10835

val (state, result) = both.run(20).value
// state: Int = 42
// result: (String, String) = (Result of step1: 21,Result of step2: 42)

As you can see, in this example the final state is the result of applying both transformations in sequence. State is threaded from step to step even though we don’t interact with it in the for comprehension.

The general model for using the State monad is to represent each step of a computation as an instance and compose the steps using the standard monad operators. Cats provides several convenience constructors for creating primitive steps:

• get extracts the state as the result;
• set updates the state and returns unit as the result;
• pure ignores the state and returns a supplied result;
• inspect extracts the state via a transformation function;
• modify updates the state using an update function.

val getDemo = State.get[Int]
// getDemo: cats.data.State[Int,Int] = cats.data.IndexedStateT@6ffe574a

getDemo.run(10).value
// res3: (Int, Int) = (10,10)

val setDemo = State.set[Int](30)
// setDemo: cats.data.State[Int,Unit] = cats.data.IndexedStateT@4168bec2

setDemo.run(10).value
// res4: (Int, Unit) = (30,())

val pureDemo = State.pure[Int, String]("Result")
// pureDemo: cats.data.State[Int,String] = cats.data.IndexedStateT@6812d576

pureDemo.run(10).value
// res5: (Int, String) = (10,Result)

val inspectDemo = State.inspect[Int, String](_ + "!")
// inspectDemo: cats.data.State[Int,String] = cats.data.IndexedStateT@37c08614

inspectDemo.run(10).value
// res6: (Int, String) = (10,10!)

val modifyDemo = State.modify[Int](_ + 1)
// modifyDemo: cats.data.State[Int,Unit] = cats.data.IndexedStateT@4242cae6

modifyDemo.run(10).value
// res7: (Int, Unit) = (11,())

We can assemble these building blocks using a for comprehension. We typically ignore the result of intermediate stages that only represent transformations on the state:

import State._

val program: State[Int, (Int, Int, Int)] = for {
  a <- get[Int]
  _ <- set[Int](a + 1)
  b <- get[Int]
  _ <- modify[Int](_ + 1)
  c <- inspect[Int, Int](_ * 1000)
} yield (a, b, c)
// program: cats.data.State[Int,(Int, Int, Int)] = cats.data.IndexedStateT@22a799f8

val (state, result) = program.run(1).value
// state: Int = 3
// result: (Int, Int, Int) = (1,2,3000)

4.9.3 Exercise: Post-Order Calculator

The State monad allows us to implement simple interpreters for complex expressions, passing the values of mutable registers along with the result. We can see a simple example of this by implementing a calculator for post-order integer arithmetic expressions.

In case you haven’t heard of post-order expressions before (don’t worry if you haven’t), they are a mathematical notation where we write the operator after its operands. So, for example, instead of writing 1 + 2 we would write:

1 2 +

Although post-order expressions are difficult for humans to read, they are easy to evaluate in code. All we need to do is traverse the symbols from left to right, carrying a stack of operands with us as we go:

• when we see a number, we push it onto the stack;

• when we see an operator, we pop two operands off the stack, operate on them, and push the result in their place.

This allows us to evaluate complex expressions without using parentheses. For example, we can evaluate (1 + 2) * 3) as follows:

1 2 + 3 * // see 1, push onto stack
2 + 3 *   // see 2, push onto stack
+ 3 *     // see +, pop 1 and 2 off of stack,
          //        push (1 + 2) = 3 in their place
3 3 *     // see 3, push onto stack
3 *       // see 3, push onto stack
*         // see *, pop 3 and 3 off of stack,
          //        push (3 * 3) = 9 in their place

Let’s write an interpreter for these expressions. We can parse each symbol into a State instance representing a transformation on the stack and an intermediate result. The State instances can be threaded together using flatMap to produce an interpreter for any sequence of symbols.

Start by writing a function evalOne that parses a single symbol into an instance of State. Use the code below as a template. Don’t worry about error handling for now—if the stack is in the wrong configuration, it’s OK to throw an exception.

import cats.data.State

type CalcState[A] = State[List[Int], A]

def evalOne(sym: String): CalcState[Int] = ???

If this seems difficult, think about the basic form of the State instances you’re returning. Each instance represents a functional transformation from a stack to a pair of a stack and a result. You can ignore any wider context and focus on just that one step:

State[List[Int], Int] { oldStack =>
  val newStack = someTransformation(oldStack)
  val result   = someCalculation
  (newStack, result)
}

Feel free to write your Stack instances in this form or as sequences of the convenience constructors we saw above.

def evalOne(sym: String): CalcState[Int] =
  sym match {
    case "+" => operator(_ + _)
    case "-" => operator(_ - _)
    case "*" => operator(_ * _)
    case "/" => operator(_ / _)
    case num => operand(num.toInt)
  }

def operand(num: Int): CalcState[Int] =
  State[List[Int], Int] { stack =>
    (num :: stack, num)
  }

def operator(func: (Int, Int) => Int): CalcState[Int] =
  State[List[Int], Int] {
    case b :: a :: tail =>
      val ans = func(a, b)
      (ans :: tail, ans)

    case _ =>
      sys.error("Fail!")
  }

evalOne allows us to evaluate single-symbol expressions as follows. We call runA supplying Nil as an initial stack, and call value to unpack the resulting Eval instance:

evalOne("42").runA(Nil).value
// res3: Int = 42

We can represent more complex programs using evalOne, map, and flatMap. Note that most of the work is happening on the stack, so we ignore the results of the intermediate steps for evalOne("1") and evalOne("2"):

val program = for {
  _   <- evalOne("1")
  _   <- evalOne("2")
  ans <- evalOne("+")
} yield ans
// program: cats.data.IndexedStateT[cats.Eval,List[Int],List[Int],Int] = cats.data.IndexedStateT@19744e79

program.runA(Nil).value
// res4: Int = 3

Generalise this example by writing an evalAll method that computes the result of a List[String]. Use evalOne to process each symbol, and thread the resulting State monads together using flatMap. Your function should have the following signature:

def evalAll(input: List[String]): CalcState[Int] =
  ???

import cats.syntax.applicative._ // for pure

def evalAll(input: List[String]): CalcState[Int] =
  input.foldLeft(0.pure[CalcState]) { (a, b) =>
    a.flatMap(_ => evalOne(b))
  }

We can use evalAll to conveniently evaluate multi-stage expressions:

val program = evalAll(List("1", "2", "+", "3", "*"))
// program: CalcState[Int] = cats.data.IndexedStateT@1b66139a

program.runA(Nil).value
// res6: Int = 9

Because evalOne and evalAll both return instances of State, we can thread these results together using flatMap. evalOne produces a simple stack transformation and evalAll produces a complex one, but they’re both pure functions and we can use them in any order as many times as we like:

val program = for {
  _   <- evalAll(List("1", "2", "+"))
  _   <- evalAll(List("3", "4", "+"))
  ans <- evalOne("*")
} yield ans
// program: cats.data.IndexedStateT[cats.Eval,List[Int],List[Int],Int] = cats.data.IndexedStateT@e08e443

program.runA(Nil).value
// res7: Int = 21

Complete the exercise by implementing an evalInput function that splits an input String into symbols, calls evalAll, and runs the result with an initial stack.

def evalInput(input: String): Int =
  evalAll(input.split(" ").toList).runA(Nil).value

evalInput("1 2 + 3 4 + *")
// res8: Int = 21

4.10 Defining Custom Monads

We can define a Monad for a custom type by providing implementations of three methods: flatMap, pure, and a method we haven’t seen yet called tailRecM. Here is an implementation of Monad for Option as an example:

import cats.Monad
import scala.annotation.tailrec

val optionMonad = new Monad[Option] {
  def flatMap[A, B](opt: Option[A])
      (fn: A => Option[B]): Option[B] =
    opt flatMap fn

  def pure[A](opt: A): Option[A] =
    Some(opt)

  @tailrec
  def tailRecM[A, B](a: A)
      (fn: A => Option[Either[A, B]]): Option[B] =
    fn(a) match {
      case None           => None
      case Some(Left(a1)) => tailRecM(a1)(fn)
      case Some(Right(b)) => Some(b)
    }
}

The tailRecM method is an optimisation used in Cats to limit the amount of stack space consumed by nested calls to flatMap. The technique comes from a 2015 paper by PureScript creator Phil Freeman. The method should recursively call itself until the result of fn returns a Right.

If we can make tailRecM tail-recursive, Cats is able to guarantee stack safety in recursive situations such as folding over large lists (see Section 7.1). If we can’t make tailRecM tail-recursive, Cats cannot make these guarantees and extreme use cases may result in StackOverflowErrors. All of the built-in monads in Cats have tail-recursive implementations of tailRecM, although writing one for custom monads can be a challenge… as we shall see.

4.10.1 Exercise: Branching out Further with Monads

Let’s write a Monad for our Tree data type from last chapter. Here’s the type again:

sealed trait Tree[+A]

final case class Branch[A](left: Tree[A], right: Tree[A])
  extends Tree[A]

final case class Leaf[A](value: A) extends Tree[A]

def branch[A](left: Tree[A], right: Tree[A]): Tree[A] =
  Branch(left, right)

def leaf[A](value: A): Tree[A] =
  Leaf(value)

Verify that the code works on instances of Branch and Leaf, and that the Monad provides Functor-like behaviour for free.

Also verify that having a Monad in scope allows us to use for comprehensions, despite the fact that we haven’t directly implemented flatMap or map on Tree.

Don’t feel you have to make tailRecM tail-recursive. Doing so is quite difficult. We’ve included both tail-recursive and non-tail-recursive implementations in the solutions so you can check your work.

import cats.Monad

implicit val treeMonad = new Monad[Tree] {
  def pure[A](value: A): Tree[A] =
    Leaf(value)

  def flatMap[A, B](tree: Tree[A])
      (func: A => Tree[B]): Tree[B] =
    tree match {
      case Branch(l, r) =>
        Branch(flatMap(l)(func), flatMap(r)(func))
      case Leaf(value)  =>
        func(value)
    }

 def tailRecM[A, B](a: A)
     (func: A => Tree[Either[A, B]]): Tree[B] =
   flatMap(func(a)) {
     case Left(value) =>
       tailRecM(value)(func)
     case Right(value) =>
       Leaf(value)
   }
}

import cats.Monad

implicit val treeMonad = new Monad[Tree] {
  def pure[A](value: A): Tree[A] =
    Leaf(value)

  def flatMap[A, B](tree: Tree[A])
      (func: A => Tree[B]): Tree[B] =
    tree match {
      case Branch(l, r) =>
        Branch(flatMap(l)(func), flatMap(r)(func))
      case Leaf(value)  =>
        func(value)
    }

  def tailRecM[A, B](arg: A)
      (func: A => Tree[Either[A, B]]): Tree[B] = {
    @tailrec
    def loop(
          open: List[Tree[Either[A, B]]],
          closed: List[Option[Tree[B]]]): List[Tree[B]] =
      open match {
        case Branch(l, r) :: next =>
          loop(l :: r :: next, None :: closed)

        case Leaf(Left(value)) :: next =>
          loop(func(value) :: next, closed)

        case Leaf(Right(value)) :: next =>
          loop(next, Some(pure(value)) :: closed)

        case Nil =>
          closed.foldLeft(Nil: List[Tree[B]]) { (acc, maybeTree) =>
            maybeTree.map(_ :: acc).getOrElse {
              val left :: right :: tail = acc
              branch(left, right) :: tail
            }
          }
      }

    loop(List(func(arg)), Nil).head
  }
}

import cats.syntax.functor._ // for map
import cats.syntax.flatMap._ // for flatMap

branch(leaf(100), leaf(200)).
  flatMap(x => branch(leaf(x - 1), leaf(x + 1)))
// res3: wrapper.Tree[Int] = Branch(Branch(Leaf(99),Leaf(101)),Branch(Leaf(199),Leaf(201)))

for {
  a <- branch(leaf(100), leaf(200))
  b <- branch(leaf(a - 10), leaf(a + 10))
  c <- branch(leaf(b - 1), leaf(b + 1))
} yield c
// res4: wrapper.Tree[Int] = Branch(Branch(Branch(Leaf(89),Leaf(91)),Branch(Leaf(109),Leaf(111))),Branch(Branch(Leaf(189),Leaf(191)),Branch(Leaf(209),Leaf(211))))

4.11 Summary

In this chapter we’ve seen monads up-close. We saw that flatMap can be viewed as an operator for sequencing computations, dictating the order in which operations must happen. From this viewpoint, Option represents a computation that can fail without an error message, Either represents computations that can fail with a message, List represents multiple possible results, and Future represents a computation that may produce a value at some point in the future.

We’ve also seen some of the custom types and data structures that Cats provides, including Id, Reader, Writer, and State. These cover a wide range of use cases.

Finally, in the unlikely event that we have to implement a custom monad, we’ve learned about defining our own instance using tailRecM. tailRecM is an odd wrinkle that is a concession to building a functional programming library that is stack-safe by default. We don’t need to understand tailRecM to understand monads, but having it around gives us benefits of which we can be grateful when writing monadic code.

5 Monad Transformers

Monads are like burritos, which means that once you acquire a taste, you’ll find yourself returning to them again and again. This is not without issues. As burritos can bloat the waist, monads can bloat the code base through nested for-comprehensions.

Imagine we are interacting with a database. We want to look up a user record. The user may or may not be present, so we return an Option[User]. Our communication with the database could fail for many reasons (network issues, authentication problems, and so on), so this result is wrapped up in an Either, giving us a final result of Either[Error, Option[User]].

To use this value we must nest flatMap calls (or equivalently, for-comprehensions):

def lookupUserName(id: Long): Either[Error, Option[String]] =
  for {
    optUser <- lookupUser(id)
  } yield {
    for { user <- optUser } yield user.name
  }

This quickly becomes very tedious.

5.1 Exercise: Composing Monads

A question arises. Given two arbitrary monads, can we combine them in some way to make a single monad? That is, do monads compose? We can try to write the code but we soon hit problems:

import cats.Monad
import cats.syntax.applicative._ // for pure
import cats.syntax.flatMap._     // for flatMap
import scala.language.higherKinds

// Hypothetical example. This won't actually compile:
def compose[M1[_]: Monad, M2[_]: Monad] = {
  type Composed[A] = M1[M2[A]]

  new Monad[Composed] {
    def pure[A](a: A): Composed[A] =
      a.pure[M2].pure[M1]

    def flatMap[A, B](fa: Composed[A])
        (f: A => Composed[B]): Composed[B] =
      // Problem! How do we write flatMap?
      ???
  }
}

It is impossible to write a general definition of flatMap without knowing something about M1 or M2. However, if we do know something about one or other monad, we can typically complete this code. For example, if we fix M2 above to be Option, a definition of flatMap comes to light:

def flatMap[A, B](fa: Composed[A])
    (f: A => Composed[B]): Composed[B] =
  fa.flatMap(_.fold[Composed[B]](None.pure[M1])(f))

Notice that the definition above makes use of None—an Option-specific concept that doesn’t appear in the general Monad interface. We need this extra detail to combine Option with other monads. Similarly, there are things about other monads that help us write composed flatMap methods for them. This is the idea behind monad transformers: Cats defines transformers for a variety of monads, each providing the extra knowledge we need to compose that monad with others. Let’s look at some examples.

5.2 A Transformative Example

Cats provides transformers for many monads, each named with a T suffix: EitherT composes Either with other monads, OptionT composes Option, and so on.

Here’s an example that uses OptionT to compose List and Option. We can use OptionT[List, A], aliased to ListOption[A] for convenience, to transform a List[Option[A]] into a single monad:

import cats.data.OptionT

type ListOption[A] = OptionT[List, A]

Note how we build ListOption from the inside out: we pass List, the type of the outer monad, as a parameter to OptionT, the transformer for the inner monad.

We can create instances of ListOption using the OptionT constructor, or more conveniently using pure:

import cats.Monad
import cats.instances.list._     // for Monad
import cats.syntax.applicative._ // for pure

val result1: ListOption[Int] = OptionT(List(Option(10)))
// result1: ListOption[Int] = OptionT(List(Some(10)))

val result2: ListOption[Int] = 32.pure[ListOption]
// result2: ListOption[Int] = OptionT(List(Some(32)))

The map and flatMap methods combine the corresponding methods of List and Option into single operations:

result1.flatMap { (x: Int) =>
  result2.map { (y: Int) =>
    x + y
  }
}
// res1: cats.data.OptionT[List,Int] = OptionT(List(Some(42)))

This is the basis of all monad transformers. The combined map and flatMap methods allow us to use both component monads without having to recursively unpack and repack values at each stage in the computation. Now let’s look at the API in more depth.

5.3 Monad Transformers in Cats

Each monad transformer is a data type, defined in cats.data, that allows us to wrap stacks of monads to produce new monads. We use the monads we’ve built via the Monad type class. The main concepts we have to cover to understand monad transformers are:

• the available transformer classes;
• how to build stacks of monads using transformers;
• how to construct instances of a monad stack; and
• how to pull apart a stack to access the wrapped monads.

5.3.1 The Monad Transformer Classes

By convention, in Cats a monad Foo will have a transformer class called FooT. In fact, many monads in Cats are defined by combining a monad transformer with the Id monad. Concretely, some of the available instances are:

• cats.data.OptionT for Option;
• cats.data.EitherT for Either;
• cats.data.ReaderT for Reader;
• cats.data.WriterT for Writer;
• cats.data.StateT for State;
• cats.data.IdT for the Id monad.

5.3.2 Building Monad Stacks

All of these monad transformers follow the same convention. The transformer itself represents the inner monad in a stack, while the first type parameter specifies the outer monad. The remaining type parameters are the types we’ve used to form the corresponding monads.

For example, our ListOption type above is an alias for OptionT[List, A] but the result is effectively a List[Option[A]]. In other words, we build monad stacks from the inside out:

type ListOption[A] = OptionT[List, A]

Many monads and all transformers have at least two type parameters, so we often have to define type aliases for intermediate stages.

For example, suppose we want to wrap Either around Option. Option is the innermost type so we want to use the OptionT monad transformer. We need to use Either as the first type parameter. However, Either itself has two type parameters and monads only have one. We need a type alias to convert the type constructor to the correct shape:

// Alias Either to a type constructor with one parameter:
type ErrorOr[A] = Either[String, A]

// Build our final monad stack using OptionT:
type ErrorOrOption[A] = OptionT[ErrorOr, A]

ErrorOrOption is a monad, just like ListOption. We can use pure, map, and flatMap as usual to create and transform instances:

import cats.instances.either._ // for Monad

val a = 10.pure[ErrorOrOption]
// a: ErrorOrOption[Int] = OptionT(Right(Some(10)))

val b = 32.pure[ErrorOrOption]
// b: ErrorOrOption[Int] = OptionT(Right(Some(32)))

val c = a.flatMap(x => b.map(y => x + y))
// c: cats.data.OptionT[ErrorOr,Int] = OptionT(Right(Some(42)))

Things become even more confusing when we want to stack three or more monads.

For example, let’s create a Future of an Either of Option. Once again we build this from the inside out with an OptionT of an EitherT of Future. However, we can’t define this in one line because EitherT has three type parameters:

case class EitherT[F[_], E, A](stack: F[Either[E, A]]) {
  // etc...
}

The three type parameters are as follows:

• F[_] is the outer monad in the stack (Either is the inner);
• E is the error type for the Either;
• A is the result type for the Either.

This time we create an alias for EitherT that fixes Future and Error and allows A to vary:

import scala.concurrent.Future
import cats.data.{EitherT, OptionT}

type FutureEither[A] = EitherT[Future, String, A]

type FutureEitherOption[A] = OptionT[FutureEither, A]

Our mammoth stack now composes three monads and our map and flatMap methods cut through three layers of abstraction:

import cats.instances.future._ // for Monad
import scala.concurrent.Await
import scala.concurrent.ExecutionContext.Implicits.global
import scala.concurrent.duration._

val futureEitherOr: FutureEitherOption[Int] =
  for {
    a <- 10.pure[FutureEitherOption]
    b <- 32.pure[FutureEitherOption]
  } yield a + b

import cats.instances.option._ // for Monad
// import cats.instances.option._

123.pure[EitherT[Option, String, ?]]
// res7: cats.data.EitherT[Option,String,Int] = EitherT(Some(Right(123)))

5.3.3 Constructing and Unpacking Instances

As we saw above, we can create transformed monad stacks using the relevant monad transformer’s apply method or the usual pure syntax⁷:

// Create using apply:
val errorStack1 = OptionT[ErrorOr, Int](Right(Some(10)))
// errorStack1: cats.data.OptionT[ErrorOr,Int] = OptionT(Right(Some(10)))

// Create using pure:
val errorStack2 = 32.pure[ErrorOrOption]
// errorStack2: ErrorOrOption[Int] = OptionT(Right(Some(32)))

Once we’ve finished with a monad transformer stack, we can unpack it using its value method. This returns the untransformed stack. We can then manipulate the individual monads in the usual way:

// Extracting the untransformed monad stack:
errorStack1.value
// res11: ErrorOr[Option[Int]] = Right(Some(10))

// Mapping over the Either in the stack:
errorStack2.value.map(_.getOrElse(-1))
// res13: scala.util.Either[String,Int] = Right(32)

Each call to value unpacks a single monad transformer. We may need more than one call to completely unpack a large stack. For example, to Await the FutureEitherOption stack above, we need to call value twice:

futureEitherOr
// res14: FutureEitherOption[Int] = OptionT(EitherT(Future(Success(Right(Some(42))))))

val intermediate = futureEitherOr.value
// intermediate: FutureEither[Option[Int]] = EitherT(Future(Success(Right(Some(42)))))

val stack = intermediate.value
// stack: scala.concurrent.Future[Either[String,Option[Int]]] = Future(Success(Right(Some(42))))

Await.result(stack, 1.second)
// res15: Either[String,Option[Int]] = Right(Some(42))

5.3.4 Default Instances

Many monads in Cats are defined using the corresponding transformer and the Id monad. This is reassuring as it confirms that the APIs for monads and transformers are identical. Reader, Writer, and State are all defined in this way:

type Reader[E, A] = ReaderT[Id, E, A] // = Kleisli[Id, E, A]
type Writer[W, A] = WriterT[Id, W, A]
type State[S, A]  = StateT[Id, S, A]

In other cases monad transformers are defined separately to their corresponding monads. In these cases, the methods of the transformer tend to mirror the methods on the monad. For example, OptionT defines getOrElse, and EitherT defines fold, bimap, swap, and other useful methods.

5.3.5 Usage Patterns

Widespread use of monad transformers is sometimes difficult because they fuse monads together in predefined ways. Without careful thought, we can end up having to unpack and repack monads in different configurations to operate on them in different contexts.

We can cope with this in multiple ways. One approach involves creating a single “super stack” and sticking to it throughout our code base. This works if the code is simple and largely uniform in nature. For example, in a web application, we could decide that all request handlers are asynchronous and all can fail with the same set of HTTP error codes. We could design a custom ADT representing the errors and use a fusion Future and Either everywhere in our code:

sealed abstract class HttpError
final case class NotFound(item: String) extends HttpError
final case class BadRequest(msg: String) extends HttpError
// etc...

type FutureEither[A] = EitherT[Future, HttpError, A]

The “super stack” approach starts to fail in larger, more heterogeneous code bases where different stacks make sense in different contexts. Another design pattern that makes more sense in these contexts uses monad transformers as local “glue code”. We expose untransformed stacks at module boundaries, transform them to operate on them locally, and untransform them before passing them on. This allows each module of code to make its own decisions about which transformers to use:

import cats.data.Writer

type Logged[A] = Writer[List[String], A]

// Methods generally return untransformed stacks:
def parseNumber(str: String): Logged[Option[Int]] =
  util.Try(str.toInt).toOption match {
    case Some(num) => Writer(List(s"Read $str"), Some(num))
    case None      => Writer(List(s"Failed on $str"), None)
  }

// Consumers use monad transformers locally to simplify composition:
def addAll(a: String, b: String, c: String): Logged[Option[Int]] = {
  import cats.data.OptionT

  val result = for {
    a <- OptionT(parseNumber(a))
    b <- OptionT(parseNumber(b))
    c <- OptionT(parseNumber(c))
  } yield a + b + c

  result.value
}

// This approach doesn't force OptionT on other users' code:
val result1 = addAll("1", "2", "3")
// result1: Logged[Option[Int]] = WriterT((List(Read 1, Read 2, Read 3),Some(6)))

val result2 = addAll("1", "a", "3")
// result2: Logged[Option[Int]] = WriterT((List(Read 1, Failed on a),None))

Unfortunately, there aren’t one-size-fits-all approaches to working with monad transformers. The best approach for you may depend on a lot of factors: the size and experience of your team, the complexity of your code base, and so on. You may need to experiment and gather feedback from colleagues to determine whether monad transformers are a good fit.

5.4 Exercise: Monads: Transform and Roll Out

The Autobots, well-known robots in disguise, frequently send messages during battle requesting the power levels of their team mates. This helps them coordinate strategies and launch devastating attacks. The message sending method looks like this:

def getPowerLevel(autobot: String): Response[Int] =
  ???

Transmissions take time in Earth’s viscous atmosphere, and messages are occasionally lost due to satellite malfunction or sabotage by pesky Decepticons⁸. Responses are therefore represented as a stack of monads:

type Response[A] = Future[Either[String, A]]
// defined type alias Response

Optimus Prime is getting tired of the nested for comprehensions in his neural matrix. Help him by rewriting Response using a monad transformer.

import cats.data.EitherT
import scala.concurrent.Future

type Response[A] = EitherT[Future, String, A]

Now test the code by implementing getPowerLevel to retrieve data from a set of imaginary allies. Here’s the data we’ll use:

val powerLevels = Map(
  "Jazz"      -> 6,
  "Bumblebee" -> 8,
  "Hot Rod"   -> 10
)

If an Autobot isn’t in the powerLevels map, return an error message reporting that they were unreachable. Include the name in the message for good effect.

import cats.instances.future._ // for Monad
import cats.syntax.flatMap._   // for flatMap
import scala.concurrent.ExecutionContext.Implicits.global

type Response[A] = EitherT[Future, String, A]

def getPowerLevel(ally: String): Response[Int] = {
  powerLevels.get(ally) match {
    case Some(avg) => EitherT.right(Future(avg))
    case None      => EitherT.left(Future(s"$ally unreachable"))
  }
}

Two autobots can perform a special move if their combined power level is greater than 15. Write a second method, canSpecialMove, that accepts the names of two allies and checks whether a special move is possible. If either ally is unavailable, fail with an appropriate error message:

def canSpecialMove(ally1: String, ally2: String): Response[Boolean] =
  ???

def canSpecialMove(ally1: String, ally2: String): Response[Boolean] =
  for {
    power1 <- getPowerLevel(ally1)
    power2 <- getPowerLevel(ally2)
  } yield (power1 + power2) > 15

Finally, write a method tacticalReport that takes two ally names and prints a message saying whether they can perform a special move:

def tacticalReport(ally1: String, ally2: String): String =
  ???

import scala.concurrent.Await
import scala.concurrent.ExecutionContext.Implicits.global
import scala.concurrent.duration._

def tacticalReport(ally1: String, ally2: String): String = {
  val stack = canSpecialMove(ally1, ally2).value

  Await.result(stack, 1.second) match {
    case Left(msg) =>
      s"Comms error: $msg"
    case Right(true)  =>
      s"$ally1 and $ally2 are ready to roll out!"
    case Right(false) =>
      s"$ally1 and $ally2 need a recharge."
  }
}

You should be able to use report as follows:

tacticalReport("Jazz", "Bumblebee")
// res28: String = Jazz and Bumblebee need a recharge.

tacticalReport("Bumblebee", "Hot Rod")
// res29: String = Bumblebee and Hot Rod are ready to roll out!

tacticalReport("Jazz", "Ironhide")
// res30: String = Comms error: Ironhide unreachable

5.5 Summary

In this chapter we introduced monad transformers, which eliminate the need for nested for comprehensions and pattern matching when working with “stacks” of nested monads.

Each monad transformer, such as FutureT, OptionT or EitherT, provides the code needed to merge its related monad with other monads. The transformer is a data structure that wraps a monad stack, equipping it with map and flatMap methods that unpack and repack the whole stack.

The type signatures of monad transformers are written from the inside out, so an EitherT[Option, String, A] is a wrapper for an Option[Either[String, A]]. It is often useful to use type aliases when writing transformer types for deeply nested monads.

With this look at monad transformers, we have now covered everything we need to know about monads and the sequencing of computations using flatMap. In the next chapter we will switch tack and discuss two new type classes, Semigroupal and Applicative, that support new kinds of operation such as zipping independent values within a context.

6 Semigroupal and Applicative

In previous chapters we saw how functors and monads let us sequence operations using map and flatMap. While functors and monads are both immensely useful abstractions, there are certain types of program flow that they cannot represent.

One such example is form validation. When we validate a form we want to return all the errors to the user, not stop on the first error we encounter. If we model this with a monad like Either, we fail fast and lose errors. For example, the code below fails on the first call to parseInt and doesn’t go any further:

import cats.syntax.either._ // for catchOnly

def parseInt(str: String): Either[String, Int] =
  Either.catchOnly[NumberFormatException](str.toInt).
    leftMap(_ => s"Couldn't read $str")

for {
  a <- parseInt("a")
  b <- parseInt("b")
  c <- parseInt("c")
} yield (a + b + c)
// res1: scala.util.Either[String,Int] = Left(Couldn't read a)

Another example is the concurrent evaluation of Futures. If we have several long-running independent tasks, it makes sense to execute them concurrently. However, monadic comprehension only allows us to run them in sequence. map and flatMap aren’t quite capable of capturing what we want because they make the assumption that each computation is dependent on the previous one:

// context2 is dependent on value1:
context1.flatMap(value1 => context2)

The calls to parseInt and Future.apply above are independent of one another, but map and flatMap can’t exploit this. We need a weaker construct—one that doesn’t guarantee sequencing—to achieve the result we want. In this chapter we will look at two type classes that support this pattern:

• Semigroupal encompasses the notion of composing pairs of contexts. Cats provides a cats.syntax.apply module that makes use of Semigroupal and Functor to allow users to sequence functions with multiple arguments.

• Applicative extends Semigroupal and Functor. It provides a way of applying functions to parameters within a context. Applicative is the source of the pure method we introduced in Chapter 4.

Applicatives are often formulated in terms of function application, instead of the semigroupal formulation that is emphasised in Cats. This alternative formulation provides a link to other libraries and languages such as Scalaz and Haskell. We’ll take a look at different formulations of Applicative, as well as the relationships between Semigroupal, Functor, Applicative, and Monad, towards the end of the chapter.

6.1 Semigroupal

cats.Semigroupal is a type class that allows us to combine contexts⁹. If we have two objects of type F[A] and F[B], a Semigroupal[F] allows us to combine them to form an F[(A, B)]. Its definition in Cats is:

trait Semigroupal[F[_]] {
  def product[A, B](fa: F[A], fb: F[B]): F[(A, B)]
}

As we discussed at the beginning of this chapter, the parameters fa and fb are independent of one another: we can compute them in either order before passing them to product. This is in contrast to flatMap, which imposes a strict order on its parameters. This gives us more freedom when defining instances of Semigroupal than we get when defining Monads.

6.1.1 Joining Two Contexts

While Semigroup allows us to join values, Semigroupal allows us to join contexts. Let’s join some Options as an example:

import cats.Semigroupal
import cats.instances.option._ // for Semigroupal

Semigroupal[Option].product(Some(123), Some("abc"))
// res0: Option[(Int, String)] = Some((123,abc))

If both parameters are instances of Some, we end up with a tuple of the values within. If either parameter evaluates to None, the entire result is None:

Semigroupal[Option].product(None, Some("abc"))
// res1: Option[(Nothing, String)] = None

Semigroupal[Option].product(Some(123), None)
// res2: Option[(Int, Nothing)] = None

6.1.2 Joining Three or More Contexts

The companion object for Semigroupal defines a set of methods on top of product. For example, the methods tuple2 through tuple22 generalise product to different arities:

import cats.instances.option._ // for Semigroupal

Semigroupal.tuple3(Option(1), Option(2), Option(3))
// res3: Option[(Int, Int, Int)] = Some((1,2,3))

Semigroupal.tuple3(Option(1), Option(2), Option.empty[Int])
// res4: Option[(Int, Int, Int)] = None

The methods map2 through map22 apply a user-specified function to the values inside 2 to 22 contexts:

Semigroupal.map3(Option(1), Option(2), Option(3))(_ + _ + _)
// res5: Option[Int] = Some(6)

Semigroupal.map2(Option(1), Option.empty[Int])(_ + _)
// res6: Option[Int] = None

There are also methods contramap2 through contramap22 and imap2 through imap22, that require instances of Contravariant and Invariant respectively.

6.2 Apply Syntax

Cats provides a convenient apply syntax that provides a shorthand for the methods described above. We import the syntax from cats.syntax.apply. Here’s an example:

import cats.instances.option._ // for Semigroupal
import cats.syntax.apply._     // for tupled and mapN

The tupled method is implicitly added to the tuple of Options. It uses the Semigroupal for Option to zip the values inside the Options, creating a single Option of a tuple:

(Option(123), Option("abc")).tupled
// res7: Option[(Int, String)] = Some((123,abc))

We can use the same trick on tuples of up to 22 values. Cats defines a separate tupled method for each arity:

(Option(123), Option("abc"), Option(true)).tupled
// res8: Option[(Int, String, Boolean)] = Some((123,abc,true))

In addition to tupled, Cats’ apply syntax provides a method called mapN that accepts an implicit Functor and a function of the correct arity to combine the values:

case class Cat(name: String, born: Int, color: String)

(
  Option("Garfield"),
  Option(1978),
  Option("Orange & black")
).mapN(Cat.apply)
// res9: Option[Cat] = Some(Cat(Garfield,1978,Orange & black))

Internally mapN uses the Semigroupal to extract the values from the Option and the Functor to apply the values to the function.

It’s nice to see that this syntax is type checked. If we supply a function that accepts the wrong number or types of parameters, we get a compile error:

val add: (Int, Int) => Int = (a, b) => a + b
// add: (Int, Int) => Int = <function2>

(Option(1), Option(2), Option(3)).mapN(add)
// <console>:27: error: type mismatch;
//  found   : (Int, Int) => Int
//  required: (Int, Int, Int) => ?
//        (Option(1), Option(2), Option(3)).mapN(add)
//                                               ^

(Option("cats"), Option(true)).mapN(add)
// <console>:27: error: type mismatch;
//  found   : (Int, Int) => Int
//  required: (String, Boolean) => ?
//        (Option("cats"), Option(true)).mapN(add)
//                                            ^

6.2.1 Fancy Functors and Apply Syntax

Apply syntax also has contramapN and imapN methods that accept Contravariant and Invariant functors. For example, we can combine Monoids using Invariant. Here’s an example:

import cats.Monoid
import cats.instances.int._        // for Monoid
import cats.instances.invariant._  // for Semigroupal
import cats.instances.list._       // for Monoid
import cats.instances.string._     // for Monoid
import cats.syntax.apply._         // for imapN

case class Cat(
  name: String,
  yearOfBirth: Int,
  favoriteFoods: List[String]
)

val tupleToCat: (String, Int, List[String]) => Cat =
  Cat.apply _

val catToTuple: Cat => (String, Int, List[String]) =
  cat => (cat.name, cat.yearOfBirth, cat.favoriteFoods)

implicit val catMonoid: Monoid[Cat] = (
  Monoid[String],
  Monoid[Int],
  Monoid[List[String]]
).imapN(tupleToCat)(catToTuple)

Our Monoid allows us to create “empty” Cats, and add Cats together using the syntax from Chapter 2:

import cats.syntax.semigroup._ // for |+|

val garfield   = Cat("Garfield", 1978, List("Lasagne"))
val heathcliff = Cat("Heathcliff", 1988, List("Junk Food"))

garfield |+| heathcliff
// res17: Cat = Cat(GarfieldHeathcliff,3966,List(Lasagne, Junk Food))

6.3 Semigroupal Applied to Different Types

Semigroupal doesn’t always provide the behaviour we expect, particularly for types that also have instances of Monad. We have seen the behaviour of the Semigroupal for Option. Let’s look at some examples for other types.

Future

The semantics for Future provide parallel as opposed to sequential execution:

import cats.Semigroupal
import cats.instances.future._ // for Semigroupal
import scala.concurrent._
import scala.concurrent.duration._
import scala.concurrent.ExecutionContext.Implicits.global
import scala.language.higherKinds

val futurePair = Semigroupal[Future].
  product(Future("Hello"), Future(123))

Await.result(futurePair, 1.second)
// res1: (String, Int) = (Hello,123)

The two Futures start executing the moment we create them, so they are already calculating results by the time we call product. We can use apply syntax to zip fixed numbers of Futures:

import cats.syntax.apply._ // for mapN

case class Cat(
  name: String,
  yearOfBirth: Int,
  favoriteFoods: List[String]
)

val futureCat = (
  Future("Garfield"),
  Future(1978),
  Future(List("Lasagne"))
).mapN(Cat.apply)

Await.result(futureCat, 1.second)
// res4: Cat = Cat(Garfield,1978,List(Lasagne))

List

Combining Lists with Semigroupal produces some potentially unexpected results. We might expect code like the following to zip the lists, but we actually get the cartesian product of their elements:

import cats.Semigroupal
import cats.instances.list._ // for Semigroupal

Semigroupal[List].product(List(1, 2), List(3, 4))
// res5: List[(Int, Int)] = List((1,3), (1,4), (2,3), (2,4))

This is perhaps surprising. Zipping lists tends to be a more common operation. We’ll see why we get this behaviour in a moment.

Either

We opened this chapter with a discussion of fail-fast versus accumulating error-handling. We might expect product applied to Either to accumulate errors instead of fail fast. Again, perhaps surprisingly, we find that product implements the same fail-fast behaviour as flatMap:

import cats.instances.either._ // for Semigroupal

type ErrorOr[A] = Either[Vector[String], A]

Semigroupal[ErrorOr].product(
  Left(Vector("Error 1")),
  Left(Vector("Error 2"))
)
// res7: ErrorOr[(Nothing, Nothing)] = Left(Vector(Error 1))

In this example product sees the first failure and stops, even though it is possible to examine the second parameter and see that it is also a failure.

6.3.1 Semigroupal Applied to Monads

The reason for the surprising results for List and Either is that they are both monads. To ensure consistent semantics, Cats’ Monad (which extends Semigroupal) provides a standard definition of product in terms of map and flatMap. This gives what we might think of as unexpected and less useful behaviour for a number of data types. The consistency of semantics is important for higher level abstractions, but we don’t know about those yet.

Even our results for Future are a trick of the light. flatMap provides sequential ordering, so product provides the same. The parallel execution we observe occurs because our constituent Futures start running before we call product. This is equivalent to the classic create-then-flatMap pattern:

val a = Future("Future 1")
val b = Future("Future 2")

for {
  x <- a
  y <- b
} yield (x, y)

So why bother with Semigroupal at all? The answer is that we can create useful data types that have instances of Semigroupal (and Applicative) but not Monad. This frees us to implement product in different ways. We’ll examine this further in a moment when we look at an alternative data type for error handling.

6.3.1.1 Exercise: The Product of Monads

Implement product in terms of flatMap:

import cats.Monad

def product[M[_]: Monad, A, B](x: M[A], y: M[B]): M[(A, B)] =
  ???

import cats.syntax.flatMap._ // for flatMap
import cats.syntax.functor._ // for map

def product[M[_]: Monad, A, B](x: M[A], y: M[B]): M[(A, B)] =
  x.flatMap(a => y.map(b => (a, b)))

def product[M[_]: Monad, A, B](x: M[A], y: M[B]): M[(A, B)] =
  for {
    a <- x
    b <- y
  } yield (a, b)

import cats.instances.list._ // for Semigroupal

product(List(1, 2), List(3, 4))
// res12: List[(Int, Int)] = List((1,3), (1,4), (2,3), (2,4))

type ErrorOr[A] = Either[Vector[String], A]

product[ErrorOr, Int, Int](
  Left(Vector("Error 1")),
  Left(Vector("Error 2"))
)
// res13: ErrorOr[(Int, Int)] = Left(Vector(Error 1))

6.4 Validated

By now we are familiar with the fail-fast error handling behaviour of Either. Furthermore, because Either is a monad, we know that the semantics of product are the same as those for flatMap. In fact, it is impossible for us to design a monadic data type that implements error accumulating semantics without breaking the consistency of these two methods.

Fortunately, Cats provides a data type called Validated that has an instance of Semigroupal but no instance of Monad. The implementation of product is therefore free to accumulate errors:

import cats.Semigroupal
import cats.data.Validated
import cats.instances.list._ // for Monoid

type AllErrorsOr[A] = Validated[List[String], A]

Semigroupal[AllErrorsOr].product(
  Validated.invalid(List("Error 1")),
  Validated.invalid(List("Error 2"))
)
// res1: AllErrorsOr[(Nothing, Nothing)] = Invalid(List(Error 1, Error 2))

Validated complements Either nicely. Between the two we have support for both of the common types of error handling: fail-fast and accumulating.

6.4.1 Creating Instances of Validated

Validated has two subtypes, Validated.Valid and Validated.Invalid, that correspond loosely to Right and Left. There are a lot of ways to create instances of these types. We can create them directly using their apply methods:

val v = Validated.Valid(123)
// v: cats.data.Validated.Valid[Int] = Valid(123)

val i = Validated.Invalid(List("Badness"))
// i: cats.data.Validated.Invalid[List[String]] = Invalid(List(Badness))

However, it is often easier to use the valid and invalid smart constructors, which widen the return type to Validated:

val v = Validated.valid[List[String], Int](123)
// v: cats.data.Validated[List[String],Int] = Valid(123)

val i = Validated.invalid[List[String], Int](List("Badness"))
// i: cats.data.Validated[List[String],Int] = Invalid(List(Badness))

As a third option we can import the valid and invalid extension methods from cats.syntax.validated:

import cats.syntax.validated._ // for valid and invalid

123.valid[List[String]]
// res2: cats.data.Validated[List[String],Int] = Valid(123)

List("Badness").invalid[Int]
// res3: cats.data.Validated[List[String],Int] = Invalid(List(Badness))

As a fourth option we can use pure and raiseError from cats.syntax.applicative and cats.syntax.applicativeError respectively:

import cats.syntax.applicative._      // for pure
import cats.syntax.applicativeError._ // for raiseError

type ErrorsOr[A] = Validated[List[String], A]

123.pure[ErrorsOr]
// res5: ErrorsOr[Int] = Valid(123)

List("Badness").raiseError[ErrorsOr, Int]
// res6: ErrorsOr[Int] = Invalid(List(Badness))

Finally, there are helper methods to create instances of Validated from different sources. We can create them from Exceptions, as well as instances of Try, Either, and Option:

Validated.catchOnly[NumberFormatException]("foo".toInt)
// res7: cats.data.Validated[NumberFormatException,Int] = Invalid(java.lang.NumberFormatException: For input string: "foo")

Validated.catchNonFatal(sys.error("Badness"))
// res8: cats.data.Validated[Throwable,Nothing] = Invalid(java.lang.RuntimeException: Badness)

Validated.fromTry(scala.util.Try("foo".toInt))
// res9: cats.data.Validated[Throwable,Int] = Invalid(java.lang.NumberFormatException: For input string: "foo")

Validated.fromEither[String, Int](Left("Badness"))
// res10: cats.data.Validated[String,Int] = Invalid(Badness)

Validated.fromOption[String, Int](None, "Badness")
// res11: cats.data.Validated[String,Int] = Invalid(Badness)