Say I have the following function:
def getRemoteThingy(id: Id): EitherT[Future, NonEmptyList[Error], Thingy]
Given a List[Id]
, I can easily easily retrieve a List[Thingy]
by using Traverse[List]
:
val thingies: EitherT[Future, NonEmptyList[Error], List[Thingy]] =
ids.traverseU(getRemoteThingy)
It will use the Applicative
instance for EitherT
which will be based on flatMap
so I will only get the first NonEmptyList[Error]
, it won't append all of them. Is that correct?
Now, if I actually want to accumulate errors, I can switch between EitherT
and Validation
. For example:
def thingies2: EitherT[Future, NonEmptyList[Error], List[Thingy]] =
EitherT(ids.traverseU(id => getRemoteThingy(id).validation).map(_.sequenceU.disjunction))
It works, I get all the errors at the end, but it is pretty cumbersome. I can make it simpler by using Applicative
composition:
type ValidationNelError[A] = Validation[NonEmptyList[Error], A]
type FutureValidationNelError[A] = Future[ValidationNelError[A]]
implicit val App: Applicative[FutureValidationNelError] =
Applicative[Future].compose[ValidationNelError]
def thingies3: EitherT[Future, NonEmptyList[Error], List[Thingy]] =
EitherT(
ids.traverse[FutureValidationNelError, Thingy](id =>
getRemoteThingy(id).validation
).map(_.disjunction)
)
Longer than the others but all the plumbing can easily be shared across the code base.
What do you think of my solutions? Is there a more elegant way to solve this problem? How do you usually tackle it?
Thank you very much.
EDIT:
I have kind of a mad man solution using natural transformations to pimp Traversable
. You apparently need type aliases for it to work, that's why I redefined getRemoteThingy
:
type FutureEitherNelError[A] = EitherT[Future, NonEmptyList[String], A]
def getRemoteThingy2(id: Id): FutureEitherNelError[Thingy] = getRemoteThingy(id)
implicit val EitherTToValidation = new NaturalTransformation[FutureEitherNelError, FutureValidationNelError] {
def apply[A](eitherT: FutureEitherNelError[A]): FutureValidationNelError[A] = eitherT.validation
}
implicit val ValidationToEitherT = new NaturalTransformation[FutureValidationNelError, FutureEitherNelError] {
def apply[A](validation: FutureValidationNelError[A]): FutureEitherNelError[A] = EitherT(validation.map(_.disjunction))
}
implicit class RichTraverse[F[_], A](fa: F[A]) {
def traverseUsing[H[_]]: TraverseUsing[F, H, A] = TraverseUsing(fa)
}
case class TraverseUsing[F[_], H[_], A](fa: F[A]) {
def apply[G[_], B](f: A => G[B])(implicit GtoH: G ~> H, HtoG: H ~> G, A: Applicative[H], T: Traverse[F]): G[F[B]] =
HtoG(fa.traverse(a => GtoH(f(a))))
}
def thingies4: FutureEitherNelError[List[Thingy]] =
ids.traverseUsing[FutureValidationNelError](getRemoteThingy2)
disjunctionedT
or something to make it work with transformers. I'll give it a try. – Mythological