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Type classes: pattern matching for types

Justin Woo
October 18, 2018

Type classes: pattern matching for types

Talk given at PureScript Helsinki meetup held in Tampere

Justin Woo

October 18, 2018
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  1. Type classes: pattern matching for types
    Justin Woo
    October 18 2018
    Justin Woo Type classes: pattern matching for types October 18 2018 1 / 23

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  2. What is PureScript?
    A language similar to Haskell
    Users program using types and values
    Values match the types, usage of values type-checked
    Users can statically derive values via types
    Justin Woo Type classes: pattern matching for types October 18 2018 2 / 23

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  3. What are data types?
    data Maybe a = Just a | Nothing
    Key parts:
    data: begins the data type declaration
    Maybe: the name of our data type
    a: a parameter of our data type
    Just: A constructor of Maybe
    |: Separates constructors in our type
    For a given data type, there are one or more constructors.
    Justin Woo Type classes: pattern matching for types October 18 2018 3 / 23

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  4. What are constructors?
    Constructors are values that are or can be used to create values of our data type:
    data Maybe a = Just a | Nothing
    mkJust :: forall a. a -> Maybe a
    mkJust = Just
    mkNothing :: forall a. Maybe a
    mkNothing = Nothing
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  5. What is pattern matching?
    We’ve seen how to construct values of data types, but how do we then match on
    constructors of data types?
    Using case expressions:
    isJust :: forall a. Maybe a -> Boolean
    isJust m = case m of
    Just x -> true
    Nothing -> false
    At definition sites:
    isJust' :: forall a. Maybe a -> Boolean
    isJust' (Just x) = true
    isJust' Nothing = false
    Justin Woo Type classes: pattern matching for types October 18 2018 5 / 23

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  6. Recap: data types
    Users can define data types
    The most commonly useful data types have multiple constructors*
    Sum members can be pattern matched for
    *i.e. they are Sum types
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  7. To the type level
    Four things we need to learn to work with the type level:
    1 What are type classes?
    2 What are instances?
    3 What are kinds?
    4 What are proxies?
    Justin Woo Type classes: pattern matching for types October 18 2018 7 / 23

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  8. 1. What are type classes?
    Type classes are a way to match on types based on kinds, allowing for defining
    methods for types which have an instance of a given class
    class Show a where
    show :: a -> String
    Justin Woo Type classes: pattern matching for types October 18 2018 8 / 23

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  9. 2. What are instances?
    An instance is a definition for a class for a matched type by an instance head
    instance showString :: Show String where
    show s = s
    myString :: String
    myString = show "value"
    Justin Woo Type classes: pattern matching for types October 18 2018 9 / 23

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  10. 3. What are kinds?
    Kinds are a “type of types”, of which the most common is Type and has
    associated runtime values.
    foreign import data ForeignData :: Type
    foreign import kind MaybeTy
    foreign import data JustTy :: Type -> MaybeTy
    foreign import data NothingTy :: MaybeTy
    Justin Woo Type classes: pattern matching for types October 18 2018 10 / 23

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  11. 4. What are Proxies?
    A proxy is a data type that has a parameter of a given kind, where the parameter
    is not exposed as a value.
    -- no kind signature: inferred as Type
    data Proxy ty = Proxy
    data Proxy2 (ty :: Type) = Proxy2
    data MaybeTyProxy (mt :: MaybeTy) = MaybeTyProxy
    justIntProxy :: MaybeTyProxy (JustTy Int)
    justIntProxy = MaybeTyProxy
    Justin Woo Type classes: pattern matching for types October 18 2018 11 / 23

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  12. How do these come together?
    With these pieces, now we can see the correspondence:
    values : Types :: types : kinds
    case of : class
    branch : instance
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  13. Example
    Now let’s try pattern matching on the MaybeTy:
    class IsJustTy (mt :: MaybeTy) where
    isJustTy :: MaybeTyProxy mt -> Boolean
    instance justTyIsJustTy :: IsJustTy (JustTy a) where
    isJustTy _ = true
    instance nothingTyIsJustTy :: IsJustTy NothingTy where
    isJustTy _ = false
    result :: Boolean
    result = isJustTy justIntProxy
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  14. What if we wanted to return the result in the type level?
    We can use multi-param type classes, along with functional dependencies
    (“fundeps”):
    class IsJustTy (mt :: MaybeTy) (result :: Type.Data.Boolean)
    | mt -> result
    instance justTypeIsJustTy ::
    IsJustTy (JustTy a) Type.Data.True
    instance nothingTypeIsJustTy ::
    IsJustTy NothingTy Type.Data.False
    The parameter mt determines result, i.e. instances can be matched for by mt
    alone.
    Justin Woo Type classes: pattern matching for types October 18 2018 14 / 23

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  15. Example usage in function definition:
    getIsJustTy ::
    forall mt b.
    IsJustTy mt b =>
    MaybeTyProxy mt -> Type.Data.BProxy b
    getIsJustTy _ = Type.Data.BProxy
    result' :: Type.Data.BProxy Type.Data.True
    result' = getIsJustTy (MaybeTyProxy :: MaybeTyProxy (JustTy Int))
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  16. Some important notes
    Kinds are not closed, unlike sum types
    If anything, the parallel is closer with an open polymorphic variant.
    Instances are “partial”
    Compilation fails when instances cannot be found with No type class
    instance was found for _.
    There are some limited ways of doing wildcard matches for type
    classes
    e.g. using instance chains (groups) in PureScript 0.12 to constrain instances to a
    module in a continuous group.
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  17. So why do we care about Type Classes?
    We should be able to derive information and/or values from static
    information.
    Computers should do work for us, not the other way around.
    Runtime checks for static information leave much to be desired
    Leaving calculations to the runtime that should be verified in compile time leaves
    us with dead code paths at best. And really, is there actually a difference between
    an incorrect program and crashes and an incorrect program that “never crashes”
    but always ends up in an invalid path?
    Why shouldn’t we actually program using type information?
    Why should we use types only to check some usages of values rather than reduce
    error-prone work and more powerfully extract values from static information?
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  18. Example: JSON decoding
    Common error cases when manually writing code that should be derived from the
    type information:
    type DecodeResult a = Either DecodeError a
    type MyRecord = { apple :: String, banana :: Int }
    readMyRecord1 :: Foreign -> DecodeResult MyRecord
    readMyRecord1 f = do
    apple <- readString =<< readProperty "apple"
    banana <- readInt =<< readProperty "apple"
    pure { apple, banana }
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  19. readMyRecord2 :: Foreign -> DecodeResult MyRecord
    readMyRecord2 f = do
    apple <- readString =<< readProperty "apple" f
    banana <- readString =<< readProperty "banana" f
    pure { apple, banana }
    type OtherRecord = { cherry :: String, durian :: String }
    mkOtherRecord :: String -> String -> OtherRecord
    mkOtherRecord -- ...
    readOtherRecord :: Foreign -> DecodeResult OtherRecord
    readOtherRecord f =
    mkOtherRecord
    <$> readString =<< readProperty "durian" f
    <*> readString =<< readProperty "cherry" f
    Justin Woo Type classes: pattern matching for types October 18 2018 19 / 23

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  20. If all you want to do is read the type at the given field with the correct label and
    type, why even deal with this?
    Use Simple-JSON github.com/justinwoo/purescript-simple-json
    type MyJSON =
    { apple :: String
    , banana :: Int
    , cherry :: Maybe Boolean
    }
    decodeToMyJSON :: String -> SimpleJSON.E MyJSON
    decodeToMyJSON = SimpleJSON.readJSON
    This is also flexible for inferred field type changing, field addition/removal, etc.
    Justin Woo Type classes: pattern matching for types October 18 2018 20 / 23

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  21. Example 2: Parse parameters out of a static type-level
    string
    If we have a static parameterized SQLite query, we should be able to build up the
    request query type:
    getEm :: forall a b.
    AllowedParamType a => AllowedParamType b =>
    DBConnection
    -> { "$name" :: a, "$count" :: b }
    -> Aff Foreign
    getEm db = J.queryDB db $ SProxy :: SProxy """
    select name, count from mytable
    where name = $name and count = $count
    """
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  22. And we can:
    queryDB ::
    forall query params.
    IsSymbol query => ExtractParams query params =>
    SQLite3.DBConnection
    -> SProxy query
    -> { | params }
    -> Aff Foreign
    See more: speakerdeck.com/justinwoo/superior-string-spaghetti-with-purescript
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  23. Conclusion
    There is a parallel between pattern matching of values of a Type and type
    classes of types of a kind.
    The parallel is not a perfect correspondence, which also sometimes helps us
    more easily use type information to derive routines and values from types.
    We can avoid error-prone (non-)boilerplate and use type classes to allow us
    to take advantage of dependent-typed techniques with PureScript.
    You don’t have to rely on code generation or the whims of thoughtleaders to
    make things work the way you see fit!
    Justin Woo Type classes: pattern matching for types October 18 2018 23 / 23

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