scalaintellij-ideafunctional-programmingimplicitkleisli

Scala Kleisli throws an error in IntelliJ


trying to implement Kleisli category for a made-up Partial type in Scala (reading Bartosz Milewski's "category theory for programmers", that's exersize for chapter 4)

object Kleisli {
  type Partial[A, B] = A => Option[B]

  implicit class KleisliOps[A, B](f1: Partial[A, B]) {

    def >=>[C](f2: Partial[B, C]): Partial[A, C] =
      (x: A) =>
        for {
          y <- f1(x)
          z <- f2(y)
        } yield z

    def identity(f: Partial[A, B]): Partial[A, B] = x => f(x)

  }

  val safeRecip: Partial[Double, Double] = {
    case 0d => None
    case x => Some(1d / x)
  }

  val safeRoot: Partial[Double, Double] = {
    case x if x < 0 => None
    case x => Some(Math.sqrt(x))
  }
  
  val safeRootRecip: Partial[Double, Double] = safeRoot.>=>(safeRecip) 
  
  safeRootRecip(1d)
  safeRootRecip(10d)
  safeRootRecip(0d)
}

IDE (IntelliJ) shows no errors, but when I run this snippet, I get:

Error:(27, 57) value >=> is not a member of $line5.$read.$iw.$iw.Kleisli.Partial[Double,Double]
val safeRootRecip: Partial[Double, Double] = safeRoot.>=>(safeRecip)

Defining >=> outside of implicit class works fine. What could be the reason?


Solution

  • @sinanspd was right. In Dotty the code seems to compile: https://scastie.scala-lang.org/n17APWgMQkWqy93ct2cghw

    Manually resolved

    val safeRootRecip: Partial[Double, Double] = KleisliOps(safeRoot).>=>(safeRecip)
    

    compiles but compiler doesn't find this conversion itself

    Information: KleisliOps{<null>} is not a valid implicit value 
      for App.safeRoot.type => ?{def >=> : ?} because:
    type mismatch;
     found   : App.safeRoot.type (with underlying type App.Partial[Double,Double])
     required: App.Partial[A,Double]
        (which expands to)  A => Option[Double]
      val safeRootRecip: Partial[Double, Double] = safeRoot.>=>(safeRecip)
    

    It seems type parameter A is not inferred.

    (By the way, here Martin Odersky explains why presence of implicit conversions in language makes type inference worse: https://contributors.scala-lang.org/t/can-we-wean-scala-off-implicit-conversions/4388)

    Try to make Partial covariant with respect to B and (especially) contravariant with respect to A (similarly to A => Option[B] being covariant with respect to B and contravariant with respect to A)

    type Partial[-A, +B] = A => Option[B]
    

    Then the code seems to compile.

    Another workaround is to replace implicit conversions (X => Y, KleisliOps) with a type class (MyTransform) and implicit conversion (myConversion) defined in terms of this type class (sometimes this helps with implicit conversions)

    trait MyTransform[X, Y] {
      def transform(x: X): Y
    }
    implicit def myConversion[X, Y](x: X)(implicit mt: MyTransform[X, Y]): Y = 
      mt.transform(x)
    
    type Partial[A, B] = A => Option[B]
    
    implicit def partialToKleisliOps[A, B]: MyTransform[Partial[A, B], KleisliOps[A, B]] = 
      f1 => new KleisliOps(f1)
    class KleisliOps[A, B](f1: Partial[A, B]) {    
      def >=>[C](f2: Partial[B, C]): Partial[A, C] =
        (x: A) =>
          for {
            y <- f1(x)
            z <- f2(y)
          } yield z
    
      def identity(f: Partial[A, B]): Partial[A, B] = x => f(x)
    }