Monads, Functors, & More in Stable Rust
Haskell-style monads with macro-free Rust syntax.
Types work with zero annotations
A fancy example (that compiles and runs as a test in gallery.rs):
rust
assert_eq!(
vec![
|| "this string isn't a number",
|| "67",
|| "that was, but not binary",
|| "1010101010",
|| "that was, but more than 8 bits",
|| "101010",
|| "that one should work!",
|| panic!("lazy evaluation!"),
]
.fmap(|x| move || u8::from_str_radix(x(), 2).ok())
.asum(),
Some(42)
);
Desugared do-notation:
```rust
assert_eq!(
list![1..20]
|x| {
list![{ x }..20]
|y| {
list![{ y }..20]
|z| guard::>(x * x + y * y == z * z) >> |_| list![(x, y, z)]
}
},
list![
// Including "non-primitive" (i.e. multiples of smaller) triples
(3, 4, 5),
(5, 12, 13),
(6, 8, 10),
(8, 15, 17),
(9, 12, 15)
]
);
```
The logic of Haskell lists with the speed of Rust vectors:
rust
use rsmonad::prelude::*;
let li = list![1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
fn and_ten(x: u8) -> List<u8> { list![x, 10 * x] }
assert_eq!(li >> and_ten, list![1, 10, 2, 20, 3, 30, 4, 40, 5, 50]);
N-fold bind without type annotations:
rust
// from the wonderful Haskell docs: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Haskell/Understanding_monads/List
fn bunny(s: &str) -> List<&str> {
list![s, s, s]
}
assert_eq!(
list!["bunny"] >> bunny,
list!["bunny", "bunny", "bunny"],
);
assert_eq!(
list!["bunny"] >> bunny >> bunny,
list!["bunny", "bunny", "bunny", "bunny", "bunny", "bunny", "bunny", "bunny", "bunny"],
);
And even the notoriously tricky join-in-terms-of-bind with no type annotations necessary:
rust
let li = list![list![0_u8]]; // List<List<u8>>
let joined = li.join(); // --> List<u8>!
assert_eq!(joined, list![0]);
Syntactic sugar
- Rust requires
>>= to be self-modifying, so we use >> instead. return (keyword) becomes consume and Haskell's >> becomes &.
- Function-application order is standardized across the board to match
>>= instead of <$>: it's x.fmap(f) to mean f <$> x.
- I think this makes it easier to read as a chain of computations, but I'm not dead-set on it, and the type system would work either way.
- For functors, you can use
fmap(f, x) or x.fmap(f), or you can pipe it: x % f % g % ....
Applicative uses * instead of <*> (or the explicit method tie).Alternative uses | instead of <|> (or the explicit method either).- Monoids use
+ instead of <>.
Use
Just write a monad! { ... and you get all its superclasses (Functor, Applicative, Alternative, ...) for free, plus property-based tests of the monad laws:
```rust
use rsmonad::prelude::*;
enum Maybe {
Just(A),
Nothing,
}
monad! {
Maybe:
fn consume(a) {
Just(a)
}
fn bind(self, f) {
match self {
Just(a) => f(a),
Nothing => Nothing,
}
}
}
// And these just work:
// Monad
asserteq(Just(4) >> |x| u8::checkedadd(x, 1).into(), Just(5));
asserteq(Nothing >> |x| u8::checkedadd(x, 1).into(), Nothing);
asserteq(Just(255) >> |x| u8::checkedadd(x, 1).into(), Nothing);
// Functor
asserteq!(Just(4) | u8::ispoweroftwo, Just(true));
asserteq!(Nothing | u8::ispoweroftwo, Nothing);
```
Rust-specific monads
Catch panics without worrying about the details:
rust
fn afraid_of_circles(x: u8) -> BlastDoor<()> {
if x == 0 { panic!("aaaaaa!"); }
Phew(())
}
assert_eq!(
Phew(42) >> afraid_of_circles,
Phew(())
);
assert_eq!(
Phew(0) >> afraid_of_circles,
Kaboom,
);
Sharp edges
Right now, you can use >> for bind only when you have a concrete instance of Monad like Maybe but not a general <M: Monad<A>>.
The latter still works but requires an explicit call to m.bind(f) (or, if you don't use the trait, Monad::<A>::bind(m, f)).
This should be fixed with the Rust's non-lifetime binder feature when it rolls out.
"Cannot find type ... in this scope" in a doctest
Doctests try to guess where to place a fn main { ... } if you don't provide one, and sometimes it reads an rsmonad macro as something that should be in a main block.
Try adding an explicit fn main () { ... } around the statements you want to run.
If you don't want fn main() { ... } to show up in documentation but can't fix this error, comment it out:
rust
/// monad! { ... }
/// # fn main {
/// a();
/// b();
/// c();
/// # }
#![no_std]
Disable default features:
```toml
Cargo.toml
[dependencies]
rsmonad = { version = "*", default-features = false }
```
Note that this will also disable List,though this is probably what you want: we can't know its length at compile time (that's the point of its bind implementation), so it requires a heap.
An alloc feature is in the works for #![no_std] extern crate alloc; crates, but it's not finalized yet.