Mutated lenses

Posted on 2017-04-07 by Oleg Grenrus lens

It's not an April's Fool day anymore, but don't take this seriously anyway. Tongue in cheek literate Haskell post on lenses (if interested in more serious ones, see Compiling Lenses, and Affine Traversal ).

A quote by metafunctor

Haskell is so advanced that a inordinate amount of literature is devoted to what in any standard language would be simple getters setters and loops.
For loops are too much for me, but getters and setters we can do (in Haskell).

#Preamble

{-# LANGUAGE KindSignatures #-}
{-# LANGUAGE RankNTypes #-}
{-# LANGUAGE TypeOperators #-}
{-# LANGUAGE ScopedTypeVariables #-}
module MutatedLens where
import Control.Monad.ST
import Control.Lens
import Data.STRef

#Mutated Lens

readSTRef and writeSTRef types are just right so we can pass them into lens

stref :: Lens (STRef s a) (ST s ()) (ST s a) a
stref = lens readSTRef writeSTRef

Unfortunately the type of view is too restrictive, so we have to define a polymorphic version:

type GettingP r s t a b = (a -> Const r b) -> s -> Const r t

viewP :: GettingP a s t a b -> s -> a
viewP f s = getConst (f Const s)

Seems to work:

λ> :t viewP stref 
viewP stref :: STRef s a -> ST s a

#Example

Let's define an imperative record, with mutable fields:

data ImpRecord s = ImpRecord
    { _intField  :: STRef s Int
    , _boolField :: STRef s Bool
    }

and a "lens" into the first field:

intField :: Lens (ImpRecord s) (ST s ()) (STRef s Int) (ST s ())
intField = lens _intField (\_ -> id)

Now we can read and write through intField and stref. First we create a record, then read its field; after that we mutate the field and read it again:

program :: ST s (Int, Int)
program = do
    iRef <- newSTRef 1
    bRef <- newSTRef True
    let mrecord = ImpRecord iRef bRef

    i1 <- viewP (intField . stref) mrecord

    set (intField . stref) 2 mrecord
    i2 <- viewP (intField . stref) mrecord

    pure (i1, i2)

If we run the program, it works:

λ> print (runST program)
(1,2)

The problem with this approach, is that we cannot drill through STRef s (STRef s) ....

#Serious bit

Normal lens are in (->), but we can work in Kleisli (ST s) too. So if we change all normal arrows to Kleisli (ST s) (yet unwrapped), we can define STLens:

type STLens z s t a b = forall f. MonadTransFunctor f =>
    (ST z a -> f (ST z) b) -> s -> f (ST z) t

class MonadTransFunctor t where
    tfmap    :: Monad m => (a -> m b) -> t m a -> t m b
    semibind :: Monad m => m a -> (a -> t m b) -> t m b

stlens :: (s -> ST z a) -> (s -> b -> ST z t) -> STLens z s t a b
stlens getter setter f s = tfmap (setter s) (f (getter s))

They compose:

infixr 8 `o`
o :: STLens z s t a b -> STLens z a b u v -> STLens z s t u v
o stab abuv f s = stab (\sta -> semibind sta $ \a -> abuv f a) s

and we can redefine stref':

stref' :: STLens z (STRef z a) (STRef z a) a a
stref' = stlens readSTRef (\s b -> writeSTRef s b >> pure s)

The following definitions for stview and stover are very similar to lens counterparts.

#STGetting

newtype ConstT r (m :: * -> *) a = ConstT { getConstT :: m r }

instance MonadTransFunctor (ConstT r) where
    tfmap f (ConstT r) = ConstT r
    semibind m k = ConstT $ m >>= getConstT . k

type STGetting r z s a =
    (ST z a -> ConstT r (ST z) a) -> s -> ConstT r (ST z) s

stview :: STGetting a z s a -> s -> ST z a
stview l s = getConstT (l ConstT s)

#STSetter

newtype IdentityT m a = IdentityT { runIdentityT :: m a }

type STSetter z s t a b =
    (ST z a -> IdentityT (ST z) b) -> s -> IdentityT (ST z) t

instance MonadTransFunctor IdentityT where
    tfmap f (IdentityT x) = IdentityT (x >>= f)
    semibind m k = IdentityT (m >>= runIdentityT . k)

stover :: STSetter z s t a b -> (a -> ST z b) -> s -> ST z t
stover l f s = runIdentityT (l (\a -> IdentityT (a >>= f)) s)

stset :: STSetter z s t a b -> s -> b -> ST z t
stset l s b = stover l (\_ -> pure b) s

#Example

And we can now drill through multiple STRef!

program2 :: ST s (Int, Int)
program2 = do
    ref1 <- newSTRef 42
    ref2 <- newSTRef ref1

    i1 <- stview (stref' `o` stref') ref2

    _ <- stset (stref' `o` stref') ref2 99
    i2 <- stview (stref' `o` stref') ref2

    pure (i1, i2)
λ> print (runST program2)
(42,99)

#Conclusion

So, yet another example that Haskell is good imperative language. And we can have controlled effects in imperative language, you just need expressive enough language. :)


You can run this file with

stack --resolver=nightly-2017-03-01 ghci --ghci-options='-pgmL markdown-unlit'
λ> :l mutated-lenses.lhs

fetch the source from https://gist.github.com/phadej/a74f0d14749a352b9b3430c10bf35706

Site proudly generated by Hakyll