In this post, we will demonstrate a technique called type refinement (Aux pattern) that was covered in a Spartan session by John De Goes.
We would like to solve the following problem: Given a Member and a Family, we would like to make sure a Selection is valid at compile-time. A Selection is valid only if the Member provided belongs to the Family passed in parameter.
case class Member(name: String)
sealed trait Family
case class Selection(family: Family, member: Member)
A first approach consists in providing a type parameter:
case class Member[A](name: String)
sealed trait Family[A]
case class Selection[A](family: Family[A], member: Member[A])
This would work to a certain extent but the compiler could still be cheated by providing a Member having the same type than a Family while not belonging to it:
trait SomeType
val lennon: Family[SomeType] = new Family[SomeType] {}
val mccartney: Family[SomeType] = new Family[SomeType] {}
val john = Member[SomeType]("John")
val paul = Member[SomeType]("Paul")
Selection(lennon, john) // compiles
Selection(lennon, paul) // compiles
This tells us that a Family's type should not be exposed. Let’s use a type member to hide this information:
case class Member[A](name: String)
sealed trait Family {
type Tag
}
object Family {
def mk: Family = new Family {}
}
Tag is a type member and therefore unique to each Family instance. Secondly, as Family is sealed, it cannot be instantiated from outside the file where it is defined, hence the smart constructor Family.mk. This prevents a user from defining a Tag that could be used for more than one Family.
Notice also that a value for Tag does not need to be provided when instantiating a Family. We are not done however, as the question is now how to ensure the selection is valid:
case class Selection[A](family: Family, member: Member[???])
Ideally, we would like to provide the Member type constructor with the Tag of the Family passed in argument:
case class Selection[A](
family: Family,
member: Member[family.Tag]
) // does not compile
This approach, unfortunately, does not work but there is a workaround known as the Aux pattern. One way to think about this pattern is to see Aux as a getter for some type information encapsulated in the Family type.
case class Member[A](name: String)
sealed trait Family {
type Tag
}
object Family {
type Aux[A] = Family { type Tag = A }
def mk: Family = new Family {}
}
case class Selection[A](family: Family.Aux[A], member: Member[A])
This now guarantees that Family#Tag is equal to A:
val (f1, f2) = (Family.mk, Family.mk)
val john = Member[f1.Tag]("John")
val paul = Member[f2.Tag]("Paul")
Selection(f1, john) // compiles
Selection(f1, paul) // does not compile
The Aux pattern is a great tool whenever you want to add type constraints while not exposing some internal aspects of DSL. In a future post, we will cover a concrete use case relying on it.