Can 'map' and 'reduce' be implemented in Go with generics - go

I decided that now that generics have been introduced into Go that something like map/reduce should be possible. So, I took a naive stab at it and I get the error:
./prog.go:18:36: cannot use thing (variable of type int) as type I in argument to mapper
Which doesn't explain if the problem is fundamental or I am simply doing something wrong syntactically. Can generic map/reduce be implemented in Go?
package main
import "fmt"
func main() {
things := []int{1, 2, 3, 4}
results := Map(things, func(t int) int {
return t + 1
})
fmt.Printf("%v", results)
}
func Map[I interface{}, O interface{}](things []I, mapper func(thing I) O) []O {
results := make([]O, 0, len(things))
for thing := range things {
results = append(results, mapper(thing))
}
return results
}

You have incorrect use of range. A single variable extracted from range will be the index (type int), not the value (type I, which is only coincidentally int in this case).
Try
for _, thing := range things{...}

This can be done quite easily. You have an error in your code, though right here:
for thing := range things {
You are iterating over the index values (int), not the values of type I. You're also specifying 2 constraints (types I and O) both set to be interface{}. You can just use any instead (it's shorthand for interface{})
So simply write:
func Map[T any, O any](things []T, mapper func(thing T) O) []O {
result := make([]O, 0, len(things))
for _, thing := range things {
result = append(result, mapper(thing))
}
return result
}
Demo
This is quite closely related to some code I reviewed on codereview exchange here. After going through the code, and writing snippets with a ton of suggestions, I decided to just create a package and throw it up on github instead. You can find the repo here.
In it, there's some examples that may come in handy, or help you work through some other quirks WRT generics in golang. I wsa specifically thinking about this bit, where you can filter a generic map type using callbacks like so:
// given the sMap type
type sMap[K comparable, V any] struct {
mu *sync.RWMutex
m map[K]V
}
// Filter returns a map containing the elements that matched the filter callback argument
func (s *sMap[K, V]) Filter(cb func(K, V) bool) map[K]V {
s.mu.RLock()
defer s.mu.RUnlock()
ret := make(map[K]V, len(s.m))
for k, v := range s.m {
if cb(k, v) {
ret[k] = v
}
}
return ret
}

Related

Function that takes map and only cares about key type

I have two maps, both of them are keyed by strings, but the values are of two different custom types.
map[string]type1
map[string]type2
Now I want to write a function which can take an argument of either of these two types, because that function only looks at the keys and doesn't care about the values at all. So I think it should look like this:
func takeTheMap(argument map[string]interface{}) {
...
But that doesn't work due to:
cannot use myVariable (type map[string]customType) as type map[string]interface {} in argument to takeTheMap
https://play.golang.org/p/4Xkhi4HekO5
Can I make that work somehow?
The only polymorphism in Go is interfaces. The only alternatives to that are reflection, duplication, or rethinking the broader design so that you don't need to do what you're trying to do here.
If the last option isn't a possibility, personally I would recommend duplication, since it's a whole four lines of code.
keys := make([]string, 0, len(myMap))
for key,_ := range myMap {
keys = append(keys,key)
}
A big complicated generic helper seems kind of unnecessary.
A solution using an interface. This example may seem a bit overkill and it may be better to in your case (I'm not sure, not enough details in your example) to just use a couple of for loops.
package main
import (
"fmt"
)
type foo bool
type bar string
type mapOne map[string]foo
type mapTwo map[string]bar
func (m mapOne) Keys() []string {
s := []string{}
for k := range m {
s = append(s, k)
}
return s
}
func (m mapTwo) Keys() []string {
s := []string{}
for k := range m {
s = append(s, k)
}
return s
}
type ToKeys interface {
Keys() []string
}
func main() {
m1 := mapOne{"one": true, "two": false}
m2 := mapTwo{"three": "foo", "four": "bar"}
doSomething(m1)
doSomething(m2)
}
func doSomething(m ToKeys) {
fmt.Println(m.Keys())
}
Playground example

How to delete different type of slice using only 1 methods

I have 2 go functions like following
func removeL2McEntry(a []api.L2McEntry, index int) []api.L2McEntry {
a = append(a[:index], a[index+1:]...)
element
return a[:len(a)]
}
func removeVlagBasedGroup(a []api.VlanPortBased, index int) []api.VlanPortBased {
a = append(a[:index], a[index+1:]...)
return a[:len(a)]
}
As you can see, both functions are doing the same work. But I need to separate them because the outputs and the inputs of the functions are different type.
I have tried:
func removeSlice(a interface{}, idx int) interface{} {
switch v := a.(type) {
case []string:
v = append(v[:idx], v[idx+1:]...)
fmt.Println("is ary", v)
return v[:len(v)]
case []int:
v = append(v[:idx], v[idx+1:]...)
fmt.Println("is ary", v)
return v[:len(v)]
default:
}
return nil
}
But there is too many repetitive code in this way.
Is there any way to make it just one function and reduce the repetitive code?
Thanks in advance.
As Adrian noted, removing an element from a slice is one line of code, in general:
a = append(a[:i], a[i+1]...)
// or
a = a[:i+copy(a[i:], a[i+1:])]
It's not really worth writing a function for it, just use this code snippet where needed.
If you do need to create a function that can handle any slice types, it can be created using reflection. But when using it, you will have to use a type assertion on the result, as the function can only return a static type of interface{}. It will also be slower than using the above snippet on your concrete slice value!
The above remove steps can be "reproduced" using the reflect package. Slicing is the Value.Slice() method, and the append operation is the reflect.AppendSlice() function.
This is how it could look like (types and bound checks omitted):
func remove(s interface{}, i int) interface{} {
v := reflect.ValueOf(s)
return reflect.AppendSlice(v.Slice(0, i), v.Slice(i+1, v.Len())).Interface()
}
Testing it:
is := []int{0, 1, 2, 3}
is = remove(is, 2).([]int)
fmt.Printf("%#v\n", is)
ss := []string{"0", "1", "2", "3"}
ss = remove(ss, 2).([]string)
fmt.Printf("%#v\n", ss)
Output (try it on the Go Playground):
[]int{0, 1, 3}
[]string{"0", "1", "3"}
But again: I don't advise anyone to use this (although working) code, just remove the element directly with the original snippet.

How to write a pop() function

a := []int{1,2,3}
x, a := a[len(a)-1], a[:len(a)-1]
fmt.Println(a,x)
How to create a pop() function that will do the same for any type of an array?
Here is what I came up with so far:
func pop(a []*interface{}) interface{}{
x := a[len(a)-1]
a = a[:len(a)-1]
return x
}
func main(){
a := []int{1,2,3}
x = pop(a)
fmt.Println(a,x) // -> [1,2] 3
}
But I get cannot use a (type []int) as type []interface {}or other error messages if I try to tweak the code by trial and error.
package main
import (
"fmt"
"reflect"
)
func pop(a interface{}) interface{} {
v := reflect.ValueOf(a).Elem()
x := v.Index(v.Len() - 1)
v.SetLen(v.Len() - 1)
return x
}
func main() {
a := []int{1, 2, 3}
x := pop(&a)
fmt.Println(a, x) // -> [1,2] 3
}
Though this can be implemented, I still think that x, a = a[len(a)-1], a[:len(a)-1] should be better than a pop function.
The go type system doesn't allow you to cast from []type1 -> []type2. Even if it did interfaces are a struct containing a type id and pointer to the object, where normally you would just have the object. Because of this you need to take a interface{} and use reflect to do the slicing.
func pop(slice interface{}) (interface{}, interface{}) {
v := reflect.ValueOf(slice)
return v.Slice(0,v.Len()-1).Interface(), v.Index(v.Len()-1).Interface()
}
Go Playground
Note that this loses compile time type safety, because it must use an interface. Additionally, due to using interfaces the poped value may be allocated, creating extra GC pressure.
Common Go style typically recommends not writing a function like this, and just inlining the small amount of code manually.
After all that really good anwers using reflection I also want to add one answer which offers a more idiomatic Go solution. Like Rob Pike said in his great talk about Go Proverbs
interface{} says nothing
Reflection is never clear
So there should be also one answer showing the idiomatic Go way. This solution does not work for slices of standard types. But there the answer of cshu shows the best solution: x, a = a[len(a)-1], a[:len(a)-1]
For own defined types we have to define a Poper interface and the Pop function takes that as input and returns an empty interface.
type Poper interface {
Pop() interface{}
}
type MyType struct {
a []int
}
func (mt *MyType) Pop() interface{} {
x := mt.a[len(mt.a)-1]
mt.a = mt.a[:len(mt.a)-1]
return x
}
func Pop(p Poper) interface{} {
return p.Pop()
}
func main() {
a := &MyType{[]int{1, 2, 3}}
fmt.Println(Pop(a), a)
}
https://play.golang.org/p/UbDkoVYSMA
At all it is not a good idea to return an empty interface, because all following code has to support the interface{}.
The following code example does not work:
func main() {
a := &MyType{[]int{1, 2, 3}}
fmt.Println(Pop(a), a)
var b int
b = Pop(a)
}
https://play.golang.org/p/wg9__O44A8
The error says everything about that problem: cannot use Pop(a) (type interface {}) as type int in assignment: need type assertion
So the Pop() function does work by returning interface{} but the rest of the code using the result of that function needs to make a type assertion. So if you can avoid it you should search for another solution using types.

generic map value

I have run into this problem a few times when wanting to use keys of maps in a similar way but the values in the maps are different. I thought I could write a function that takes the key type I want with interface{} as the value type but it doesn't work.
func main() {
mapOne := map[string]int
mapTwo := map[string]double
mapThree := map[string]SomeStruct
useKeys(mapOne)
}
func useKeys(m map[string]interface{}) {
//something with keys here
}
Not sure if there is an elegant way to do this I just feel waist full rewriting simple things for different values.
Though maps and slices in go are generic themselves, they are not covariant (nor could they be, since interfaces aren't generics). It's part of working with a language that doesn't have generics, you will have to repeat some things.
If you really just need to get the keys of any old map, you can use reflection to do so:
func useKeys(m interface{}) {
v := reflect.ValueOf(m)
if v.Kind() != reflect.Map {
fmt.Println("not a map!")
return
}
keys := v.MapKeys()
fmt.Println(keys)
}
Go 1.18
You can write a function with type parameters (generic) for this:
func useKeys[V any](m map[string]V) V {
return m["foo"]
}
And use it as:
func main() {
m1 := map[string]int{"foo": 1}
m2 := map[string]float64{"foo": 4.5}
m3 := map[string]*SomeStruct{}
fmt.Println(useKeys(m1))
fmt.Println(useKeys(m2))
fmt.Println(useKeys(m3))
}
As you can see, the type parameter V unifies with the map value, so that you can explicitly force callers of useKeys to pass maps whose keys are string only.
You can see this on the GoTip Playground: https://gotipplay.golang.org/p/epFA2_9u5l5

Functions type converting

How can I convert func add (a, b int) int to func(...interface{}) interace{} type ?
Any ideas about implementing generic functions using the reflect package ?
As JimB said, you can't cast in Go and you cannot convert functions just like that but by using closures, you can rapidly wrap your function:
func add(a, b int) int {
return a + b;
}
wrap := func(args ...interface{}) interface{} {
return interface{} (add(args[0].(int), args[1].(int)))
}
Note that wrap will panic if you give it arguments that are not of type int. If you want to avoid that you can slightly modify wrap:
wrap := func(args ...interface{}) (interface{}, error) {
a, k := args[0].(int)
b, l := args[1].(int)
if !k || !l {
return nil, errors.New("Arguments must be of type int")
}
return add(a,b), nil
}
If you'd like to do different things with wrap, depending on it's arguments types you can do so by using a type switch:
func addInts(a, b int) int {
return a + b;
}
func addFloat64s(a, b float64) float64 {
return a + b;
}
wrap := func(args ...interface{}) interface{} {
switch args[0].(type) {
case int: return interface{}(addInts(args[0].(int), args[1].(int)))
case float64: return interface{}(addFloat64s(args[0].(float64), args[1].(float64)))
}
}
Note that this last version of wrap makes the assumption that all given parameters will have the same type and at least 2 arguments are given.
There is no "casting" is go (well, using the "unsafe" package kind of is like casting).
You cannot convert function types like this, since they have different layouts in memory. Generic-like functions can be made through the reflect package, though with significant overhead. See http://golang.org/pkg/reflect/#example_MakeFunc for an example.
For most use cases of generic functions, you're probably better off accepting an interface, and using type assertions or switches (http://golang.org/ref/spec#Type_switches), rather than the reflection library.

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