We're gettin' hairy here. I've tested a bunch of tree-synchronizing code on concrete representations of data, and now I need to abstract it so that it can run with any source and target that support the right methods. [In practice, this will be sources like Documentum, SQL hierarchies, and filesystems; with destinations like Solr and a custom SQL cross-reference store.]
The tricky part is that when I'm recursing down a tree of type T
and synchronizing into a tree of type U
, at certain files I need to do a "sub-sync" of a second type V
to that type U
at the current node. (V
represents hierarchal structure inside a file...) And the type inference engine in F# is driving me around in circles on this, as soon as I try to add the sub-syncing to V
.
I'm representing this in a TreeComparison<'a,'b>
, so the above stuff results in a TreeComparison<T,U>
and a sub-comparison of TreeComparison<V,U>
.
The problem is, as soon as I supply a concrete TreeComparison<V,'b>
in one of the class methods, the V
type propagates through all of the inferring, when I want that first type parameter to stay generic (when 'a :> ITree
). Perhaps there is some typing I can do on the TreeComparison<V,'b>
value? Or, more likely, the inference is actually telling me something is inherently broken in the way I'm thinking about this problem.
This was really tricky to compress, but I want to give working code you can paste into a script and experiment with, so there are a ton of types at the beginning... core stuff is right at the end if you want to skip. Most of the actual comparison and recursion across the types via ITree has been chopped because it's unnecessary to see the inference problem that I'm banging my head against.
open System
type TreeState<'a,'b> = //'
| TreeNew of 'a
| TreeDeleted of 'b
| TreeBoth of 'a * 'b
type TreeNodeType = TreeFolder | TreeFile | TreeSection
type ITree =
abstract NodeType: TreeNodeType
abstract Path: string
with get, set
type ITreeProvider<'a when 'a :> ITree> = //'
abstract Children : 'a -> 'a seq
abstract StateForPath : string -> 'a
type ITreeWriterProvider<'a when 'a :> ITree> = //'
inherit ITreeProvider<'a> //'
abstract Create: ITree -> 'a //'
// In the real implementation, this supports:
// abstract AddChild : 'a -> unit
// abstract ModifyChild : 'a -> unit
// abstract DeleteChild : 'a -> unit
// abstract Commit : unit -> unit
/// Comparison varies on two types and takes a provider for the first and a writer provider for the second.
/// Then it synchronizes them. The sync code is added later because some of it is dependent on the concrete types.
type TreeComparison<'a,'b when 'a :> ITree and 'b :> ITree> =
{
State: TreeState<'a,'b> //'
ATree: ITreeProvider<'a> //'
BTree: ITreeWriterProvider<'b> //'
}
static member Create(
atree: ITreeProvider<'a>,
apath: string,
btree: ITreeWriterProvider<'b>,
bpath: string) =
{
State = TreeBoth (atree.StateForPath apath, btree.StateForPath bpath)
ATree = atree
BTree = btree
}
member tree.CreateSubtree<'c when 'c :> ITree>
(atree: ITreeProvider<'c>, apath: string, bpath: string)
: TreeComparison<'c,'b> = //'
TreeComparison.Create(atree, apath, tree.BTree, bpath)
/// Some hyper-simplified state types: imagine each is for a different kind of heirarchal database structure or filesystem
type T( data, path: string ) = class
let mutable path = path
let rand = (new Random()).NextDouble
member x.Data = data
// In the real implementations, these would fetch the child nodes for this state instance
member x.Children() = Seq.empty<T>
interface ITree with
member tree.NodeType =
if rand() > 0.5 then TreeFolder
else TreeFile
member tree.Path
with get() = path
and set v = path <- v
end
type U(data, path: string) = class
inherit T(data, path)
member x.Children() = Seq.empty<U>
end
type V(data, path: string) = class
inherit T(data, path)
member x.Children() = Seq.empty<V>
interface ITree with
member tree.NodeType = TreeSection
end
// Now some classes to spin up and query for those state types [gross simplification makes these look pretty stupid]
type TProvider() = class
interface ITreeProvider<T> with
member this.Children x = x.Children()
member this.StateForPath path =
new T("documentum", path)
end
type UProvider() = class
interface ITreeProvider<U> with
member this.Children x = x.Children()
member this.StateForPath path =
new U("solr", path)
interface ITreeWriterProvider<U> with
member this.Create t =
new U("whee", t.Path)
end
type VProvider(startTree: ITree, data: string) = class
interface ITreeProvider<V> with
member this.Children x = x.Children()
member this.StateForPath path =
new V(data, path)
end
type TreeComparison<'a,'b when 'a :> ITree and 'b :> ITree> with
member x.UpdateState (a:'a option) (b:'b option) =
{ x with State = match a, b with
| None, None -> failwith "No state found in either A and B"
| Some a, None -> TreeNew a
| None, Some b -> TreeDeleted b
| Some a, Some b -> TreeBoth(a,b) }
member x.ACurrent = match x.State with TreeNew a | TreeBoth (a,_) -> Some a | _ -> None
member x.BCurrent = match x.State with TreeDeleted b | TreeBoth (_,b) -> Some b | _ -> None
member x.CreateBFromA =
match x.ACurrent with
| Some a -> x.BTree.Create a
| _ -> failwith "Cannot create B from null A node"
member x.Compare() =
// Actual implementation does a bunch of mumbo-jumbo to compare with a custom IComparable wrapper
//if not (x.ACurrent.Value = x.BCurrent.Value) then
x.SyncStep()
// And then some stuff to move the right way in the tree
member internal tree.UpdateRenditions (source: ITree) (target: ITree) =
let vp = new VProvider(source, source.Path) :> ITreeProvider<V>
let docTree = tree.CreateSubtree(vp, source.Path, target.Path)
docTree.Compare()
member internal tree.UpdateITree (source: ITree) (target: ITree) =
if not (source.NodeType = target.NodeType) then failwith "Nodes are incompatible types"
if not (target.Path = source.Path) then target.Path <- source.Path
if source.NodeType = TreeFile then tree.UpdateRenditions source target
member internal tree.SyncStep() =
match tree.State with
| TreeNew a ->
let target = tree.CreateBFromA
tree.UpdateITree a target
//tree.BTree.AddChild target
| TreeBoth(a,b) ->
let target = b
tree.UpdateITree a target
//tree.BTree.ModifyChild target
| TreeDeleted b ->
()
//tree.BTree.DeleteChild b
member t.Sync() =
t.Compare()
//t.BTree.Commit()
// Now I want to synchronize between a tree of type T and a tree of type U
let pt = new TProvider()
let ut = new UProvider()
let c = TreeComparison.Create(pt, "/start", ut , "/path")
c.Sync()
The problem likely revolves around CreateSubtree. If you comment out either:
- The
docTree.Compare()
line - The
tree.UpdateITree
calls
and replace them with ()
, then the inference stays generic and everything is lovely.
This has been quite a puzzle. I've tried moving the "comparison" functions in the second chunk out of the type and defining them as recursive functions; I've tried a million ways of annotating or forcing the typing. I just don't get it!
The last solution I'm considering is making a completely separate (and duplicated) implementation of the comparison type and functions for the sub-syncing. But that's ugly and terrible.
Thanks if you read this far! Sheesh!