A better syntax for recovery from a for comprehension

Question

I have a number of functions that return a future that is the result of a for comprehension, but i need to need to recover from some possible failures on the way out. The standard syntax seems to capture the for comprehension as an intermediate results like so:

def fooBar(): Future[String] = {
  val x = for {
    x <- foo()
    y <- bar(x)
  } yield y
  x.recover {
    case SomeException() => "bah"
  }
}

The best alternative to I've found is to wrap the whole for comprehension in parentheses:

def fooBar(): Future[String] = (for {
  x <- foo()
  y <- bar(x)
} yield y).recover {
  case SomeException() => "bah"
}

This mostly seems like a shortcut than an improvement in syntax, so I'm wondering if there is a better way to weave recovery into for comprehensions?

Answer 1

Some brace adjustment helps, though some people prefer braces instead of parens for a multiline expression:

scala> def f = (
     |   for {
     |     x <- foo;
     |     y <- bar(x)
     |   } yield y
     | ) recover {
     |   case _: NullPointerException => -1
     | }
f: scala.concurrent.Future[Int]

if you don't like

scala> foo flatMap bar recover { case _: NullPointerException => -1 }
res9: scala.concurrent.Future[Int] = scala.concurrent.impl.Promise$DefaultPromise@3efe7086

You can go all syntaxy:

object Test extends App {
  import concurrent._
  import duration.Duration._
  import ExecutionContext.Implicits._
  type ~>[A, B] = PartialFunction[A, B]
  type NPE = NullPointerException
  class `recovering future`[A, R >: A](val f: Future[A], val pf: Throwable ~> R) {
    def map[B >: A <: R](m: A => B) = new `recovering future`[B, R](f map m, pf)
    def flatMap[B >: A <: R](m: A => Future[B]) = new `recovering future`[B, R](f flatMap m, pf)
    def recovered: Future[R] = f recover pf
  }
  object `recovering future` {
    implicit def `back to the future`[A, R >: A](x: `recovering future`[A, R]): Future[R] = x.recovered
  }
  implicit class `inline recoverer`[A](val f: Future[A]) {
    def recovering[B >: A](pf: Throwable ~> B) = new `recovering future`(f, pf)
  }

  def f = Future(8)
  def g(i: Int) = Future(42 + i)
  def e(i: Int): Future[Int] = Future((null: String).length)

Unadorned:

  for {
    x <- f
    y <- g(x)
  } Console println y   // 50

And with the recover inlined:

  def compute: Future[Int] =
    for {
      x <- f recovering { case _: NPE => -1 }
      y <- g(x)
    } yield y
  Console println (Await result (compute, Inf))  // 50

Or showing the failing case:

  def fail: Future[Int] =
    for {
      x <- f recovering { case _: NPE => -1 }
      y <- e(x)
    } yield y
  Console println (Await result (fail, Inf))  // -1
}

if you swing that way.