Flatten Scala Try

Question

Is there a simple way to flatten a collection of try's to give either a success of the try values, or just the failure? For example:

def map(l:List[Int]) = l map {
  case 4 => Failure(new Exception("failed"))
  case i => Success(i)
}

val l1 = List(1,2,3,4,5,6)
val result1 = something(map(l1))

result1: Failure(Exception("failed"))

val l2 = List(1,2,3,5,6)
val result2 = something(map(l2)) 

result2: Try(List(1,2,3,5,6))

And can how would you handle multiple Failures in the collection?

Answer 1

This is pretty close to minimal for fail-first operation:

def something[A](xs: Seq[Try[A]]) =
  Try(xs.map(_.get))

(to the point where you shouldn't bother creating a method; just use Try). If you want all the failures, a method is reasonable; I'd use an Either:

def something[A](xs: Seq[Try[A]]) =
  Try(Right(xs.map(_.get))).
  getOrElse(Left(xs.collect{ case Failure(t) => t }))

Answer 2

A little less verbose, and more type safe:

def sequence[T](xs : Seq[Try[T]]) : Try[Seq[T]] = (Try(Seq[T]()) /: xs) {
    (a, b) => a flatMap (c => b map (d => c :+ d))
}

Results:

sequence(l1)

res8: scala.util.Try[Seq[Int]] = Failure(java.lang.Exception: failed)

sequence(l2)

res9: scala.util.Try[Seq[Int]] = Success(List(1, 2, 3, 5, 6))

Answer 3

Maybe not as simple as you hoped for, but this works:

def flatten[T](xs: Seq[Try[T]]): Try[Seq[T]] = {
  val (ss: Seq[Success[T]]@unchecked, fs: Seq[Failure[T]]@unchecked) =
    xs.partition(_.isSuccess)

  if (fs.isEmpty) Success(ss map (_.get))
  else Failure[Seq[T]](fs(0).exception) // Only keep the first failure
}

val xs = List(1,2,3,4,5,6)
val ys = List(1,2,3,5,6)

println(flatten(map(xs))) // Failure(java.lang.Exception: failed)
println(flatten(map(ys))) // Success(List(1, 2, 3, 5, 6))

Note that the use of partition is not as type safe as it gets, as witnessed by the @unchecked annotations. In that respect, a foldLeft that accumulates two sequences Seq[Success[T]] and Seq[Failure[T]] would be better.

If you wanted to keep all failures, you can use this:

def flatten2[T](xs: Seq[Try[T]]): Either[Seq[T], Seq[Throwable]] = {
  val (ss: Seq[Success[T]]@unchecked, fs: Seq[Failure[T]]@unchecked) =
    xs.partition(_.isSuccess)

  if (fs.isEmpty) Left(ss map (_.get))
  else Right(fs map (_.exception))
}

val zs = List(1,4,2,3,4,5,6)

println(flatten2(map(xs))) // Right(List(java.lang.Exception: failed))
println(flatten2(map(ys))) // Left(List(1, 2, 3, 5, 6))
println(flatten2(map(zs))) // Right(List(java.lang.Exception: failed, 
                           //            java.lang.Exception: failed))

Answer 4

As an addition to Impredicative's answer and comment, if you have both scalaz-seven and scalaz-contrib/scala210 in your dependencies:

> scala210/console
[warn] Credentials file /home/folone/.ivy2/.credentials does not exist
[info] Starting scala interpreter...
[info] 
Welcome to Scala version 2.10.0 (OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM, Java 1.7.0_17).
Type in expressions to have them evaluated.
Type :help for more information.

scala> import scala.util._
import scala.util._

scala> def map(l:List[Int]): List[Try[Int]] = l map {
     |   case 4 => Failure(new Exception("failed"))
     |   case i => Success(i)
     | }
map: (l: List[Int])List[scala.util.Try[Int]]

scala> import scalaz._, Scalaz._
import scalaz._
import Scalaz._

scala> import scalaz.contrib.std.utilTry._
import scalaz.contrib.std.utilTry._

scala> val l1 = List(1,2,3,4,5,6)
l1: List[Int] = List(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

scala> map(l1).sequence
res2: scala.util.Try[List[Int]] = Failure(java.lang.Exception: failed)

scala> val l2 = List(1,2,3,5,6)
l2: List[Int] = List(1, 2, 3, 5, 6)

scala> map(l2).sequence
res3: scala.util.Try[List[Int]] = Success(List(1, 2, 3, 5, 6))

You need scalaz to get an Applicative instance for the List (hidden in the MonadPlus instance), to get the sequence method. You need scalaz-contrib for the Traverse instance of Try, which is required by the sequence's type signature. Try lives outside of scalaz, since it only appeared in scala 2.10, and scalaz aims to cross-compile to earlier versions).