What is best way to wrap blocking Try[T] in Future[T] in Scala?

Question

Here is the problem, I have a library which has a blocking method return Try[T]. But since it's a blocking one, I would like to make it non-blocking using Future[T]. In the future block, I also would like to compute something that's depend on the origin blocking method's return value.

But if I use something like below, then my nonBlocking will return Future[Try[T]] which is less convince since Future[T] could represent Failure[U] already, I would rather prefer propagate the exception to Future[T] is self.

def blockMethod(x: Int): Try[Int] = Try { 
  // Some long operation to get an Int from network or IO
  throw new Exception("Network Exception") }
}

def nonBlocking(x: Int): Future[Try[Int]] = future {
  blockMethod(x).map(_ * 2)
}

Here is what I tried, I just use .get method in future {} block, but I'm not sure if this is the best way to do that.

def blockMethod(x: Int): Try[Int] = Try { 
  // Some long operation to get an Int from network or IO
  throw new Exception("Network Exception") }
}

def nonBlocking(x: Int): Future[Int] = future {
  blockMethod(x).get * 2
}

Is this correct way to do that? Or there is a more scala idiomatic way to convert t Try[T] to Future[T]?

Answer 1

Here's an example that doesn't block, note that you probably want to use your own execution context and not scala's global context:

import scala.util._
import scala.concurrent._
import scala.concurrent.duration._
import ExecutionContext.Implicits.global

object Main extends App {

  def blockMethod(x: Int): Try[Int] = Try {
    // Some long operation to get an Int from network or IO
    Thread.sleep(10000)
    100
  }

  def tryToFuture[A](t: => Try[A]): Future[A] = {
    future {
      t
    }.flatMap {
      case Success(s) => Future.successful(s)
      case Failure(fail) => Future.failed(fail)
    }
  }

  // Initiate long operation
  val f = tryToFuture(blockMethod(1))

  println("Waiting... 10 seconds to complete")

  // Should return before 20 seconds...
  val res = Await.result(f, 20 seconds)

  println(res) // prints 100
}