Functional design: how to make the `time` combinator more general

In the last article I wrote a time combinator which mimics the analogous Unix command: given an action IO<A>, we can derive an action IO<A> that prints to the console the elapsed time

import { IO, io } from 'fp-ts/IO'
import { now } from 'fp-ts/Date'
import { log } from 'fp-ts/Console'

export function time<A>(ma: IO<A>): IO<A> {
  return io.chain(now, start =>
    io.chain(ma, a => io.chain(now, end => io.map(log(`Elapsed: ${end - start}`), () => a)))
  )
}

There are two problems with this combinator though:

is not flexible, i.e. consumers can't choose what to do with the elapsed time
works with IO only

In this article we'll tackle the first problem.

Adding flexibility by returning the elapsed time

Instead of always logging, we can return the elapsed time along with the computed value

export function time<A>(ma: IO<A>): IO<[A, number]> {
  return io.chain(now, start => io.chain(ma, a => io.map(now, end => [a, end - start])))
}

Now a user can choose what to do with the elapsed time by defining its own combinators.

We could still log to the console...

export function withLogging<A>(ma: IO<A>): IO<A> {
  return io.chain(time(ma), ([a, millis]) =>
    io.map(log(`Result: ${a}, Elapsed: ${millis}`), () => a)
  )
}

Usage

import { randomInt } from 'fp-ts/Random'

function fib(n: number): number {
  return n <= 1 ? 1 : fib(n - 1) + fib(n - 2)
}

const program = withLogging(io.map(randomInt(30, 35), fib))

program()
/*
Result: 14930352, Elapsed: 127
*/

...or just ignore the elapsed time...

export function ignoreSnd<A>(ma: IO<[A, unknown]>): IO<A> {
  return io.map(ma, ([a]) => a)
}

...or, for example, only keep the fastest of a non empty list of actions

import { fold, getMeetSemigroup } from 'fp-ts/Semigroup'
import { contramap, ordNumber } from 'fp-ts/Ord'
import { getSemigroup } from 'fp-ts/IO'

export function fastest<A>(head: IO<A>, tail: Array<IO<A>>): IO<A> {
  const ordTuple = contramap(([_, elapsed]: [A, number]) => elapsed)(ordNumber)
  const semigroupTuple = getMeetSemigroup(ordTuple)
  const semigroupIO = getSemigroup(semigroupTuple)
  const fastest = fold(semigroupIO)(time(head), tail.map(time))
  return ignoreSnd(fastest)
}

Usage

io.chain(fastest(program, [program, program]), a => log(`Fastest result is: ${a}`))()
/*
Result: 5702887, Elapsed: 49
Result: 2178309, Elapsed: 20
Result: 5702887, Elapsed: 57
Fastest result is: 2178309
*/

In the next article we'll tackle the second problem by introducing a powerful style of programming: tagless final.

Appendix

The implementation of fastest is quite dense, let's see the relevant bits:

1) its signature ensures that we provide a non empty list of actions

//  at least one action --v            v--- possibly other actions
function fastest<A>(head: IO<A>, tail: Array<IO<A>>): IO<A>

2) contramap is an Ord combinator: given an instance of Ord for T and a function from U to T, we can derive an instance of Ord for U.

Here T = number and U = [A, number]

// from `Ord<number>` to `Ord<[A, number]>`
const ordTuple = contramap(([_, elapsed]: [A, number]) => elapsed)(ordNumber)

3) getMeetSemigroup transforms an instance of Ord<T> into an instance of Semigroup<T> which, when combining two values, returns the smaller

// from `Ord<[A, number]>` to `Semigroup<[A, number]>`
const semigroupTuple = getMeetSemigroup(ordTuple)

4) getSemigroup is a Semigroup combinator: given an instance of Semigroup for T, we can derive an instance of Semigroup for IO<T>

// from `Semigroup<[A, number]>` to `Semigroup<IO<[A, number]>>`
const semigroupIO = getSemigroup(semigroupTuple)

5) fold reduces a non empty list of actions using the provided Semigroup

// from a non empty list of `IO<[A, number]>` to `IO<[A, number]>`
const fastest = fold(semigroupIO)(time(head), tail.map(time))

6) finally we ignore the elapsed time and return just the value

// from `IO<[A, number]>` to `IO<A>`
return ignoreSnd(fastest)

Blog

Functional design: how to make the `time` combinator more general

Giulio Canti

Adding flexibility by returning the elapsed time

Appendix

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