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AttrX::Mooish

cpan:VRURG

NAME

AttrX::Mooish - extend attributes with ideas from Moo/Moose (laziness!)

SYNOPSIS

use AttrX::Mooish;
class Foo {
    has $.bar1 is mooish(:lazy, :clearer, :predicate) is rw;
    has $!bar2 is mooish(:lazy, :clearer, :predicate, :trigger);
    has Num $.bar3 is rw is mooish(:lazy, :filter);

    method build-bar1 {
        "lazy init value"
    }

    method !build-bar2 {
        "this is private mana!"
    }

    method !trigger-bar2 ( $value ) {
        # do something after attribute changed.
    }

    method build-bar3 {
        rand;
    }

    method filter-bar3 ( $value, *%params ) {
        if %params<old-value>:exists {
            # Only allow the value to grow
            return ( !%params<old-value>.defined || $value > %params<old-value> ) ?? $value !! %params<old-value>;
        }
        # Only allow inital values from 0.5 and higher
        return $value < 0.5 ?? Nil !! $value;
    }

    method baz {
        # Yes, works with private too! Isn't it magical? ;)
        "Take a look at the magic: «{ $!bar2 }»";
    }
}

my $foo = Foo.new;

say $foo.bar1;
say $foo.bar3.defined ?? "DEF" !! "UNDEF";
for 1..10 { $foo.bar3 = rand; say $foo.bar3 }

The above would generate a output similar to the following:

lazy init value
UNDEF
0.08662089602505263
0.49049512098324255
0.49049512098324255
0.5983833081770437
0.9367804461546302
0.9367804461546302
0.9367804461546302
0.9367804461546302
0.9367804461546302
0.9367804461546302

DESCRIPTION

This module is aiming at providing some functionality we're all missing from Moo/Moose. It implements laziness, accompanying methods and adds attribute value filter on top of what standard Moo/Moose provide.

What makes this module different from previous versions one could find in the Raku modules repository is that it implements true laziness allowing Nil to be a first-class value of a lazy attribute. In other words, if you look at the SYNOPSIS section, $.bar3 value could randomly be either undefined or 3.1415926.

Laziness for beginners

This section is inteded for beginners and could be skipped by experienced lazybones.

What is "lazy attribute"

As always, more information could be found by Google. In few simple words: a lazy attribute is the one which gets its first value on demand, i.e. – on first read operation. Consider the following code:

class Foo {
    has $.bar is mooish(:lazy, :predicate);

    method build-bar { π }
}

my $foo = Foo.new
say $foo.has-bar; # False
say $foo.bar;     # 3.1415926...
say $foo.has-bar; # True

When is it useful?

Laziness becomes very handy in cases where intializing an attribute is very expensive operation yet it is not certain if attribute is gonna be used later or not. For example, imagine a monitoring code which raises an alert when a failure is detected:

class Monitor {
    has $.notifier;
    has $!failed-object;

    submethod BUILD {
        $!notifier = Notifier.new;
    }

    method report-failure {
        $.notifier.alert( :$!failed-object );
    }

    ...
}

Now, imagine that notifier is a memory-consuming object, which is capable of sending notification over different kinds of media (SMTP, SMS, messengers, etc...). Besides, preparing handlers for all those media takes time. Yet, failures are rare and we may need the object, say, once in 10000 times. So, here is the solution:

class Monitor {
    has $.notifier is mooish(:lazy);
    has $!failed-object;

    method build-notifier { Notifier.new( :$!failed-object ) }

    method report-failure {
        $.notifier.alert;
    }

    ...
}

Now, it would only be created when we really need it.

Such approach also works well in interactive code where many wuch objects are created only the moment a user action requires them. This way overall responsiveness of a program could be significally incresed so that instead of waiting long once a user would experience many short delays which sometimes are even hard to impossible to be aware of.

Laziness has another interesting application in the area of taking care of attribute dependency. Say, $.bar1 value depend on $.bar2, which, in turn, depends either on $.bar3 or $.bar4. In this case instead of manually defining the order of initialization in a BUILD submethod, we just have the following code in our attribute builders:

method build-bar2 {
    if $some-condition {
        return self.prepare( $.bar3 );
    }
    self.prepare( $.bar4 );
}

This module would take care of the rest.

USAGE

The SYNOPSIS is a very good example of how to use the trait mooish.

Trait parameters

Public/Private

For all the trait parameters, if it is applied to a private attribute then all auto-generated methods will be private too.

The call-back style options such as builder, trigger, filter are expected to share the privace mode of their respective attribute:

    class Foo {
        has $!bar is rw is mooish(:lazy, :clearer<reset-bar>, :predicate, :filter<wrap-filter>);

        method !build-bar { "a private value" }
        method baz {
            if self!has-bar {
                self!reset-bar;
            }
        }
        method !wrap-filter ( $value, :$attribute ) {
            "filtered $attribute: ($value)"
        }
    }

Though if a callback option is defined with method name instead of Bool True then if method wit the same privacy mode is not found then opposite mode would be tried before failing:

    class Foo {
        has $.bar is mooish( :trigger<on_change> );
        has $!baz is mooish( :trigger<on_change> );
        has $!fubar is mooish( :lazy<set-fubar> );

        method !on_change ( $val ) { say "changed! ({$val})"; }
        method set-baz { $!baz = "new pvt" }
        method use-fubar { $!fubar }
    }

    $inst = Foo.new;
    $inst.bar = "new";  # changed! (new)
    $inst.set-baz;      # changed! (new pvt)
    $inst.use-fubar;    # Dies with "No such private method '!set-fubar' for invocant of type 'Foo'" message

User method's (callbacks) options

User defined (callback-type) methods receive additional named parameters (options) to help them understand their context. For example, a class might have a couple of attributes for which it's ok to have same trigger method if only it knows what attribute it is applied to:

    class Foo {
        has $.foo is rw is mooish(:trigger('on_fubar'));
        has $.bar is rw is mooish(:trigger('on_fubar'));

        method on_fubar ( $value, *%opt ) {
            say "Triggered for {%opt<attribute>} with {$value}";
        }
    }

    my $inst = Foo.new;
    $inst.foo = "ABC";
    $inst.bar = "123";

The expected output would be:

    Triggered for $!foo with with ABC
    Triggered for $!bar with with 123

NOTE: If a method doesn't care about named parameters it may only have positional arguments in its signature. This doesn't work for pointy blocks where anonymous slurpy hash would be required:

    class Foo {
        has $.bar is rw is mooish(:trigger(-> $, $val, *% {...}));
    }

Options

Some magic

Note that use of this trait doesn't change attribute accessors. More than that, accessors are not required for private attributes. Consider the $!bar2 attribute from SYNOPSIS.

Performance

Module versions prior to v0.5.0 were pretty much costly perfomance-wise. This was happening due to use of Proxy to handle all attribute read/writes. Since v0.5.0 only the first read/write operation would be handled by this module unless filter or trigger parameters are used. When AttrX::Mooish is assured that the attribute is properly initialized it steps aside and lets the Raku core to do its job without intervention.

The only exception takes place if clearer parameter is used and clear-<attribute> method is called. In this case the attribute state is reverted back to uninitialized state and Proxy is getting installed again – until the next read/write operation.

filter and trigger are exceptional here because they require permanent monitoring of attribute operations making it effectively impossible to drop Proxy. For this reason use of these parameters must be very carefully considered and highly discouraged for any code where performance is of the high precedence.

CAVEATS

Due to the magical nature of attribute behaviour conflicts with other traits are possible. None is known to the author yet.

Internally Proxy is used as attribute container. It was told that the class has a number of unpleasant side effects including multiplication of FETCH operation. Though generally this bug is harmles it could be workarounded by assigning an attribute value to a temporary variable.

AUTHOR

Vadim Belman vrurg@cpan.org

LICENSE

Artistic License 2.0

See the LICENSE file in this distribution.