Junctions

NAME

"Perl 5 to 6" Lesson 07 - Junctions

SYNOPSIS

    my $x = 4;
    if $x == 3|4 {
        say '$x is either 3 or 4'
    }
    say ((2|3|4)+7).perl        # (9|10|11)

DESCRIPTION

Junctions are superpositions of unordered values. Operations on junctions are executed for each item of the junction separately (and maybe even in parallel), and the results are assembled in a junction of the same type.

The junction types only differ when evaluated in boolean context. The types are any, all, one and none.

    Type    Infix operator
    any     |
    one     ^
    all     &

1 | 2 | 3 is the same as any(1..3).

    my Junction $weekday = any <Monday Tuesday Wednesday 
                                Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday>
    if $day eq $weekday {
        say "See you on $day";
    }

In this example the eq operator is called with each pair $day, 'Monday', $day, 'Tuesday' etc. and the result is put into an any-junction again. As soon as the result is determined (in this case, as soon as one comparison returns True) it can abort the execution of the other comparisons.

This works not only for operators, but also for routines:

    if 2 == sqrt(4 | 9 | 16) {
        say "YaY";
    }

To make this possible, junctions stand outside the normal type hierarchy (a bit):

                      Mu
                    /    \
                   /      \
                 Any     Junction
               /  |  \
            All other types

If you want to write a sub that takes a junction and doesn't autothread over it, you have to declare the type of the parameter either as Mu or Junction

    sub dump_yaml(Junction $stuff) {
        # we hope that YAML can represent junctions ;-)
        ....
    }

MOTIVATION

Perl aims to be rather close to natural languages, and in natural language you often say things like "if the result is $this or $that" instead of saying "if the result is $this or the result is $that". Most programming languages only allow (a translation of) the latter, which feels a bit clumsy. With junctions Perl 6 allows the former as well.

It also allows you to write many comparisons very easily that otherwise require loops.

As an example, imagine an array of numbers, and you want to know if all of them are non-negative. In Perl 5 you'd write something like this:

    # Perl 5 code:
    my @items = get_data();
    my $all_non_neg = 1;
    for (@items){
        if ($_ < 0) {
            $all_non_neg = 0;
            last;
        }
    }
    if ($all_non_neg) { ... }

Or if you happen to know about List::MoreUtils

    use List::MoreUtils qw(all);
    my @items = get_data;
    if (all { $_ >= 0 } @items) { ...  }

In Perl 6 that is short and sweet:

    my @items = get_data();
    if all(@items) >= 0 { ... }

A Word of Warning

Many people get all excited about junctions, and try to do too much with them.

Junctions are not sets; if you try to extract items from a junction, you are doing it wrong, and should be using a Set instead.

It is a good idea to use junctions as smart conditions, but trying to build a solver for equations based on the junction autothreading rules is on over-extortion and usually results in frustration.

SEE ALSO

http://design.perl6.org/S03.html#Junctive_operators

Possible alternatives to Junctions.