Question

I want to define a Functor class in Java. This works:

//a Function
public interface F<A,R> {
   public R apply(A a);
}

public interface Functor<A> {
   public <B> Functor<B> fmap(F<A,B> f);
}

However the return value of fmap should be not Functor, but the appropriate subclass. Usually this can be encoded with the CRTP, but here I seem to hit a wall because of the additional parameter A. E.g. the following and similar encodings don’t work (“type parameter FInst is not within its bounds”):

public interface Functor<A, FInst extends Functor<A,FInst>> {
    public <B, I extends Functor<B,FInst>> I fmap(F<A,B> f);
}

[Clarification]

With “appropriate subclass” I mean the type of the class being called itself. E.g. Lists are functors, so I would like to write something like

public class ListFunctor<A> implements ??? {
  final private List<A> list;
  public ListFunctor(List<A> list) {
     this.list = list;
  } 

  @Override
  <B> ListFunctor<B> fmap(F<A,B> f) {
     List<B> result = new ArrayList<B>();
     for(A a: list) result.add(f.apply(a));
     return new ListFunctor<B>(result); 
  }  
}

I’m aware that I could write this even with the first definition I gave (because covariant return types are allowed), but I want that the return type “ListFunctor” is enforced by the type system (so that I can’t return a FooFunctor instead), which means that the Functor interface needs to return the “self-type” (at least it is called so in other languages).

[Result]

So it seems what I want is impossible. Here is a related blog-post: http://blog.tmorris.net/higher-order-polymorphism-for-pseudo-java/

[Aftermath]

I stumbled over this age-old question of mine, and realized that this was the starting point of the amazing journey with my library highJ, containing much more than a simple Functor. I would have never imagine that people would use this crazy stuff for anything serious, but it happened, and that makes me very happy.

Answer 1

public interface Functor<A, FInst extends Functor<A,FInst>> {
    public <B, I extends Functor<B,FInst>> I fmap(F<A,B> f);
}

This code generates an error because when you define I, you define it to be a subclass of Functor<B,FInst>, but the FInst parameter must be a subclass of Functor<B,FInst> in this case, while it is defined above as being a subclass of Functor<A,FInst>. Since Functor<A,FInst> and Functor<B,FInst> aren’t compatible, you get this error.

I haven’t been able to solve this completely, but I could do at least a half of the job:

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

interface F<A,R> {
   public R apply(A a);
}

interface Functor<A, FClass extends Functor<?, FClass>> {
   public <B> FClass fmap(F<A,B> f);
}

public class ListFunctor<A> implements Functor<A, ListFunctor<?>> {
  final private List<A> list;
  public ListFunctor(List<A> list) {
     this.list = list;
  }

  @Override
  public <B> ListFunctor<B> fmap(F<A,B> f) {
     List<B> result = new ArrayList<B>();
     for(A a: list) result.add(f.apply(a));
     return new ListFunctor<B>(result);
  }
}

This works, and it properly limits the set of allowed return types to ListFunctor, but it doesn’t limit it to subclasses of ListFunctor<B> only. You could declare it as returning ListFunctor<A> or any other ListFunctor, and it would still compile. But you can’t declare it as returning a FooFunctor or any other Functor.

The main problem with solving the rest of the problem is that you can’t limit FClass to subclasses of ListFunctor<B> only, as the B parameter is declared at the method level, not at the class level, so you can’t write

public class ListFunctor<A> implements Functor<A, ListFunctor<B>> {

because B doesn’t mean anything at that point. I couldn’t get it working with the second parameter to the fmap() either, but even if I could, it would just force you to specify the return type twice – once in the type parameter and once more as the return type itself.