Question

Let’s say I want to flatten nested lists of the same type… For example

    ListA(Element(A), Element(B), ListA(Element(C), Element(D)), ListB(Element(E),Element(F)))

ListA contains nested list of the same type (ListA(Element(C), Element(D))) so I want to substitute it with the values it contains, so the result of the upper example should look like this:

ListA(Element(A), Element(B), Element(C), Element(D), ListB(Element(E),Element(F)))

Current class hierarchy:

abstract class SpecialList() extends Exp {
    val elements: List[Exp]
}

case class Element(name: String) extends Exp

case class ListA(elements: List[Exp]) extends SpecialList {
        override def toString(): String = "ListA("+elements.mkString(",")+")"
}

case class ListB(elements: List[Exp]) extends SpecialList {
        override def toString(): String = "ListB("+elements.mkString(",")+")"
}

object ListA{def apply(elements: Exp*):ListA = ListA(elements.toList)}
object ListB{def apply(elements: Exp*):ListB = ListB(elements.toList)}

I have made three solutions that works, but I think there have to be better way to achieve this:

First solution:

def flatten[T <: SpecialList](parentList: T): List[Exp] = {
        val buf = new ListBuffer[Exp]

        for (feature <- parentList.elements) feature match {
            case listA:ListA if parentList.isInstanceOf[ListA] => buf ++= listA.elements
            case listB:ListB if parentList.isInstanceOf[ListB] => buf ++= listB.elements
            case _ => buf += feature
        }
        buf.toList
    }

Second solution:

def flatten[T <: SpecialList](parentList: T): List[Exp] = {
    val buf = new ListBuffer[Exp]

    parentList match {
        case listA:ListA => for (elem <- listA.elements) elem match {
                                case listOfTypeA:ListA => buf ++= listOfTypeA.elements
                                case _ => buf += elem
                            }

        case listB:ListB => for (elem <- listB.elements) elem match {
                                case listOfTypeB:ListB => buf ++= listOfTypeB.elements
                                case _ => buf += elem
                            }
    }

    buf.toList
}

Third solution

def flatten[T <: SpecialList](parentList: T): List[Exp] = parentList.elements flatMap {
    case listA:ListA if parentList.isInstanceOf[ListA] => listA.elements
    case listB:ListB if parentList.isInstanceOf[ListB] => listB.elements
    case other => List(other)
}

My question is whether there is any better, more generic way to achieve same functionality as in all of upper three solutions there is repetition of code?

Answer 1

A true functional way. Without using a variable.

def flatten[A](list: List[A]): List[A] = list match {
   case Nil => Nil
   case (ls: List[A]) :: tail => flatten(ls) ::: flatten(tail)
   case h :: tail => h :: flatten(tail)
}