[ruby-core:51412] [ruby-trunk - Bug #7690] Enumerable::Lazy#flat_map should not call each

Issue #7690 has been updated by marcandre (Marc-Andre Lafortune).

Priority changed from Normal to High

shugo (Shugo Maeda) wrote:
> [1].lazy.flat_map{|i| [i].lazy } should flatten nested lazy enumerators, because Enumerable::Lazy is a monad and flat_map is the monad's bind operator.

Thanks for the explanation.

The idea is neat.

The problem is that:
1) This is documented nowhere
2) Most people think of flat_map as a shortcut to map.flatten(1), but flatten doesn't flatten Lazy enumerators (or Enumerables in general)
3) As Matz stated [ruby-core:26301], flat_map is "taken from flatMap from Scala or concatMap from Haskell". I'm not familiar with either, but I read that Scala's flatMap is not a monadic bind, right?
4) The argument about flat_map being a monadic bind applies only to monads (i.e. lazy enumerators). It should only flatten those, not arbitrary Enumerables

> Do you have any use case of [1].flat_map{|i| {i => i} }?

It's not just hashes, it could be a Range, or any Enumerable, or even any class that implements #each, even if it doesn't include Enumerable!

So yes, I can think of many use cases, but instead of inventing them, here's one in Rails:

https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/master/activerecord/lib/active_record/relation/query_methods.rb#L841


In summary, I see the following 2 possibilities:
1) Lazy#flat_map only flattens arrays, or
2) Lazy#flat_map flattens Array and Enumerator::Lazy (using `is_a? Enumerator::Lazy` instead of `respond_to? :each`) and the documentation reflects this

If (1), maybe a new method can be introduced instead, say "bind"?
If (2), shouldn't Enumerable#flat_map also flatten lazy enumerators?



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Bug #7690: Enumerable::Lazy#flat_map should not call each
https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/7690#change-35391

Author: marcandre (Marc-Andre Lafortune)
Status: Assigned
Priority: High
Assignee: shugo (Shugo Maeda)
Category: core
Target version: 2.0.0
ruby -v: r38794


I would expect that

    array.flat_map{...} == array.lazy.flat_map{...}.force

This is not always the case:

    [1].flat_map{|i| {i => i} } # => [{1 => 1}], ok
    [1].lazy.flat_map{|i| {i => i} }.force # => [[1, 1]], expected [{1 => 1}]

Note that Matz confirmed that it is acceptable to return straight objects instead of arrays for flat_map [ruby-core:43365]

It looks like this was intended for nested lazy enumerators:

    [1].lazy.flat_map{|i| [i].lazy }.force # => [1]

I don't think that's the correct result, and it is different from a straight flat_map:

    [1].flat_map{|i| [i].lazy } # => [#<Enumerator::Lazy: [1]>]

This is caused by Lazy#flat_map calls each (while Enumerable#flat_map only looks for Arrays/object responding to to_ary).





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