Scala-IO Core: Unmanaged Resources

The main design of Scala-IO is around automatic closing of resources each time a resource is accessed in order to ensure that a programmer cannot unintentionally leave resources open in the face of exceptions or other unexpected situations. However, there are cases where the Scala-IO API is desired but the resource management is undesired. The classic case is of reading or writing to System.in and out. Thus Unmanaged resources exist to satisfy this use-case. 

Since unmanaged resources is a less common use-case there is not a factory object like there is for normal managed Resources.  Instead certain objects can be converted to unmanaged resources using the JavaConverters implicit methods as follows:

Scala-IO Core: To Resource Converters

In order to simplify integration with existing libraries, most commonly Java libraries, Scala-IO provides a JavaConverters object with implicit methods that add as*** methods (asInput, asOutput, asSeekable, etc...) to several types of objects.  It is the same pattern as in the scala.collection.JavaConverters object.

These methods can be used instead of the Resource.from*** methods to provide a slightly nicer appearing code.

There is one warning. When using JavaConverters, instead of Resource.from*** for creating Input/Output/Seekable/etc... objects, the chances of falling into the trap of creating non-reusable resources or causing a resource leak is increased. See: scala-io-core-reusable-resources for more details on this.

Scala-IO Core: Reusable Resources

One aspect of resources in Scala-IO that can cause problems is the construction of resource objects.  The factory methods that are provided in the Resource object each have a lazy parameter for opening the underlying resource.  However a common error developers can make is to pass in the already open resource to the method which has multiple problems.

Consider:
In the example above the stream is created and opened at the definition of stream (it is a val).  This has two effects:

1. the stream is open and if the resource object is not closed you will have a resource leak
2. since the stream is opened the resource can only be used once since it will be closed after each use.

The correct way to create the resource would be to change val to def so that the stream is only created on demand and therefore there will be no chance of a resource leak.  The following is the correct example:

This anti-pattern is also a risk when using the converter methods in the JavaConverters object. (A future post will look into this in more detail.) The following example shows the anti-pattern in effect: The asOutput method can only be applied to an object (at time of this writing) and therefore the resulting object has all of the negative characteristics mentioned above. Therefore it is recommended that asOutput/asInput/etc... only be used on 1 time use resources (like InputStream) within a scope and not passed out to an external method so that it is easy to view the entirety of the operation.

Scala-IO Core: ReadChars and WriteChars

The Input and Output objects of Scala-IO assume that the underlying data is composed of bytes.  However, another common pattern is to have the underlying data be composed of characters instead of bytes, for example java.io.Reader and java.io.Writer.  While it is possible to decompose the output into Bytes and construct an Input object from the decorated object, ReadChars and WriteChars can be used in this situation to reduce the work needed to interact with such resources.

ReadChars and WriteChars are traits that contain the character and string methods of Input and Output.  The primary difference is that the Charset is defined by the underlying resource rather than supplied at the method invocation site.  

Compare two methods:

Input:

def chars(implicit codec: Codec = Codec.default): LongTraversable[Char]

ReadChars:

def chars: LongTraversable[Char]

You will notice that the ReadChars method does not have the codec parameter because there translation is not required, unlike in Input which requires the characters to be created from raw bytes.

Not many examples are needed to explain these concepts but here are a few examples on how to create ReadChar and WriteChar objects:

On Vacation

I am getting a lot of emails about Scala-IO and my posts.  Just want to let everyone know I am on vacation until September 10th or so.  I have some posts in the works but they won't be done here where I have virtually no internet.

Back soon.

Scala-IO Core: Seekable

At the same level of abstraction as Input and Output is the fine trait called Seekable.  As the name implies it provides random access style methods for interacting with a resource.  The example that comes immediately to mind is a random access file.

The design of Seekable largely mimics the scala.collection.Seq patch and insert methods.  Not much more to say beyond getting into some examples:
IMPORTANT: Each time truncate() or patch or insert is called a new connection to the file is opened and closed. The Processor API is to be used to perform multiple operations within one connection.

Scala-IO Core: Output - OutputConverter

As mentioned in the last post on Output, it is possible to write arbitrary objects to an output object and have it serialized to disk.

The way this is handled in Scala-IO is via OutputConverters.  If you are familiar with the type-class pattern then this should be very clear to you how this works.  For a very quick introduction you can read: http://www.sidewayscoding.com/2011/01/introduction-to-type-classes-in-scala.html.

The clue is in the signature of write:

def write[T](data: T)(implicit writer: OutputConverter[T]): Unit

the last parameter is the object that defines how the object is serialized.  The OutputConverter trait essentially converts and object into bytes and has a few built-in implementations in its companion object for objects like Int, Float, Byte, Char, etc... 

Since the parameter is implicit the compiler will search for an implementation that satisfies the requirements (that the OutputConverter has the type parameter T).  This allows:

import scalax.io._

val output:Output = Resource.fromFile("scala-io.out")

output write 3

// and

output write Seq(1,2,3)

// one can be more explicit and declare the OutputConverter
output.write(3)(OutputConverter.IntConverter)

The last line in the example shows the explicit declaration of the OutputConverter to use when writing the data. This indicates how one can provide their own converter.

Since the parameter is implicit there are two ways that custom OutputConverters can be used.

• defining an implicit object for the object to be written. In this case all the possible ways implicits can be defined can be used. For example as an implicit value or in the companion object of the object to be written (serialized)
• Explicitly declare the converter to use at the method call site

First let's examine the use-case where the object is from a different library and therefore we cannot create a companion object for the object. The second case is where you are implementing the class and therefore can add a companion object:
For this next bit to work you need to paste it into a file and run that or use the paste mechanism of the REPL (type :paste into repl and press enter)