Mflow

Mflow is the monad-style flow control library for nodejs.

This library is inspired by followings:

• Haskell Monads
• F# Computation Expressions
• visionmedia/co

Supported monad-style flows are followings:

• async
• lazy
• maybe
• state

Caution

Mflow uses ECMAScript 6 generators. Currently you must use the --harmony-generators flag when running node 0.11.x.

Installation

$ npm install mflow

Example

This is an async flow.

var fs = require('fs');
var mflow = require('mflow');
var async = mflow.async;

var flow = async(function *() {
	var a = yield function(f) { fs.readFile('file1', 'utf8', f); };
	var b = yield function(f) { fs.readFile('file2', 'utf8', f); };
	return a + b;
});

flow(function (err, data) {
	if (err) throw err;
	console.log(data);
});

API

Mflow provides following top-level functions:

• async
• lazy
• maybe
• state

These functions accept a generator function which has no parameter.

async(fn)

Makes an async flow.

• fn: a generator function
• return: an async function

The yieldable values are followings:

• a function which has one parameter and passes it to an async function
• an async flow

yield returns the async function's result.

var fs = require('fs');
var mflow = require('mflow');
var async = mflow.async;

var flow = async(function *() {
	var a = yield function(f) { fs.readFile('file1', 'utf8', f); };
	var b = yield function(f) { fs.readFile('file2', 'utf8', f); };
	return a + b;
});

flow(function (err, data) {
	if (err) throw err;
	console.log(data);
});

async.join(fn...)

Runs multiple async functions in parallel.

• fn...: multiple functions or an array of function
• return: a yieldable function. When this function is yielded, all joined function's results are returned as an array.

var fs = require('fs');
var mflow = require('mflow');
var async = mflow.async;

var flow = async(function *() {
	var a = function(f) { fs.readFile('file1', 'utf8', f); };
	var b = function(f) { fs.readFile('file2', 'utf8', f); };
	var results = yield async.join(a, b);
	// instead of multiple arguments, you can use an array.
	// var results = yield async.join([a, b]);
	return results[0] + results[1];
});

flow(function (err, data) {
	if (err) throw err;
	console.log(data);
});

lazy(fn)

Makes a lazy flow.

• fn: a generator function
• return: a function which wraps an expression. When this function is called or is yielded, the expression is evaluated only once.

The yieldable values are followings:

• a function which has no parameter and returns a value
• a lazy flow
• non-function value: When it is yielded, the value is returned without any change.

var mflow = require('mflow');
var lazy = mflow.lazy;

var x = 10;
var result = lazy(function *() {
	return x + 10;
});

console.log(result()); // 20

When a non-function value is yielded, the value is returned without any change.

var mflow = require('mflow');
var lazy = mflow.lazy;

var x = 10;
var lazyValue1 = lazy(function *() { return x + 10; });
var lazyValue2 = lazy(function *() { return x * 10; });

function add(value1, value2) {
	return lazy(function *() {
		var a = yield value1;
		var b = yield value2;
		return a + b; 
	});
};

console.log(add(lazyValue1, lazyValue2)); // 120
console.log(add(1, 2)); // 3

maybe(fn)

Runs a flow which results a successful value or null.

• fn: a generator function
• return: a successful value or null

The yieldable values are followings:

• null
• undefined
• other values

When null or undefined is yielded, the flow is stopped and results null. Otherwise the yielded value is returned without any change.

var mflow = require('mflow');
var maybe = mflow.maybe;

function add(x, y) {
	return maybe(function *() {
		var a = yield x;
		var b = yield y;
		return a + b;
	});
}

console.log(add(1, 2));    // 3
console.log(add(1, null)); // null

state(fn)

Makes a state flow.

• fn: a generator function
• return: a function which has one parameter and returns an array. The parameter is a flow's state. The returned array contains the flow's result as 1st elment and the flow's state as 2nd element.

The yieldable values are followings:

• a function which has one parameter and returns an array. The parameter is a flow's state. The returned array contains the flow's result as 1st elment and the flow's state as 2nd element.
• a state flow

var mflow = require('mflow');
var state = mflow.state;

function pop() {
  return function (s) {
    return [s.shift(), s];
  };
}
 
function push(value) {
  return function (s) {
    s.unshift(value);
    return [null, s];
  };
}

var flow = state(function* () {
	var a = yield pop();
	if (a === 5) {
		yield push(5);
	} else {
		yield push(3);
		yield push(8);
	}
  return 10;
});

var result = flow([9, 0, 2, 1, 0]);
console.log(result[0]); // 10
console.log(result[1]); // [8, 3, 0, 2, 1, 0]

state.get()

Gets a flow's state.

• return: a yieldable function. When this function is apply to yield, a flow's state are returned.

pop and push functions in abobe code can be replaced with following implementations using state.get and state.put:

var pop = function () { 
  return state(function *() {
    var s = yield state.get();
    var ret = s.shift();
    yield state.put(s);
    return ret;
  });
};

var push = function (value) {
  return state(function *() {
    var s = yield state.get();
    s.unshift(value);
    yield state.put(s);
  });
};

state.put(s)

Puts a new state as a flow's state.

• s: a new state
• return: a yieldable function. When this function is apply to yield, a flow's state is replaced with the argument.

See state.get().

state.eval(flow, s)

Runs a flow and returns the flow's result.

• flow: a state flow
• s: a flow's state

Followings are equivalent:

var result = state.eval(flow, [9, 0, 2, 1, 0]);
console.log(result); // 10

var result = flow([9, 0, 2, 1, 0]);
console.log(result[0]); // 10

state.exec(flow, s)

Runs a flow and returns the flow's state.

• flow: a state flow
• s: a flow's state

Followings are equivalent:

var result = state.exec(flow, [9, 0, 2, 1, 0]);
console.log(result); // [8, 3, 0, 2, 1, 0]

var result = flow([9, 0, 2, 1, 0]);
console.log(result[1]); // [8, 3, 0, 2, 1, 0]

Test

$ mocha --harmony-generators

License

MIT