rulifier

Rulifier is a light-weight rule engine designed for speed and ease-of-use.

Rulifier allows you to define a number of data sources and rules. Then, by providing additional context, you can evaluate those rules.

Rulifier comes with a small set of builtin rules, but you can also build you rown rules, and you can compose new rules out of the existing ones.

An example

const { Rulifier } = require("rulifier")

async function run() {
    // First, define the set of data sources. In this example,
    // we only have one.
    const rulifier = new Rulifier([
        {
            // We have a property "words" which will contain different
            // values depending on the language.
            //
            // Note that the 'language' property is not defined in this
            // data source; we'll prove that context later.
            words: {
                $switch: {
                    cases: [
                        {
                            // This means, "if the property 'language' equals 'en'...
                            condition: {
                                $match: {
                                    language: "en"
                                }
                            },
                            // Then the 'words' property has these two values
                            value: {
                                hello: "Hello",
                                world: "World"
                            }
                        },
                        {
                            // Likewise, if 'language' is 'es',
                            condition: {
                                $match: {
                                    language: "es"
                                }
                            }
                            // Then use these Spanish values
                            value: {
                                hello: "Hola",
                                world: "Mundo"
                            }
                        },
                    ]
                }
            },
            // The property 'greeting' uses string interpolation to get the
            // properties words.hello and words.world, as defined above.
            greeting: { $str: "${words.hello}, ${words.world}!" }
        }
    ])

    // Now, take the rulifier we created and define the language 
    // property, which is needed to resolve the rules above.
    // 
    // The result here is a Javascript proxy that you can use to 
    // walk the properties defined above to get values.
    // 
    // You can access all the properties on result and store them 
    // in variables and pass them into other functions. HOWEVER,
    // you can't get the actual result of evaluating the rules
    // until the next step: materialize.
    const result = rulifier.applyContext({ 
        language: "en"
    })

    // "materialize" takes a propery from your rulified result above
    // and evaluates the rules, turning it into a fully-materialized
    // Javascript object (it's no longer a proxy.)
    const greeting = await rulifier.materialize(result.greeting))
    console.log(greeting) // Output: Hello, World!

    // You can dig down as far as you want into the structure and get
    // the individual words if you like:
    const hello = await rulifier.materialize(result.words.hello)
    console.log(hello) // Output: Hello
}

Defining rules

In the previous example, we define a language in our call to applyContext. However, you might want to define different behavior, not only by language, but also by counry. Instead of defining language, let's try defining a culture context (such as "en-US".) We can still use our existing rules.

The Rulifier constructor accepts an options argument which can define various rules. Note that rules names always begin with $.

const rulifier = new Rulifier([,
        {
            /* ... the data source from above ... */
        },
        {
            // Define "language" and "country" by reading the "culture" value from context,
            // and passing it throught the $stripLanguage and $stripCountry rules.
            language: { $stripLanguage: { $ref: "culture" } },
            country: { $stripCountry: { $ref: "culture" } }
        }
    ],
    {
        rules: {
            // Rules are really just asynchronous functions.
            // The `obj` parameter is the object that is passed to it. (The result of the $ref rule above.)
            // The `sdk` parameter is a collection of helpers to access the properties of the `obj` parameter.
            // 
            // Note that `obj` is a proxy, so you can't use it directly without first calling `materialize`.
            async $stripLanguage(obj, sdk) {
                const culture = await sdk.materialize(obj)
                // Given 'en-US', return 'en'
                return culture.substr(0,2)
            },
            async $stripCountry(obj, sdk) {
                const culture = await sdk.materialize(obj)
                // Given 'en-US', return 'us'
                return culture.substr(3, 2).toLowerCase()
            }
        }
    })

Built-in rules

$ref

The $ref accepts a string path and, starting from the root of the object, follows the properties down to the referenced property.

The path uses typical Javascript syntax for accesssing a string of properties, such as person.address.city. You can also refrence arary elements by index, such as people[0].address.city

{ $ref: string } // returns any

Example:

For this example, we'll assume that we have these data sources and context:

{
    people: [
        {
            name: "John Donson",
            address: {
                street: "1 Main Street",
                city: "Hitsville",
                country: "USA"
            }
        }
    ],
    // This evaluates to "Hitsville
    johnCity: {
        $ref: "people[0].address.city"
    }
}

$str

The $str rule allows you to reference properties using string interpolation, and replace those references with the values of those references.

{ $str: string } // returns string

Properties are referenced using the syntax ${reference}.

Given the $ref example above, we could add this context:

{
    ...
    // This evalutes to "Good morning, John Donson, how are things in Hitsville?"
    johnGreeting: { $str: "Good morning, ${people[0].name}, how are things in ${johnCity}?" }
}

Boolean rules $and, $or, and $not

{ $and: boolean[] } // returns boolean
{ $or: boolean[] } // returns boolean
{ $not: boolean } // returns boolean

$and takes an array of expressions and returns true if they are all truthy. If the given array is empty, then $and returns true.

Likewise, $or returns false if any of the expressions is falsy, and if the array is empty, then $or returns false.

$and and $or will short-circuit -- that is -- they will only evaluate expressions for as long as it takes to determine the result.

NOTE - unlike most languages, the expressions are not evaluated in the given order, but rather, the expressions are sorted by cost, evaluating the least-expensive predicates first.

$not will return the boolean opposite of the given expression. It returns true if expression is falsy, and false if the expression is truthy.

$if

{
    $if: {
        condition: boolean,
        then: any
        else: any
    }
}

$if evaluates the given expression and -- if it is truthy -- returns the then value, otherwise, it returns the else value.

$switch

{
    $switch: Array<{
        condition?: boolean
        value: any
    }>
}

$switch evalutes a set of conditions, returning the value of the first case that evalutes to true. If a case doesn't include a condition, then that case will be considered to be a default if no other cases match.

NOTE Cases are not evaluated in sequential order, but rather, in the order of cost, with the least expensive cases being evaluated first.

Example

In this example, if the city value evalutes to "New York", then areaCode evalutes to "212", otherwise, "UKNOWN".

{
    areaCode {
        $switch: [
            {
                condition: { $eq: [ { $ref("city") }, "New York" ] },
                value: "212"
            },
            {
                value: "UNKNOWN"
            }
        ]
    }
}

$match

{
    $match: object
}

$match is a boolean rule that evalutes to true if the properties of the given object match the values of the rulified object itself.

Example

{
    isFred: {
        $match: {
            name: "Fred",
            age: 25
            address: {
                zipCode: "01234"
            }
        }
    }
}

In this example, the isFred property matches the given references (name, age, and address.zipCode) match the given values.

Instead of matching against specific values, you can also use rules to match:

{
    isOld: {
        $match: {
            age: { $gt: 80 }
        }
    }
}

Working with rulified objects

Rulified objects are Javascript proxies that intercept proxy requests to return a new rulified object.

For example:

// Here we get a rulified object
const obj = rulifier.applyContext({...})

// This is also a rulified object; it is not a string.
const nameProxy = obj.person[0].name

After you get a rulified object, in order to evaluate it and get a real Javascript object, you must then "materialize" it.

const name = await rulifier.materialize(nameProxy)

In addition to materializing a rulified object, you can perform a number of other operations on objects without fully materializing them.

Here are the methods on Rulifier. These methods will evaluate only the root of the object; any properties of that value will remain unevaluated until they are specifically requested.

• getTypeof(obj: any): Promise<string> - get the Javascript type of the evaluated object
• getKeys(obj: any): Promise<string[] | undefined> - returns the set of keys on an object, or undefined the argument isn't an object.
• has(obj: any, key: string): Promise<boolean> - returns true if the given key exists on the evaluated object
• getLength(array: any[]): Promise<number | undefined> - returns the number of elements in an array, or undefined if the argument isn't an array.

Iterating

You can also iterate over the values of a rulified array without fully materializing it. The root of the object will be evaluated, but not the entries of the array themselves.

Iterating takes advantage of Javascript asynchronous iterators; note the for await syntax in this example:

// Use async iterator syntax
for await (const person of people) {
    // Note that we still have to materialize the name. None of the other properties of the object need to be materialized.
    const name = await rulifier.materialize(person.name)
    console.log(name)
}

Writing custom rules

In addition to the built-in rules provided by Rulifier, you can define your own rules. The Rulifier constructor includes an options object where you can defined rules.

This example references the rule $toLowerCase to read the "name" value and convert it to lowercase:

const rulifier = new Rulifier(
    {
        lowerCaseName: { 
            $toLowerCase: {
                $ref: "name"
            }
        }
    },
    {
        rules: {
            async $toLowerCase(strObj, sdk) {
                str = await sdk.materialize(strObj)
                return str
            }
        }
    }
)

const obj = rulifier.applyContext({ name: "Steve" })
const name = await rulifier.materialize(obj.lowerCaseName) // "steve"

To reference a rule, you define an object with a single property, which is the name of the rule to invoke. The value of that property will be the argument to the rule. In the example above, the rule { $ref: "name" } is passed as an argument to the $toLowerCase rule.

Rules are just functions that take two parameters: the rulified object that is the value given in the rule reference, and a Rulifier.

Performance

Rulifier is fast for several reasons:

• Rules are evaluated lazily, and only if they need to be
• Results are cached so that if you evaluate the same rule with the same context, you'll get the same cached result. (The cache is cleared as soon as you apply a new context to your rule set.)
• Since boolean rules (like $or and $and) will short circuit as soon as it can be determined that the rule is true or false, the cases are sorted in order of complexity; if you have an expensive term in your $or statement, you may be able to quickly determine that you don't need to evaluate it at all.

Improving performance

Since Rulifier only evalutes rules if it absolutely has to, avoid fully materializing objects if you only need a subset of its properties. You can also take advantage of the methods on Rulifier to get the set of keys on an object, the length of an array, etc.

Additionally, you can iterate over a rulified array without actually materializing it. (See "Iterating" above.)

Usage