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TraitWrappers.jl

A trait-system where the object is part of the trait type and accessible via the function object.

Why?

The most popular (and only?) trait system in Julia is the Holy Traits. Please see The Emergent Features of JuliaLang: Part II - Traits which discusses Holy Traits. Most of the examples and blogs on traits systems in Julia are based on using traits on one of the arguments. But in many use-cases, multiple arguments should receive the traits treatment. Holy Traits still works in those cases, but it can feel unsatisfying. Indeed, sometimes it can make code harder to read. TraitWrapper.jl was concieved to solve these issues. The "why"s of TraitWrappers.jl are explored and illustrated with examples in the sections below.

The AbstractTraitWrapper type

AbstractTraitWrapper type only defines one method which is object(t::AbstractTraitWrapper) that should return the object with the trait.

Using TraitWrappers.jl

This is an example implementing an Iterable that has the trait HasEltype(). The Holy Trait implementation looks like this

using Base: HasEltype

fn_holy(itr) = fn(IteratorEltype(itr), itr)

fn_holyn(::HasEltype, itr) = begin
	println("this itr has `eltype()` defined")
	println(itr)
end

The equivalent implementation using TraitWrappers.jl is

# Firstly define a TraitWrapper type
struct EltypeTypeTraitWrapper{T, I <: IteratorEltype} <: AbstractTraitWrapper
	object::T
	EltypeTypeTraitWrapper(t::T) where T = new{T, typeof(IteratorEltype(t))}(t)
end

fn_tw(itr) = fn_tw(EltypeTypeTraitWrapper(itr))

fn_tw(itr::EltypeTypeTraitWrapper{T, HasEltype}) where T = begin
	println("this itr has `eltype()` defined")
	println(object(itr))
end

For a function with one argument that needs traits, TraitWrapper isn't as attractive. However, imagine if you have many arguments that can receive the traits treatment then Holy Traits can become harder to read. E.g.

fn_holy(a, b, c) = f(TraitA(a), TraitB(b), TraitC(c), a, b, c)

fn_holy(::SomeTraitA, ::SomeTraitB, ::SomeTraitC, a, b, c) = begin
	# do something to a, b, c
end

versus using TraitWrappers.jl

fn_tw(a, b, c) = f(TraitAWrapper(a), TraitBWrapper(b), TraitCWrapper(c))

fn_tw(a::TraitAWrapper1, b::TraitBWrapper1, c::TraitCWrappe1r) = begin
	# do something to object(a), object(b), object(c)
end

There are pros and cons to either approach but with TraitWrapper.jl, it's easier to see which argument relies on which trait and don't have to rely on positional conventions which can become unwieldy if some arguments rely on traits and some don't. TraitWrapper.jl enhances readability where there are many arguments that rely on traits.

Technically, you don't really need this package to implement the TraitWrapper idea. But using this package indicates that you are using TraitWrappers and can point here for explanation of the concept.

Another Example

Another example of using TraitWrappers.jl lies in the JLBoost.jl package. JLBoost.jl's tree boosting algorithm use a predict function to score out an iterable of trees on a DataFrame-like object.

Before the introduction of TraitWrappers.jl. the function signature looked like this

function predict(jlts::AbstractVector{T}, df::AbstractDataFrame) where T <:AbstractJLBoostTree
	mapreduce(x->predict(x, df), +, jlts)
end

The two arguments are jlts and df and as you can see it’s just using the mapreduce function. Actually, I don’t require jlts to be AbstractVector{T<:AbstractJLBoostTree} nor df to be AbstractDataFrame at all.

I just need jlts to be an iterable of with eltype(jlts) == S<:AbstractJLBoostTree and df to be something that supports the df[!, column] syntax. So naturally, traits fit nicely here. But with Holy traits the functions will look like

function predict(jlts, df)
    predict(Iterable(jlts), ColumnAccessible(df), jlts, df)
end

function predict(::Iterable{T}, ::ColumnAccessible, jlts, df) where T <:AbstractJLBoostTree
    mapreduce(x->predict(x, df), +, jlts)
end

this feels unsatisfying and the implementation using TraitWrappers.jl is

struct IterableTraitWrapper{T} <: AbstractTraitWrapper
   object::T
   IterableTraitWrapper(t::T) where T = begin
      if hasmethod(iterate, Tuple{T})
      	new{T}(t)
      else
         throw("This is not iterable")
      end
   end
end

struct ColumnAccessibleTraitWrapper{T} <: TraitWrapper{T}
   object::T
   ColumnAccessibleTraitWrapper(t::T) where T = begin
      if hasmethod(getindex, Tuple{T, typeof(!), Symbol})
      	 new{T}(t)
      else
         throw("This is not ColumnAccessible")
      end
   end
end

Now the my traits signature becomes like the below; it is easy to associate the traits with the arguments. Please note, that the above is dynamic, as it relies on checking if a method exists. Dynamic type constructors cannot be compiled away and may lead to inefficient code. To address this, one may consider using Tricks.jl's statis_hasmethod function and note that Tricks.jl only works on Julia >= 1.3.

function predict(jlts, df)
    predict(IterableTraitWrapper(jlts), ColumnAccessibleTraitWrapper(df))
end

function predict(jlts::IterableTraitWrapper, df::ColumnAccessible)
    mapreduce(x->predict(x, object(df)), +, object(jlts))
end

Finally, if more traits are needed in a function signature, they can be added without having to double the number of arguments.

In conclusion, I hope you find that TraitWrapper makes it clearer which trait corresponds to which argument better, and it is easier to clearly express which argument is expected to have a certain trait.