NAME

AutoCurry - automatically create currying variants of functions

SYNOPSIS

    use AutoCurry qw( foo );  # pass :all to curry all functions

    sub foo { print "@_\n"; }
    # currying variant, foo_c, is created automatically

    my $hello = foo_c("Hello, ");
    $hello->("world!");       # Hello, world!
    $hello->("Pittsburgh!");  # Hello, Pittsburgh!

DESCRIPTION

This module automatically creates currying variants of functions. For each function foo, a currying variant foo_c will be created that (1) captures whatever arguments are passed to it and (2) returns a new function. The new function awaits any new arguments that are passed to it, and then calls the original foo, giving it both the captured and new arguments.

If foo is a function and foo_c is its currying variant, then the following are equivalent for all argument lists @a and @b:

    foo(@a, @b);
    foo_c(@a, @b)->();
    foo_c()->(@a, @b);
    foo_c(@a)->(@b);
    do { my $foo1 = foo_c(@a); $foo1->(@b) };

use AutoCurry names

You can create currying variants at use time by listing the functions to be curried:

    use AutoCurry qw( foo bar );

Or, if you want to curry everything in the current package:

    use AutoCurry ':all';

curry_named_functions(names)

You can also create variants at run time:

    my @created_variants =
    AutoCurry::curry_named_functions(qw( foo bar My::Package::baz ));

The fully-qualified names of the created functions are returned:

    print "@created_variants";
    # main::foo_c main::bar_c My::Package::baz

If you are writing a module, this list of names is handy for augmenting your export lists.

curry_package(package)

    AutoCurry::curry_package("My::Package"); # autocurries My::Package
    AutoCurry::curry_package();              # autocurries calling pkg

Creates currying variants for all of the subroutines within the given package or, if no package is given, the current package from which curry_package was called.

Returns a list of the functions created.

Using another suffix

Do not change the suffix unless you truly must.

If for some reason you cannot use the standard _c suffix, you can override it by changing $AutoCurry::suffix for the duration of your calls to AutoCurry. Use do and local to limit the scope of your changes:

    use AutoCurry;  # suffix changing is not compatible with ':all'

    my @curried_fns = do {
        local $AutoCurry::suffix = "_curry";
        AutoCurry::curry_package();
    };
    # result: ( "main::foo_curry" )

    sub foo { ... };
    # foo_curry will be created by call to C<curry_package>, above

MOTIVATION

Currying reduces the cost of reusing functions by allowing you to "specialize" them by pre-binding values to a subset of their arguments. Using it, you can convert any function into a family of related, specialized functions.

Currying in Perl is somewhat awkward. My motivation for writing this module was to minimize that awkwardness and approximate the "free" currying that modern functional programming languages such as Haskell offer.

As an example, let's say we have a general-purpose logging function:

    sub log_to_file {
        my ($fh, $heading, $message) = @_;
        print $fh "$heading: $message\n";
    }

We can use it like so:

    log_to_file( *STDERR, "warning", "hull breach imminent!" );

If we are logging a bunch of warnings to STDERR, we can save some work by creating a temporary, specialized version of the function that is tailored for our warnings:

    my $log_warning = sub {
        log_to_file( *STDERR, "warning", @_ );
    };

    $log_warning->("cap'n, she's breakin' up!");

The log_warning function is easier to use, but having to create it is a pain. We are effectively currying by hand. For this reason, many people use a helper function to curry for them:

    $log_warning = curry( \&log_to_file, *STDERR, "warning" );

An improvement, but still far from free.

This module does away with the manual labor altogether by creating currying variants of your functions automatically. These variants have names ending in a _c suffix and automatically curry the original functions for the arguments you give them:

    use AutoCurry ':all';
    $log_warning = log_to_file_c( *STDERR, "warning" );

    $log_warning->("she's gonna blow!");

The total cost of currying is reduced to appending a _c suffix, which is probably as low as it's going to get on this side of Perl 6.

A NOTE FOR MODULE AUTHORS

The handling of use AutoCurry ':all' relies upon an INIT block, which may cause problems in environments such as mod_perl or if you are creating functions dynamically. Therefore, I recommend that module authors call AutoCurry::curry_package instead:

    package My::Amazing::Thing;

    use AutoCurry;   # but don't say ':all'

    sub blargh { .... }
    # more stuff here
    # maybe generate a few functions dynamically

    AutoCurry::curry_package();

AUTHOR

Tom Moertel (tom@moertel.com)

COPYRIGHT and LICENSE

Copyright (c) 2004-05 by Thomas G Moertel. All rights reserved.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

cpanm AutoCurry

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install AutoCurry