Idris2/docs/source/app/exceptionsstate.rst
Tim Engler 774529fd70 Altered docs for `Exception` to reflect the code changes in Control.App
Exception is no longer an interface but just a synonym of ``HasErr``. Updated docs to reflect this.
2022-11-13 09:28:43 +00:00

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Exceptions and State
====================
``Control.App`` is primarily intended to make it easier to manage the common
cases of applications with exceptions and state. We can throw and catch
exceptions listed in the list of errors (the ``es`` parameter to ``App``) and
introduce new global state.
Exceptions
----------
The ``List Error`` is a list of error types, which can be thrown and caught
using the functions below:
.. code-block:: idris
throw : HasErr err es => err -> App es a
catch : HasErr err es => App es a -> (err -> App es a) -> App es a
We can use ``throw`` and ``catch`` for some exception type ``err`` as
long as the exception type exists in the list of errors, ``es``, as
checked by the ``HasErr`` predicate, also defined in ``Control.App``
(Also, note that ``Exception`` is a synonym for ``HasErr``):
.. code-block:: idris
data HasErr : Error -> List Error -> Type where
Here : HasErr e (e :: es)
There : HasErr e es -> HasErr e (e' :: es)
Exception : Error -> List Error -> Type
Exception = HasErr
Finally, we can introduce new exception types via ``handle``, which runs a
block of code which might throw, handling any exceptions:
.. code-block:: idris
handle : App (err :: e) a ->
(onok : a -> App e b) ->
(onerr : err -> App e b) -> App e b
Adding State
------------
Applications will typically need to keep track of state, and we support
this primitively in ``App`` using a ``State`` type, defined in
``Control.App``:
.. code-block:: idris
data State : (tag : a) -> Type -> List Error -> Type
The ``tag`` is used purely to distinguish between different states,
and is not required at run-time, as explicitly stated in the types of
``get`` and ``put``, which are used to access and update a state:
.. code-block:: idris
get : (0 tag : _) -> State tag t e => App {l} e t
put : (0 tag : _) -> State tag t e => (1 val : t) -> App {l} e ()
These use an ``auto``-implicit to pass around
a ``State`` with the relevant ``tag`` implicitly, so we refer
to states by tag alone. In ``helloCount`` earlier, we used an empty type
``Counter`` as the tag:
.. code-block:: idris
data Counter : Type where -- complete definition
The list of errors ``e`` is used to ensure that
states are only usable in the list of errors in which they are introduced.
States are introduced using ``new``:
.. code-block:: idris
new : t -> (1 p : State tag t e => App {l} e a) -> App {l} e a
Note that the type tells us ``new`` runs the program with the state
exactly once.
Rather than using ``State`` and ``Exception`` directly, however,
we typically use interfaces to constrain the operations which are allowed
in a list of errors. Internally, ``State`` is implemented via an
``IORef``, primarily for performance reasons.