spiralout / Phonads

Various Monads for PHP 5.4

Phonads: A Monad Library for PHP 5.4

Quick Example:

An example of what coding with Phonads looks like.

<?php
function doSomethingWithValueFromDB() {
    return Match::on($this->getValueFromDB())
        ->None(function($_) { throw new \Exception('Could not retrieve thing from database!'); })
        ->Some(function($v) {
            return Match::on(
                TransactionContext::required(new DBTransaction())
                    ->map(function($transaction) use ($v) {
                        $stmt = $transaction->db->prepareSQLStatement($v);
                        return $stmt->execute();
                    })->commit()->value())
                ->Failure(function($f) { echo "Oh noes!"; return $f; })
                ->Success(function($s) {
                    echo "SQL Command Successful!";
                    return $s;
                })->value();
        })->value();
}

Option: Some and None

Option can be used when you need to represent a value that may or may not exist. In PHP, the concept of "no value" is usually represented by NULL. The safe handling of NULLs usually leads to ugly code or risking "Call to a member function foo() on a non-object" errors. Using the Option monads (and the ProxyMap feature), you can turn this:

<?php
$result = getValueHopefully();
if (!is_null($result)) {
    $result->doSomethingUseful();
}

Into this:

<?php
getValueHopefully()->doSomethingUseful();

Validation: Success and Failure

Validation presents a similar idea to the Option monad: a value that can represent either a Successful operation or a Failed operation. In PHP, failure is often represented by either a NULL or FALSE value, but sometimes either or both of these values is actually a valid result of an operation. The Validation monad provides a specific mechanism to represent the Success or Failure of an operation so there is no ambiguity. For example:

<?php
$result = commandThatMightFail();
if ($result !== false) {
    $result->doSomethingUseful();
}

Can become this:

<?php
commandThatMightFail()->doSomethingUseful();

ProxyMap

ProxyMap is a shortcut to overcome PHP's clunky syntax for lambda functions. For Monads that contain a single value (Options and Validations), ProxyMap implements __call() to forward method calls on the Monad object to the object contained within. For example:

<?php
(new Some($object))->map(function($x) { $x->doSomething(); });

Can be written as this:

<?php
(new Some($object))->doSomething();

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