What Automatic Resource Management alternatives exist for Scala?

Chris Hansen's blog entry 'ARM Blocks in Scala: Revisited' from 3/26/09 talks about about slide 21 of Martin Odersky's FOSDEM presentation. This next block is taken straight from slide 21 (with permission):

def using[T <: { def close() }]
    (resource: T)
    (block: T => Unit) 
{
  try {
    block(resource)
  } finally {
    if (resource != null) resource.close()
  }
}

--end quote--

Then we can call like this:

using(new BufferedReader(new FileReader("file"))) { r =>
  var count = 0
  while (r.readLine != null) count += 1
  println(count)
}

What are the drawbacks of this approach? That pattern would seem to address 95% of where I would need automatic resource management...

Edit: added code snippet

Edit2: extending the design pattern - taking inspiration from python with statement and addressing:

statements to run before the block
re-throwing exception depending on the managed resource
handling two resources with one single using statement
resource-specific handling by providing an implicit conversion and a Managed class

This is with Scala 2.8.

trait Managed[T] {
  def onEnter(): T
  def onExit(t:Throwable = null): Unit
  def attempt(block: => Unit): Unit = {
    try { block } finally {}
  }
}

def using[T <: Any](managed: Managed[T])(block: T => Unit) {
  val resource = managed.onEnter()
  var exception = false
  try { block(resource) } catch  {
    case t:Throwable => exception = true; managed.onExit(t)
  } finally {
    if (!exception) managed.onExit()
  }
}

def using[T <: Any, U <: Any]
    (managed1: Managed[T], managed2: Managed[U])
    (block: T => U => Unit) {
  using[T](managed1) { r =>
    using[U](managed2) { s => block(r)(s) }
  }
}

class ManagedOS(out:OutputStream) extends Managed[OutputStream] {
  def onEnter(): OutputStream = out
  def onExit(t:Throwable = null): Unit = {
    attempt(out.close())
    if (t != null) throw t
  }
}
class ManagedIS(in:InputStream) extends Managed[InputStream] {
  def onEnter(): InputStream = in
  def onExit(t:Throwable = null): Unit = {
    attempt(in.close())
    if (t != null) throw t
  }
}

implicit def os2managed(out:OutputStream): Managed[OutputStream] = {
  return new ManagedOS(out)
}
implicit def is2managed(in:InputStream): Managed[InputStream] = {
  return new ManagedIS(in)
}

def main(args:Array[String]): Unit = {
  using(new FileInputStream("foo.txt"), new FileOutputStream("bar.txt")) { 
    in => out =>
    Iterator continually { in.read() } takeWhile( _ != -1) foreach { 
      out.write(_) 
    }
  }
}

Here's James Iry solution using continuations:

// standard using block definition
def using[X <: {def close()}, A](resource : X)(f : X => A) = {
   try {
     f(resource)
   } finally {
     resource.close()
   }
}

// A DC version of 'using' 
def resource[X <: {def close()}, B](res : X) = shift(using[X, B](res))

// some sugar for reset
def withResources[A, C](x : => A @cps[A, C]) = reset{x}

Here are the solutions with and without continuations for comparison:

def copyFileCPS = using(new BufferedReader(new FileReader("test.txt"))) {
  reader => {
   using(new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter("test_copy.txt"))) {
      writer => {
        var line = reader.readLine
        var count = 0
        while (line != null) {
          count += 1
          writer.write(line)
          writer.newLine
          line = reader.readLine
        }
        count
      }
    }
  }
}

def copyFileDC = withResources {
  val reader = resource[BufferedReader,Int](new BufferedReader(new FileReader("test.txt")))
  val writer = resource[BufferedWriter,Int](new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter("test_copy.txt")))
  var line = reader.readLine
  var count = 0
  while(line != null) {
    count += 1
    writer write line
    writer.newLine
    line = reader.readLine
  }
  count
}

And here's Tiark Rompf's suggestion of improvement:

trait ContextType[B]
def forceContextType[B]: ContextType[B] = null

// A DC version of 'using'
def resource[X <: {def close()}, B: ContextType](res : X): X @cps[B,B] = shift(using[X, B](res))

// some sugar for reset
def withResources[A](x : => A @cps[A, A]) = reset{x}

// and now use our new lib
def copyFileDC = withResources {
 implicit val _ = forceContextType[Int]
 val reader = resource(new BufferedReader(new FileReader("test.txt")))
 val writer = resource(new BufferedWriter(new FileWriter("test_copy.txt")))
 var line = reader.readLine
 var count = 0
 while(line != null) {
   count += 1
   writer write line
   writer.newLine
   line = reader.readLine
 }
 count
}

Daniel,

I've just recently deployed the scala-arm library for automatic resource management. You can find the documentation here: https://github.com/jsuereth/scala-arm/wiki

This library supports three styles of usage (currently):

1) Imperative/for-expression:

import resource._
for(input <- managed(new FileInputStream("test.txt")) {
// Code that uses the input as a FileInputStream
}

2) Monadic-style

import resource._
import java.io._
val lines = for { input <- managed(new FileInputStream("test.txt"))
                  val bufferedReader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(input)) 
                  line <- makeBufferedReaderLineIterator(bufferedReader)
                } yield line.trim()
lines foreach println

3) Delimited Continuations-style

Here's an "echo" tcp server:

import java.io._
import util.continuations._
import resource._
def each_line_from(r : BufferedReader) : String @suspendable =
  shift { k =>
    var line = r.readLine
    while(line != null) {
      k(line)
      line = r.readLine
    }
  }
reset {
  val server = managed(new ServerSocket(8007)) !
  while(true) {
    // This reset is not needed, however the  below denotes a "flow" of execution that can be deferred.
    // One can envision an asynchronous execuction model that would support the exact same semantics as below.
    reset {
      val connection = managed(server.accept) !
      val output = managed(connection.getOutputStream) !
      val input = managed(connection.getInputStream) !
      val writer = new PrintWriter(new BufferedWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(output)))
      val reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(input))
      writer.println(each_line_from(reader))
      writer.flush()
    }
  }
}

The code makes uses of a Resource type-trait, so it's able to adapt to most resource types. It has a fallback to use structural typing against classes with either a close or dispose method. Please check out the documentation and let me know if you think of any handy features to add.

What Automatic Resource Management alternatives exist for Scala?

Tags:

Scala

Resource Management

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