A type f is a Functor if it provides a function fmap which, given any types a and b
lets you apply any function from (a -> b) to turn an f a into an f b, preserving the
structure of f. Furthermore f needs to adhere to the following:
Note, that the second law follows from the free theorem of the type fmap and
the first law, so you need only check that the former condition holds.
See these articles by School of Haskell or
David Luposchainsky
for an explanation.
fmap is used to apply a function of type (a -> b) to a value of type f a,
where f is a functor, to produce a value of type f b.
Note that for any type constructor with more than one parameter (e.g., Either),
only the last type parameter can be modified with fmap (e.g., b in Either a b).
Some type constructors with two parameters or more have a Bifunctor instance that allows
both the last and the penultimate parameters to be mapped over.
Examples
Convert from a Maybe Int to a Maybe String
using show:
Example2 expressions
>>> fmap show NothingNothing>>> fmap show (Just 3)Just "3"
Convert from an Either Int Int to an
Either Int String using show:
Example2 expressions
>>> fmap show (Left 17)Left 17>>> fmap show (Right 17)Right "17"
It may seem surprising that the function is only applied to the last element of the tuple
compared to the list example above which applies it to every element in the list.
To understand, remember that tuples are type constructors with multiple type parameters:
a tuple of 3 elements (a,b,c) can also be written (,,) a b c and its Functor instance
is defined for Functor ((,,) a b) (i.e., only the third parameter is free to be mapped over
with fmap).
It explains why fmap can be used with tuples containing values of different types as in the
following example:
Replace all locations in the input with the same value.
The default definition is fmap . const, but this may be
overridden with a more efficient version.
Examples
Perform a computation with Maybe and replace the result with a
constant value if it is Just:
Example2 expressions
>>> 'a' <$ Just 2Just 'a'>>> 'a' <$ NothingNothing
Right-to-left composition of functors.
The composition of applicative functors is always applicative,
but the composition of monads is not always a monad.
If f is both Functor and Contravariant then by the time you factor
in the laws of each of those classes, it can't actually use its argument in
any meaningful capacity.
This method is surprisingly useful. Where both instances exist and are
lawful we have the following laws:
Whereas in Haskell, one can think of a Functor as containing or producing
values, a contravariant functor is a functor that can be thought of as
consuming values.
As an example, consider the type of predicate functions a -> Bool. One
such predicate might be negative x = x < 0, which
classifies integers as to whether they are negative. However, given this
predicate, we can re-use it in other situations, providing we have a way to
map values to integers. For instance, we can use the negative predicate
on a person's bank balance to work out if they are currently overdrawn:
newtype Predicate a = Predicate { getPredicate :: a -> Bool }
instance Contravariant Predicate where
contramap :: (a' -> a) -> (Predicate a -> Predicate a')
contramap f (Predicate p) = Predicate (p . f)
| `- First, map the input...
`----- then apply the predicate.
overdrawn :: Predicate Person
overdrawn = contramap personBankBalance negative
Any instance should be subject to the following laws:
Note, that the second law follows from the free theorem of the type of
contramap and the first law, so you need only check that the former
condition holds.
Replace all locations in the output with the same value.
The default definition is contramap . const, but this may be
overridden with a more efficient version.
A bifunctor is a type constructor that takes
two type arguments and is a functor in both arguments. That
is, unlike with Functor, a type constructor such as Either
does not need to be partially applied for a Bifunctor
instance, and the methods in this class permit mapping
functions over the Left value or the Right value,
or both at the same time.
Formally, the class Bifunctor represents a bifunctor
from Hask -> Hask.
Intuitively it is a bifunctor where both the first and second
arguments are covariant.
The class definition of a Bifunctorp uses the
QuantifiedConstraints
language extension to quantify over the first type
argument a in its context. The context requires that p a
must be a Functor for all a. In other words a partially
applied Bifunctor must be a Functor. This makes Functor a
superclass of Bifunctor such that a function with a
Bifunctor constraint may use fmap in its implementation.
Functor has been a quantified superclass of
Bifunctor since base-4.18.0.0.