sumtype-go

sumtype-go

Introduction

sumtype-go is a CLI tool designed to facilitate the creation and management of sum types (aka union types) in Go. This tool simplifies the process of generating boilerplate code for discriminated union types, making it easier to work with its variants in Go.

Quick Tour

To define this sum type:

type User
    = Anonymous
    | Member String Time
    | Admin String

write this Go type definition, e.g. in declaration.go

type User interface {
	Switch(s UserScenarios)
}

type UserScenarios struct { // be sure to suffix the name with `Scenarios`
	Anonymous func()
	Member    func(email string, since time.Time)
	Admin     func(email string)
}

Execute this command

go install github.com/choonkeat/sumtype-go@v0.3.2 # to install
sumtype-go -input declaration.go

To generate declaration.boilerplate.go and start using it!

users := []User{
	Anonymous(),                 // this returns a `User` value
	Member("Alice", time.Now()), // this also returns a `User` value
	Admin("Bob"),                // this also returns a `User` value
}

and we can write functions that work with User

func UserString(u User) string {
	var result string
	u.Switch(UserScenarios{
		Anonymous: func() {
			result = "Anonymous coward"
		},
		Member: func(email string, since time.Time) {
			result = email + " (member since " + since.String() + ")"
		},
		Admin: func(email string) {
			result = email + " (admin)"
		},
	})
	return result
}

Refer to example/gosumtype_1_*.go

Generics

We support generics too. e.g. the classic Result type

type Result x a
    = Err x
    | Ok a

can be defined as

type Result[x, a interface{}] interface {
	Switch(s ResultScenarios[x, a])
}

type ResultScenarios[x, a interface{}] struct {
	Err func(err x)
	Ok  func(data a)
}

Same thing, after executing sumtype-go to generate the .boilerplate.go file, you can use it like

results := []Result[string, int]{
	Err[string, int]("Oops err"), // this returns a `Result` value
	Ok[string, int](42),          // this also returns a `Result` value
}

for i, result := range results {
	HandleResult(i, result)
}

// TODO: implement `func HandleResult(i int, result Result[string, int])`

Refer to example/result_1_*.go

Installation

To install sumtype-go, ensure you have Go installed on your system, and then run the following command:

go install github.com/choonkeat/sumtype-go@v0.3.2

Usage

After installation, you can start using sumtype-go by invoking it from the command line. Here's a basic example of how to use it:

  -input string
    	Input file name
  -suffix string
    	Suffix of the struct name (default "Scenarios")
  -switch string
    	Name of the switch method (default "Switch")