Exhaustive Sum Types in Java with a Visitor

What?
A Sum type.
Using a Visitor. Also, please don't really do this.

What?

Simply stated, I have heard it said that java could not provide exhaustive coverage of sum types because it lacks pattern matching. I will not try and claim that it is as pleasant as a language that does, however, I also get somewhat annoyed by the idea that this can not be dealt with

A Sum type.

I'm not going to provide too much in the way of explanation on what sum types are. In large part because I would probably make a mistake in explaining this.

However, by now, I am sure everyone has seen an example of the Optional type that everyone knows and loves. Right?

Using a Visitor. Also, please don't really do this.

If we are willing to go through some extra hurdles in providing a visitor next to our Option type, we can provide a way where you can exhaustively list the possible sum types in static code and get the compiler to help.

public abstract class Option<A> {
    public <B> B MATCH(Visitor<A, B> visitor) {
        return this.acceptVisitor(visitor);
    }

    abstract <B> B acceptVisitor(Visitor<A, B> visitor);

    public static <A> Option<A> some(A value) {
        return new Some<A>(value);
    }

    public static <A> Option<A> none() {
        return new None<A>();
    }

    private static final class Some<A> extends Option<A> {
        private final A value;
        private Some(A value) {
            this.value = value;
        }
        <B> B acceptVisitor(Visitor<A, B> visitor) {
            return visitor.SOME(this.value);
        }
    }

    private static final class None<A> extends Option<A> {
        <B> B acceptVisitor(Visitor<A, B> visitor) {
            return visitor.NONE();
        }
    }

    public static abstract class Visitor<A, B> {
        public abstract B SOME(A value);
        public abstract B NONE();
    }
}

Now, one can write code such as the following, where all places where you would "match" in Scala or similar languages to make sure you cover all types of the sum value are covered by the visitor methods.

public class OptionExample {
    public static void main(String args[]) {
        Option<String> example;

        example = Option.some("Hello World");

        Integer result = example.MATCH(new Option.Visitor<String, Integer>() {
                public Integer SOME(String value) {
                    return value.length();
                }
                public Integer NONE() {
                    return 0;
                }
            });

        System.out.println("We saw " + result + " characters.");

        example = Option.none();

        result = example.MATCH(new Option.Visitor<String, Integer>() {
                public Integer SOME(String value) {
                    return value.length();
                }
                public Integer NONE() {
                    return 0;
                }
            });

        System.out.println("We saw " + result + " characters.");

    }
}

Now, I will make no claims that this is as pleasant as languages that offer this as a first class citizen. Nor will I claim that this replaces pattern matching, as that is actually much more than this.

However, I do claim that if all you want is exhaustive treatment of the values in a sum type, than the visitor pattern will serve you for this.

I will not claim that it will serve you well, as dealing with this code in a debugger is just plain annoying. That moment when you realize you stepped over instead of in? Yeah, I hate that.

I will further note that it is odd that I can not declare a private abstract method in Java. Something that this example would have quite clearly supported.

Exhaustive Sum Types in Java with a Visitor

Table of Contents

What?

A Sum type.

Using a Visitor. Also, please don't really do this.