CODEWITHSUNDEEP
f#
MattMS
MattMS

Reputation: 1156

Convert a method call or assignment to a function in F#

I would like to use some object-oriented code in a more functional way. My current approach has been the following:

let addControl (child: Control) (parent: Control) =
    parent.Controls.Add child
    parent

let setDock dock (control : Control) =
    control.Dock <- dock
    control

form |> addControl button

button |> setDock DockStyle.Fill

Is there a simpler way I can define these functions?

If I take the JS approach I could define something like the following:

const fixMethod = name => value => parent => (parent[name](value), parent)
const resumeLayout = fixMethod("ResumeLayout")
resumeLayout(true)(form)

const fixAssign = name => value => parent => ({...parent, [name]: value})
const setDock = fixAssign("Dock")
setDock(DockStyle.Fill)(button)

Upvotes: 0

Views: 120

Answers (1)

Tomas Petricek
Tomas Petricek

Reputation: 243051

There are various tricks you could do in F#, but none of those will make your code much nicer - I would say that most tricks you can do will actually only make it more complex and unidiomatic.

There is nothing wrong with writing some imperative-looking code if that's what the underlying libraries look like. F# does have a few features that make this easier - you can, for example, specify mutable properties directly when calling a constructor, so you can set Dock as follows:

let button = new Button(Dock = DockStyle.Fill)
let form = new Form()
form.Controls.Add(button)

Upvotes: 1

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