Can I use different workflows simultaneously in F#?

Question

I need my state to be passed along while being able to chain functions with the maybe workflow. Is there a way for 2 workflows to share the same context? If no, what is the way

Answer 1

In F# you cannot easily mix different types of computation expressions as you would do in Haskell by using Monad Transformers or similar techniques. You could however build your own Monad, embedding state threading and optional values, as in:

type StateMaybe<'T> = 
    MyState -> option<'T> * MyState

// Runs the computation given an initial value and ignores the state result.
let evalState (sm: StateMaybe<'T>) = sm >> fst

// Computation expression for SateMaybe monad.
type StateMaybeBuilder() =
    member this.Return<'T> (x: 'T) : StateMaybe<'T> = fun s -> (Some x, s)
    member this.Bind(sm: StateMaybe<'T>, f: 'T -> StateMaybe<'S>) = fun s ->
        let mx,s' = sm s
        match mx with
        | Some x    -> f x s'
        | None      -> (None, s)

// Computation expression builder.
let maybeState = new StateMaybeBuilder()

// Lifts an optional value to a StateMaybe.
let liftOption<'T> (x: Option<'T>) : StateMaybe<'T> = fun s -> (x,s)

// Gets the current state.
let get : StateMaybe = fun s -> (Some s,s)

// Puts a new state.
let put (x: MyState) : StateMaybe = fun _ -> (Some (), x)

Here's an example computation:

// Stateful computation
let computation =
    maybeState {
        let! x = get
        let! y = liftOption (Some 10)
        do! put (x + y)
        let! x = get
        return x
    }

printfn "Result: %A" (evalState computation 1)

StateMaybe may be generalized further by making the type of the state component generic.