Best way to turn a Lists of Eithers into an Either of Lists?

Question

I have some code like the below, where I have a list of Eithers, and I want to turn it into an Either of Lists ... in particular (in this case), if there are any Lefts in th

Answer 1

To extract Lefts and Rights separately:

val data: List[Either[String, Int]] = List(
  Right(1), 
  Left("Error #1"), 
  Right(42), 
  Left("Error #2")
)


val numbers: List[Int] = data.collect { case Right(value) => value }
val errors: List[String] = data.collect { case Left(error) => error }


println(numbers) // List(1, 42)
println(errors)  // List(Error #1, Error #2)

Answer 2

You can write a generalized version of split as follows:

def split[X, CC[X] <: Traversable[X], A, B](l : CC[Either[A, B]])
   (implicit bfa : CanBuildFrom[Nothing, A, CC[A]], bfb : CanBuildFrom[Nothing, B, CC[B]]) : (CC[A], CC[B]) = {
  def as = {
    val bf = bfa()
    bf ++= (l collect { case Left(x) => x})
    bf.result
  }

  def bs = {
    val bf = bfb()
    bf ++= (l collect { case Right(x) => x})
    bf.result
  }

  (as, bs)
}

Such that:

scala> List(Left("x"),Right(2), Right(4)) : List[Either[java.lang.String,Int]]
res11: List[Either[java.lang.String,Int]] = List(Left(x), Right(2), Right(4))

scala> split(res11)
res12: (List[java.lang.String], List[Int]) = (List(x),List(2, 4))

scala> Set(Left("x"),Right(2), Right(4)) : Set[Either[java.lang.String,Int]]
res13: Set[Either[java.lang.String,Int]] = Set(Left(x), Right(2), Right(4))

scala> split(res13)
res14: (Set[java.lang.String], Set[Int]) = (Set(x),Set(2, 4))

Answer 3

I kind of don't want any karma for this as it's a merge of Chris's answer and Viktor's from here.. but here's an alternative:

def split[CC[X] <: Traversable[X], A, B](xs: CC[Either[A, B]])
   (implicit bfa: CanBuildFrom[Nothing, A, CC[A]], bfb: CanBuildFrom[Nothing, B, CC[B]]) : (CC[A], CC[B]) =
  xs.foldLeft((bfa(), bfb())) {
    case ((as, bs), l@Left(a)) => (as += a, bs)
    case ((as, bs), r@Right(b)) => (as, bs += b)
  } match {
    case (as, bs) => (as.result(), bs.result())
  }

Example:

scala> val eithers: List[Either[String, Int]] = List(Left("Hi"), Right(1))
eithers: List[Either[String,Int]] = List(Left(Hi), Right(1))

scala> split(eithers)
res0: (List[String], List[Int]) = (List(Hi),List(1))

Answer 4

val list = List(Left("x"),Right(2), Right(4))
val strings = for (Left(x) <- list) yield(x)
val result = if (strings.isEmpty) Right(for (Right(x) <- list) yield(x)) 
             else Left(strings)

Answer 5

Isn't a more elegant way?

  def flatten[E,A](es: List[Either[E,A]]): Either[E,List[A]] = {
    @tailrec
    def go(tail: List[Either[E,A]], acc: List[A]): Either[E,List[A]] = tail match {
      case Nil  => Right(acc)
      case h::t => h match {
        case Left(e)  => Left(e)
        case Right(a) => go(t, a :: acc)
      }
    }
    go(es, Nil) map { _ reverse }
  }

• tail recursion
• one pass, assuming the a :: acc is a bullet-fast
• but still, reverse in the end
• partitionMap, is probably faster, because of internal implementation based on builder
• but this one is the lasy. You will get Left immediately.

Answer 6

Solution from Functional Programming in Scala book.

def sequence[E,A](es: List[Either[E,A]]): Either[E,List[A]] = 
    traverse(es)(x => x)

def traverse[E,A,B](es: List[A])(f: A => Either[E, B]): Either[E, List[B]] = 
    es match {
      case Nil => Right(Nil)
      case h::t => (f(h) map2 traverse(t)(f))(_ :: _)
    }
def map2[EE >: E, B, C](a: Either[E, A], b: Either[EE, B])(f: (A, B) => C): 
   Either[EE, C] = for { a1 <- a; b1 <- b } yield f(a1,b1)