The Internet knows cats, but you might not have heard of the Cats library for Scala. Cats is the spiritual successor to Scalaz: a library of absolutely essential utilities you really want to be using in your Scala code. Compared to Scalaz, Cats is more modular and it is using some newer tools to make its code base easier to work with.

Cats is still closer to being a kitten than the king of the alley, but it has definitely reached the stage where it is usable. In this article I’ll provide a basic introduction to get you started with Cats.

Getting Cats

A snapshot release of Cats is now available on Sonatype. Cats, as I mentioned above, is highly modularised, so there are some dependencies you need for the full Cats experience:

algebra , which defines basic abstractions like Monoid and Semigroup ;

, which defines basic abstractions like and ; cats-core , which defines the basic abstractions in Cats;

, which defines the basic abstractions in Cats; algebra-std , for implementations of the abstractions in algebra for types in the standard library; and

, for implementations of the abstractions in for types in the standard library; and cats-std , which has implementations of the abstractions in Cats for the standard library.

That sounds like a lot of stuff, but you can just copy and paste the snippet below in your build.sbt to get going.

Also note: to run some of the examples below you will need to clone cats from Github and run sbt publish-local . Cats is moving fast and the snapshot release lags behind the development head.

val snapshots = "Sonatype Snapshots" at "https://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/snapshots" val algebraVersion = "0.2.0-SNAPSHOT" val catsVersion = "0.1.0-SNAPSHOT" val algebra = "org.spire-math" %% "algebra" % algebraVersion val algebraStd = "org.spire-math" %% "algebra-std" % algebraVersion val cats = "org.spire-math" %% "cats-core" % catsVersion val catsStd = "org.spire-math" %% "cats-std" % catsVersion scalaVersion := "2.11.6" libraryDependencies ++= Seq ( algebra , algebraStd , cats , catsStd ) resolvers += snapshots

Using Cats

Cats has a fairly straightforward organisation.

In the package cats you will find the basic types. Cats reexports some of the types from algebra , which provides very basic facilities like Order and Monoid .

In cats.data there are data types that work with the abstractions defined in cats . These are the tools you are most likely to use in your day-to-day work.

The package cats.std holds type class instances for classes in the standard library, such as Option , List , and Map .

Finally, cats.syntax contains useful syntax (implicit classes) for working more easily with Cats.

Cats.Data

The types in cats.data are probably the first place you’ll explore when you start using Cats. If you’ve used Scalaz before you will find analogues to many familiar abstractions. Here are some of the highlights.

Xor

Xor[A, B] is a right-biased Either . An instance of Xor is either a Xor.Left[A] or a Xor.Right[B] . Being right-biased means that the Right case is considered a success, and Left is considered failure. Unlike Either , Xor has flatMap and map methods. These methods do something if the actual instance is Right , in the same way that flatMap on Option only does something if the actual instance is a Some . This choice gives rise to the term “right-biased”.

To work better with type classes, the Xor companion object provides convenience constructors left and right that return results of type Xor . These are the preferred way to construct instances.

Here’s an example.

import cats.data.Xor object XorExample { // Get Xor.left and Xor.right into scope import Xor. { left , right } // The type we will be working with type Result [ A ] = String Xor A val l : Result [ Int ] = left ( "Failed" ) val r : Result [ Int ] = right ( 1 ) // Nothing happens when we map a left println ( l map ( x => x + 1 )) // The right is transformed println ( r map ( x => x + 1 )) }

Xor is a great type to represent the results of some computation, using Left to hold an error message and Right to hold a successful result.

The Validated[E, A] type is the equivalent of Scalaz’s Validation . Like Xor it has two cases, which are Validated.Invalid[E] and Validated.Valid[A] . Validated is not a monad, so it does not have a flatMap method. It is, however, an applicative functor, and its typical usage is to accumulate errors.

Whereas an Xor stops running as soon as it encounters a Left , when we combine Validated instances the error messages contained within any Invalid instances will be appended together in the final result.

Like Xor , Validated has convenience constructors defined on the companion object.

The standard way to combine Validated instances is using the |@| syntax. Here’s an example.

import cats.data. { Validated , Xor } import cats.syntax.apply._ // For |@| syntax import cats.std.list._ // For semigroup (append) on List object ValidatedExample { import Xor. { left , right } import Validated. { invalid , valid } // We are going to compare the behaviour of Xor and Validated. First we // define some instances. Then we combine them using flatMap // (for-comprehension) or `|@|` as appropriate. type Error = List [ String ] type XorR = Xor [ Error , Int ] type ValidatedR = Validated [ Error , Int ] val x1 : XorR = right ( 1 ) val x2 : XorR = left ( List ( "Stops here" )) val x3 : XorR = left ( List ( "This will be ignored" )) val v1 : ValidatedR = valid ( 1 ) val v2 : ValidatedR = invalid ( List ( "Accumulates this" )) val v3 : ValidatedR = invalid ( List ( "And this" )) // Stops as soon as we encounter an error println ( for { x <- x1 y <- x2 z <- x3 } yield x + y + z ) // Accumulates all the errors println ( ( v1 |@| v2 |@| v3 ) map { _ + _ + _ } ) }

Validated and Xor are the two most commonly used data types in cats.data . Let’s look at the other packages now.

Cats

The base cats packages contains the fundamental types like Monad and Applicative . If you’re used to Scalaz there are a few differences here. Cats defines a FlatMap trait that Monad extends. Like Scalaz, Applicative extends Apply , and it is Apply that defines the |@| syntax we used when we looked at Validated .

Cats.Syntax

Cats defines syntax is a separate package, as in Scalaz. The tools in this package enrich types with extra methods that makes working with Cats more convenient. We have already seen an example when we imported cats.syntax.apply._ to get the |@| syntax. There are similar helpers for monad , eq , and other types. If you’re used to Scalaz you will note some surprising omissions, such as the lack of syntax for constructing Xor instances with .left and .right . This is one area where Cats shows its youth – these helpers are still under development.

Cats.Std

In cats.std are the type class instances for the standard library. Import cats.std.list._ to get the Monad , Semigroup , and other instances defined on List . Instances defined on the value types are in cats.std.anyval._

Final Thoughts

This has been a very quick overview of Cats. There are other packages, like cats.free , that are also part of the project, and of course it is still changing rapidly. The best place to track the development of Cats is its very active gitter Room.

Cats also has an emphasis on accessibility that I found lacking from Scalaz. Basic documentation is available, with more under development, and Cats also subscribes to the Typelevel code of conduct to ensure a welcoming environment for all.