Discriminated Unions

Tuples and records are examples of creating new types by “multiplying” existing types together. At the beginning of the series, I mentioned that the other way of creating new types was by “summing” existing types. What does this mean?

Well, let’s say that we want to define a function that works with integers OR booleans, maybe to convert them into strings. But we want to be strict and not accept any other type (such as floats or strings). Here’s a diagram of such as function:

How could we represent the domain of this function?

What we need is a type that represents all possible integers PLUS all possible booleans.

In other words, a “sum” type. In this case the new type is the “sum” of the integer type plus the boolean type.

In F#, a sum type is called a “discriminated union” type. Each component type (called a union case) must be tagged with a label (called a case identifier or tag) so that they can be told apart (“discriminated”). The labels can be any identifier you like, but must start with an uppercase letter.

Here’s how we might define the type above:

type IntOrBool =
  | I of int
  | B of bool

The “I” and the “B” are just arbitrary labels; we could have used any other labels that were meaningful.

For small types, we can put the definition on one line:

type IntOrBool = I of int | B of bool

The component types can be any other type you like, including tuples, records, other union types, and so on.

type Person = {first:string; last:string}  // define a record type
type IntOrBool = I of int | B of bool

type MixedType =
  | Tup of int * int  // a tuple
  | P of Person       // use the record type defined above
  | L of int list     // a list of ints
  | U of IntOrBool    // use the union type defined above

You can even have types that are recursive, that is, they refer to themselves. This is typically how tree structures are defined. Recursive types will be discussed in more detail shortly.

At first glance, a sum type might seem similar to a union type in C++ or a variant type in Visual Basic, but there is a key difference. The union type in C++ is not type-safe and the data stored in the type can be accessed using any of the possible tags. An F# discriminated union type is safe, and the data can only be accessed one way. It really is helpful to think of it as a sum of two types (as shown in the diagram), rather than as just an overlay of data.

Some key things to know about union types are:

• The vertical bar is optional before the first component, so that the following definitions are all equivalent, as you can see by examining the output of the interactive window:

type IntOrBool = I of int | B of bool     // without initial bar
type IntOrBool = | I of int | B of bool   // with initial bar
type IntOrBool =
   | I of int
   | B of bool      // with initial bar on separate lines

• The tags or labels must start with an uppercase letter. So the following will give an error:

type IntOrBool = int of int| bool of bool
//  error FS0053: Discriminated union cases
//                must be uppercase identifiers

• Other named types (such as Person or IntOrBool) must be pre-defined outside the union type. You can’t define them “inline” and write something like this:

type MixedType =
  | P of  {first:string; last:string}  // error

or

type MixedType =
  | U of (I of int | B of bool)  // error

• The labels can be any identifier, including the names of the component type themselves, which can be quite confusing if you are not expecting it. For example, if the Int32 and Boolean types (from the System namespace) were used instead, and the labels were named the same, we would have this perfectly valid definition:

open System
type IntOrBool = Int32 of Int32 | Boolean of Boolean

This “duplicate naming” style is actually quite common, because it documents exactly what the component types are.

To create a value of a union type, you use a “constructor” that refers to only one of the possible union cases. The constructor then follows the form of the definition, using the case label as if it were a function. In the IntOrBool example, you would write:

type IntOrBool = I of int | B of bool

let i  = I 99    // use the "I" constructor
// val i : IntOrBool = I 99

let b  = B true  // use the "B" constructor
// val b : IntOrBool = B true

The resulting value is printed out with the label along with the component type:

val [value name] : [type]    = [label] [print of component type]
val i            : IntOrBool = I       99
val b            : IntOrBool = B       true

If the case constructor has more than one “parameter”, you construct it in the same way that you would call a function:

type Person = {first:string; last:string}

type MixedType =
  | Tup of int * int
  | P of Person

let myTup  = Tup (2,99)    // use the "Tup" constructor
// val myTup : MixedType = Tup (2,99)

let myP  = P {first="Al"; last="Jones"} // use the "P" constructor
// val myP : MixedType = P {first = "Al";last = "Jones";}

The case constructors for union types are normal functions, so you can use them anywhere a function is expected. For example, in List.map:

type C = Circle of int | Rectangle of int * int

[1..10]
|> List.map Circle

[1..10]
|> List.zip [21..30]
|> List.map Rectangle

If a particular case has a unique name, then the type to construct will be unambiguous.

But what happens if you have two types which have cases with the same labels?

type IntOrBool1 = I of int | B of bool
type IntOrBool2 = I of int | B of bool

In this case, the last one defined is generally used:

let x = I 99                // val x : IntOrBool2 = I 99

But it is much better to explicitly qualify the type, as shown:

let x1 = IntOrBool1.I 99    // val x1 : IntOrBool1 = I 99
let x2 = IntOrBool2.B true  // val x2 : IntOrBool2 = B true

And if the types come from different modules, you can use the module name as well:

module Module1 =
  type IntOrBool = I of int | B of bool

module Module2 =
  type IntOrBool = I of int | B of bool

module Module3 =
  let x = Module1.IntOrBool.I 99 // val x : Module1.IntOrBool = I 99

For tuples and records, we have seen that “deconstructing” a value uses the same model as constructing it. This is also true for union types, but we have a complication: which case should we deconstruct?

This is exactly what the “match” expression is designed for. As you should now realize, the match expression syntax has parallels to how a union type is defined.

// definition of union type
type MixedType =
  | Tup of int * int
  | P of Person

// "deconstruction" of union type
let matcher x =
  match x with
  | Tup (x,y) ->
        printfn "Tuple matched with %i %i" x y
  | P {first=f; last=l} ->
        printfn "Person matched with %s %s" f l

let myTup = Tup (2,99)                 // use the "Tup" constructor
matcher myTup

let myP = P {first="Al"; last="Jones"} // use the "P" constructor
matcher myP

Let’s analyze what is going on here:

• Each “branch” of the overall match expression is a pattern expression that is designed to match the corresponding case of the union type.
• The pattern starts with the tag for the particular case, and then the rest of the pattern deconstructs the type for that case in the usual way.
• The pattern is followed by an arrow “->” and then the code to execute.

The label for a union case does not have to have to have any type after it. The following are all valid union types:

type Directory =
  | Root                   // no need to name the root
  | Subdirectory of string // other directories need to be named

type Result =
  | Success                // no string needed for success state
  | ErrorMessage of string // error message needed

If all the cases are empty, then we have an “enum style” union:

type Size = Small | Medium | Large
type Answer = Yes | No | Maybe

Note that this “enum style” union is not the same as a true C# enum type, discussed later.

To create an empty case, just use the label as a constructor without any parameters:

let myDir1 = Root
let myDir2 = Subdirectory "bin"

let myResult1 = Success
let myResult2 = ErrorMessage "not found"

let mySize1 = Small
let mySize2 = Medium

Sometimes it is useful to create union types with only one case. This might be seem useless, because you don’t seem to be adding value. But in fact, this a very useful practice that can enforce type safety*.

For example, let’s say that we have customer ids and order ids which are both represented by integers, but that they should never be assigned to each other.

As we saw before, a type alias approach will not work, because an alias is just a synonym and doesn’t create a distinct type. Here’s how you might try to do it with aliases:

type CustomerId = int   // define a type alias
type OrderId = int      // define another type alias

let printOrderId (orderId:OrderId) =
   printfn "The orderId is %i" orderId

//try it
let custId = 1          // create a customer id
printOrderId custId   // Uh-oh!

But even though I explicitly annotated the orderId parameter to be of type OrderId, I can’t ensure that customer ids are not accidentally passed in.

On the other hand, if we create simple union types, we can easily enforce the type distinctions.

type CustomerId = CustomerId of int   // define a union type
type OrderId = OrderId of int         // define another union type

let printOrderId (OrderId orderId) =  // deconstruct in the param
   printfn "The orderId is %i" orderId

//try it
let custId = CustomerId 1             // create a customer id
printOrderId custId                   // Good! A compiler error now.

This approach is feasible in C# and Java as well, but is rarely used because of the overhead of creating and managing the special classes for each type. In F# this approach is lightweight and therefore quite common.

A convenient thing about single case union types is you can pattern match directly against a value without having to use a full match-with expression.

// deconstruct in the param
let printCustomerId (CustomerId customerIdInt) =
   printfn "The CustomerId is %i" customerIdInt

// or deconstruct explicitly through let statement
let printCustomerId2 custId =
   let (CustomerId customerIdInt) = custId  // deconstruct here
   printfn "The CustomerId is %i" customerIdInt

// try it
let custId = CustomerId 1             // create a customer id
printCustomerId custId
printCustomerId2 custId

But a common “gotcha” is that in some cases, the pattern match must have parens around it, otherwise the compiler will think you are defining a function!

let custId = CustomerId 1
let (CustomerId customerIdInt) = custId  // Correct pattern matching
let CustomerId customerIdInt = custId    // Wrong! New function?

Similarly, if you ever do need to create an enum-style union type with a single case, you will have to start the case with a vertical bar in the type definition; otherwise the compiler will think you are creating an alias.

type TypeAlias = A     // type alias!
type SingleCase = | A   // single case union type

Like other core F# types, union types have an automatically defined equality operation: two unions are equal if they have the same type and the same case and the values for that case is equal.

type Contact = Email of string | Phone of int

let email1 = Email "bob@example.com"
let email2 = Email "bob@example.com"

let areEqual = (email1=email2)

Union types have a nice default string representation, and can be serialized easily. But unlike tuples, the ToString() representation is unhelpful.

type Contact = Email of string | Phone of int
let email = Email "bob@example.com"
printfn "%A" email    // nice
printfn "%O" email    // ugly!