Polymorphic Function Types

A polymorphic function type is a function type which accepts type parameters. For example:

// A polymorphic method:
def foo[A](xs: List[A]): List[A] = xs.reverse

// A polymorphic function value:
val bar: [A] => List[A] => List[A]
//       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
//       a polymorphic function type
       = [A] => (xs: List[A]) => foo[A](xs)

Scala already has polymorphic methods, i.e. methods which accepts type parameters. Method foo above is an example, accepting a type parameter A. So far, it was not possible to turn such methods into polymorphic function values like bar above, which can be passed as parameters to other functions, or returned as results.

In Scala 3 this is now possible. The type of the bar value above is

[A] => List[A] => List[A]

This type describes function values which take a type A as a parameter, then take a list of type List[A], and return a list of the same type List[A].

More details

Example Usage

Polymorphic function type are particularly useful when callers of a method are required to provide a function which has to be polymorphic, meaning that it should accept arbitrary types as part of its inputs.

For instance, consider the situation where we have a data type to represent the expressions of a simple language (consisting only of variables and function applications) in a strongly-typed way:

enum Expr[A]:
  case Var(name: String)
  case Apply[A, B](fun: Expr[B => A], arg: Expr[B]) extends Expr[A]

We would like to provide a way for users to map a function over all immediate subexpressions of a given Expr. This requires the given function to be polymorphic, since each subexpression may have a different type. Here is how to implement this using polymorphic function types:

def mapSubexpressions[A](e: Expr[A])(f: [B] => Expr[B] => Expr[B]): Expr[A] =
  e match
    case Apply(fun, arg) => Apply(f(fun), f(arg))
    case Var(n) => Var(n)

And here is how to use this function to wrap each subexpression in a given expression with a call to some wrap function, defined as a variable:

val e0 = Apply(Var("f"), Var("a"))
val e1 = mapSubexpressions(e0)(
  [B] => (se: Expr[B]) => Apply(Var[B => B]("wrap"), se))
println(e1) // Apply(Apply(Var(wrap),Var(f)),Apply(Var(wrap),Var(a)))

Relationship With Type Lambdas

Polymorphic function types are not to be confused with type lambdas. While the former describes the type of a polymorphic value, the latter is an actual function value at the type level.

A good way of understanding the difference is to notice that type lambdas are applied in types, whereas polymorphic functions are applied in terms: One would call the function bar above by passing it a type argument bar[Int] within a method body. On the other hand, given a type lambda such as type F = [A] =>> List[A], one would call F within a type expression, as in type Bar = F[Int].