ilya-kolpakov

ilya-kolpakov

Suppose one wants to have a bunch of structs that represent API requests. Requests have parameters and it should be possible to validate parameters when constructing the structs. This use case would be completely covered if one could specify a structure by simply providing an appropriate (validating) constructor.

Here is is somewhat contrived example:

defmodule Orders do
  import SuperStruct # hypothetical
  defsstruct market(id, quantity, type, exchange \\ nil, fill_or_kill \\ false)
  when is_binary(id) and is_int(quantity) and type in [:buy, :sell]
  and (is_binary(exchange) or is_nil(exchange)) and is_boolean(fill_or_kill)

  defsstruct limit(id, quantity, type, price, exchange \\ nill, valid_until \\ nil) #...
end 

# Create an order

# Would be nice to be able to use keyword syntax for all params
order = Orders.Market.new(id: "GOOG", quantity: 100, type: :buy)

# Processing code

case order do
    %Orders.Market{} -> # market order
    %Orders.Limit{} -> # limit order
end
def process(%Orders.Market{}=o), do: #...
def process(%Orders.Limit{}=o), do: #...

It looks like it should be possible to come up with macros that would parse the signatures and generate the appropriate struct modules (e.g. modules having custom __struct__ methods). I am wondering if there is a library for doing something similar or maybe someone looked into something similar in the past.

I briefly looked at construct, exconstructor and struct_constructor packages and I think their focus is slightly different. It looks like they all provide nice field definition macros but do not aim at parsing/repackaging constructors. Clearly, there are pros and cons to both approaches.

Showing Posts 1 to 2

axelson

axelson

Scenic Core Team

I think you’re looking for a library such as params by @vic. It helps you to validate that the parameters that you’re receiving are what you expect.

OvermindDL1

OvermindDL1

Or perhaps the algae library.

— All posts loaded —

Where Next? Top

Trending in Discussions Top

AstonJ
As the title says, please share what you’ve been up to with Elixir. Whether that’s been learning it, looking into it, making stuff with i...
2977 94592 917
New
cblavier
Hey there, It’s been more than a year since we started using LiveView as our main UI library and building a whole library of UI componen...
New
mudasobwa
I am happy to introduce the very α version of the new programming language compiled to BEAM. Welcome Cure. It has literally three kille...
New
heathen
Quite interesting article Google brought me. Didn’t find any mentions about it here. What do you think in general? Would you use togethe...
New
mhanberg
Hi everyone! The first release candidate for the Expert language server project is now available! We’ve published a press release detai...
New
axelson
Hi there! :wave: @frigidcode and I (but mostly him) have been running an Elixir Book club, we’re almost done with Designing Elixir Syste...
New
budgie
A little off-topic, but I feel like people here have a good head on their shoulders. I used to be quite good at making software. Was luc...
New

Other Trending Topics Top

GenericJam
Edit: 2026 May 15 - This post is archived. Mob is alive!! Main docs: mob v0.7.11 — Documentation A bit of explanation for the slightly c...
New
JesseHerrick
Hey, I’m Jesse and I’m the main contributor behind Dexter, a full-featured, lightning-fast Elixir LSP optimized for large codebases. It s...
New
garrison
Hobbes is a low-level distributed database for the Elixir programming language. Hobbes provides a simple, safe, and scalable storage lay...
New
mcass19
ExRatatui lets you cook up rich terminal UIs in Elixir, powered by Rust’s ratatui via Rustler NIFs. Build interactive terminal applicatio...
New
georgeguimaraes
Just published claude-code-elixir, a plugin marketplace for Claude Code with Elixir support. These are the plugins I’ve been using for my...
New
Dmk
Xamal is a deployment tool for Elixir apps that deploys native releases to bare metal servers over SSH. It’s a port of GitHub - basecamp/...
New

We're in Beta

About us Mission Statement

Options

Thread Display Mode




Thread Preview

Skip Thread Previews