Future Utils

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Given that we’ve got Scheduler, it would be a shame to not use it to aid Scala’s standard Future and so FutureUtils does just that.

But first the imports:

// Now we'll need a Scheduler for delaying stuff
import monix.execution.Scheduler.Implicits.global

// We could use the functions defined on the object
import monix.execution.FutureUtils

// Or the extension methods exposed
import monix.execution.FutureUtils.extensions._

Timeout slow Futures #

To timeout a Future that doesn’t complete in due time:

import concurrent.{Promise, Future}
import concurrent.duration._

// Creating a never ending Future
val p = Promise[Unit]()
val never = p.future

// Creates a new Future that has a race condition 
// with an error signaling a `TimeoutException`
// if the source doesn't complete in time
never.timeout(3.seconds)

// Or as a simple function call
FutureUtils.timeout(never, 3.seconds)

Or to fallback to a backup:

import scala.concurrent.TimeoutException

// After 3 seconds of inactivity, discards the
// source and fallbacks to the backup
never.timeoutTo(3.seconds, Future.failed(new TimeoutException))

// Or as a simple function call
FutureUtils.timeoutTo(never, 3.seconds, 
  Future.failed(new TimeoutException))

Materialization #

In case we want to expose errors, we can now convert Future[T] into a Future[Try[T]], allowing us to act upon the result with map and flatMap, as frankly recover and recoverWith are not enough:

import scala.util.Try

val f: Future[Int] = Future(1)

// Expose errors
val ft: Future[Try[Int]] = f.materialize

// Or as a simple function call
FutureUtils.materialize(f)

We can of course do this operation in reverse and revert a materialized future, hiding errors:

val ft: Future[Try[Int]] = Future(1).materialize

// Hide exposed errors
val f: Future[Int] = ft.dematerialize

// Or as a simple function call
FutureUtils.dematerialize(ft)

Delayed Evaluation #

Sometimes we want to execute things with a delay and get back the result as a Future:

// Will execute after 3 seconds
val f = FutureUtils.delayedResult(3.seconds) {
  "Hello, world!"
}