Rodolfo Cartas for openphoto.net

Arrow 

An arrow is the term used in category theory as an abstract notion of thing that behaves like a function. In Scalaz, these are Function1[A, B], PartialFunction[A, B], Kleisli[F[_], A, B], and CoKleisli[F[_], A, B]. Arrow abstracts them all similar to the way other typeclasses abtracts containers.

Here is the typeclass contract for Arrow:

trait Arrow[=>:[_, _]] extends Category[=>:] { self =>
  def id[A]: A =>: A
  def arr[A, B](f: A => B): A =>: B
  def first[A, B, C](f: (A =>: B)): ((A, C) =>: (B, C))
}

Looks like Arrow[=>:[_, _]] extends Category[=>:].

Category and Compose 

Here’s Category[=>:[_, _]]:

trait Category[=>:[_, _]] extends Compose[=>:] { self =>
  /** The left and right identity over `compose`. */
  def id[A]: A =>: A
} 

This extends Compose[=>:]:

trait Compose[=>:[_, _]]  { self =>
  def compose[A, B, C](f: B =>: C, g: A =>: B): (A =>: C)
}

compose function composes two arrows into one. Using compose, Compose introduces the following operators:

trait ComposeOps[F[_, _],A, B] extends Ops[F[A, B]] {
  final def <<<[C](x: F[C, A]): F[C, B] = F.compose(self, x)
  final def >>>[C](x: F[B, C]): F[A, C] = F.compose(x, self)
}

The meaning of >>> and <<< depends on the arrow, but for functions, it’s the same as andThen and compose:

scala> val f = (_:Int) + 1
f: Int => Int = <function1>

scala> val g = (_:Int) * 100
g: Int => Int = <function1>

scala> (f >>> g)(2)
res0: Int = 300

scala> (f <<< g)(2)
res1: Int = 201

Arrow, again 

The type signature of Arrow[=>:[_, _]] looks a bit odd, but this is no different than saying Arrow[M[_, _]]. The neat things about type constructor that takes two type parameters is that we can write =>:[A, B] as A =>: B.

arr function creates an arrow from a normal function, id returns an identity arrow, and first creates a new arrow from an existing arrow by expanding the input and output as pairs.

Using the above functions, arrows introduces the following operators:

trait ArrowOps[F[_, _],A, B] extends Ops[F[A, B]] {
  final def ***[C, D](k: F[C, D]): F[(A, C), (B, D)] = F.splitA(self, k)
  final def &&&[C](k: F[A, C]): F[A, (B, C)] = F.combine(self, k)
  ...
}

Let’s read Haskell’s Arrow tutorial:

(***) combines two arrows into a new arrow by running the two arrows on a pair of values (one arrow on the first item of the pair and one arrow on the second item of the pair).

Here’s an example:

scala> (f *** g)(1, 2)
res3: (Int, Int) = (2,200)

(&&&) combines two arrows into a new arrow by running the two arrows on the same value:

Here’s an example for &&&:

scala> (f &&& g)(2)
res4: (Int, Int) = (3,200)

Arrows I think can be useful if you need to add some context to functions and pairs.