Skip to main content

A rust-like result type for Python

Project description

Build status Coverage

A simple Result type for Python 3 inspired by Rust.

The idea is that a Result value can be either Ok(value) or Err(error), with a way to differentiate between the two. It will change code like this:

def get_user_by_email(email):
    """
    Return the user instance or an error message.
    """
    if not user_exists(email):
        return None, 'User does not exist'
    if not user_active(email):
        return None, 'User is inactive'
    user = get_user(email)
    return user, None

user, reason = get_user_by_email('ueli@example.com')
if user is None:
    raise RuntimeError('Could not fetch user: %s' % reason)
else:
    do_something(user)

To something like this:

from result import Ok, Err

def get_user_by_email(email):
    """
    Return the user instance or an error message.
    """
    if not user_exists(email):
        return Err('User does not exist')
    if not user_active(email):
        return Err('User is inactive')
    user = get_user(email)
    return Ok(user)

user_result = get_user_by_email(email)
if user_result.is_ok():
    do_something(user_result.value)
else:
    raise RuntimeError('Could not fetch user: %s' user_result.value)

As this is Python and not Rust, you will lose some of the advantages that it brings, like elegant combinations with the match statement. On the other side, you don’t have to return semantically unclear tuples anymore.

Not all methods (https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/result/enum.Result.html) have been implemented, only the ones that make sense in the Python context. You still don’t get any type safety, but some easier handling of types that can be OK or not, without resorting to custom exceptions.

API

Creating an instance:

>>> from result import Ok, Err
>>> res1 = Ok('yay')
>>> res2 = Err('nay')

Or through the class methods:

>>> from result import Result
>>> res1 = Result.Ok('yay')
>>> res2 = Result.Err('nay')

Checking whether a result is Ok or not:

>>> res = Ok('yay')
>>> res.is_ok()
True
>>> res.is_err()
False

Convert a Result to the value or None:

>>> res1 = Ok('yay')
>>> res2 = Err('nay')
>>> res1.ok()
'yay'
>>> res2.ok()
None

Convert a Result to the error or None:

>>> res1 = Ok('yay')
>>> res2 = Err('nay')
>>> res1.err()
None
>>> res2.err()
'nay'

Access the value directly, without any other checks:

>>> res1 = Ok('yay')
>>> res2 = Err('nay')
>>> res1.value
'yay'
>>> res2.value
'nay'

Note that this is a property, you cannot assign to it. Results are immutable.

For your convenience, simply creating an Ok result without value is the same as using True:

>>> res1 = Result.Ok()
>>> res1.value
True
>>> res2 = Ok()
>>> res2.value
True

The unwrap method returns the value if Ok, otherwise it raises an UnwrapError:

>>> res1 = Ok('yay')
>>> res2 = Err('nay')
>>> res1.unwrap()
'yay'
>>> res2.unwrap()
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "C:\project\result\result.py", line 107, in unwrap
    return self.expect("Called `Result.unwrap()` on an `Err` value")
File "C:\project\result\result.py", line 101, in expect
    raise UnwrapError(message)
result.result.UnwrapError: Called `Result.unwrap()` on an `Err` value

A custom error message can be displayed instead by using expect:

>>> res1 = Ok('yay')
>>> res2 = Err('nay')
>>> res1.expect('not ok')
'yay'
>>> res2.expect('not ok')
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "C:\project\result\result.py", line 101, in expect
    raise UnwrapError(message)
result.result.UnwrapError: not ok

A default value can be returned instead by using unwrap_or:

>>> res1 = Ok('yay')
>>> res2 = Err('nay')
>>> res1.unwrap_or('default')
'yay'
>>> res2.unwrap_or('default')
'default'

License

MIT License

Project details


Download files

Download the file for your platform. If you're not sure which to choose, learn more about installing packages.

Source Distribution

result-0.4.1.tar.gz (5.0 kB view details)

Uploaded Source

Built Distribution

result-0.4.1-py3-none-any.whl (5.3 kB view details)

Uploaded Python 3

File details

Details for the file result-0.4.1.tar.gz.

File metadata

  • Download URL: result-0.4.1.tar.gz
  • Upload date:
  • Size: 5.0 kB
  • Tags: Source
  • Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? No
  • Uploaded via: twine/2.0.0 pkginfo/1.5.0.1 requests/2.22.0 setuptools/44.0.0 requests-toolbelt/0.9.1 tqdm/4.31.0 CPython/3.8.1

File hashes

Hashes for result-0.4.1.tar.gz
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 f19504023cf9200a1580e58e52190dd2a36106e5679b097833f4854de4d62a05
MD5 4c1a98e3fdb8837f0700efde2456d1eb
BLAKE2b-256 fa57efba06803cf16d48eb7ca6bd2957b4d5bf4cad4b9ab8386a9c724803a9e0

See more details on using hashes here.

File details

Details for the file result-0.4.1-py3-none-any.whl.

File metadata

  • Download URL: result-0.4.1-py3-none-any.whl
  • Upload date:
  • Size: 5.3 kB
  • Tags: Python 3
  • Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? No
  • Uploaded via: twine/2.0.0 pkginfo/1.5.0.1 requests/2.22.0 setuptools/44.0.0 requests-toolbelt/0.9.1 tqdm/4.31.0 CPython/3.8.1

File hashes

Hashes for result-0.4.1-py3-none-any.whl
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 1952ad23dfd03f2a5b5ed82ba4f0fa616969b3b9dd2f5980d06fe9645a389875
MD5 d05ecaeef6cfe2cc5eb48d6dcfd8465c
BLAKE2b-256 19c9031fe2c16fb42054133c245a523d0765adf2a6e20f902c1b57a1f371ecea

See more details on using hashes here.

Supported by

AWS AWS Cloud computing and Security Sponsor Datadog Datadog Monitoring Fastly Fastly CDN Google Google Download Analytics Microsoft Microsoft PSF Sponsor Pingdom Pingdom Monitoring Sentry Sentry Error logging StatusPage StatusPage Status page