Align cascaded String when using Scala 2.10's String interpolation.

0_SimpleTest.scala

object SimpleTest extends App {

  import StringContextImplicits._

  val list = List("Foo", "Bar", "Baz").mkString("\n")


/*-----------
#
     test -->
       Foo
Bar
Baz
     <--
  #
-----------*/
  println("#" + s"""
     test -->
       $list
     <--
  """ + "#")

/*-----------
#test -->
  Foo
  Bar
  Baz
<--#
-----------*/
  println("#" + xs"""
     test -->
       $list
     <--
  """ + "#")

}

1_Test.scala

object Test extends App {

  val output = gen("Person", Seq("name" -> 'String, "age" -> 'Int))

  println(output)

  // -- generator --

  import StringContextImplicits._

  def gen(name: String, params: Seq[(String,Symbol)]) = xs"""
      package model

      case class $name(${genParams(params)}, id: Option[Long] = None)

      trait ${name}Component { self: Profile =>

        import driver.simple._
        import Database.threadLocalSession

        object $name extends Table[$name]("${name.toUpperCase}") {

          def id = column[Long]("ID", O.PrimaryKey, O.AutoInc)
          ${genColumns(params)}

          def * = ${params.map(_._1).mkString(" ~ ")} ~ id.? <> ($name, $name.unapply)

          def delete(id: Long) = db withSession {
            Query(this).where(_.id is id).delete
          }

          def findById(id: Long) = db withSession {
            Query(this).where(_.id is id).firstOption
          }

          def save(${name.toLowerCase}: $name) = db withSession {
            ${name.toLowerCase}.id.fold {
              this.insert(${name.toLowerCase})
            }{ id =>
              Query(this).where(_.id is id).update(${name.toLowerCase})
            }
          }
        }
      }
  """

  def genParams(params: Seq[(String,Symbol)]) = params map {
    case (name, _type) => name + ": " + _type.name
  } mkString(", ")

  def genColumns(params: Seq[(String,Symbol)]) = params map {
    case (name, _type) => xs"""def ${name.toLowerCase} = column[${_type.name}]("${name.toUpperCase}")"""
  } mkString("\n")

}

2_OutputOfTest.scala

package model

case class Person(name: String, age: Int, id: Option[Long] = None)

trait PersonComponent { self: Profile =>

  import driver.simple._
  import Database.threadLocalSession

  object Person extends Table[Person]("PERSON") {

    def id = column[Long]("ID", O.PrimaryKey, O.AutoInc)
    def name = column[String]("NAME")
    def age = column[Int]("AGE")

    def * = name ~ age ~ id.? <> (Person, Person.unapply)

    def delete(id: Long) = db withSession {
      Query(this).where(_.id is id).delete
    }

    def findById(id: Long) = db withSession {
      Query(this).where(_.id is id).firstOption
    }

    def save(person: Person) = db withSession {
      person.id.fold {
        this.insert(person)
      }{ id =>
        Query(this).where(_.id is id).update(person)
      }
    }
  }
}

3_StringContextImplicits.scala

import scala.util.Properties.lineSeparator

/**
 * Align cascaded Strings when using String interpolation.
 * xs is an extension of StringContext.s.
 * xraw is an extension of StringContext.raw.
 */
object StringContextImplicits {

  implicit class StringContextExtension(sc: StringContext) {

    def xs(args: Any*): String = align(sc.s, args)

    def xraw(args: Any*): String = align(sc.raw, args)

    /**
     * Indenting a rich string, removing first and last newline.
     * A rich string consists of arguments surrounded by text parts.
     */
    private def align(interpolator: Seq[Any] => String, args: Seq[Any]) = {

      // indent embedded strings, invariant: parts.length = args.length + 1
      val indentedArgs = for {
        (part, arg) <- sc.parts zip args.map(s => if (s == null) "" else s.toString)
      } yield {
        // get the leading space of last line of current part
        val space = """([ \t]*)[^\s]*$""".r.findFirstMatchIn(part).map(_.group(1)).getOrElse("")
        // add this leading space to each line (except the first) of current arg
        arg.split("\r?\n") match {
            case lines: Array[String] if lines.length > 0 => lines reduce (_ + lineSeparator + space + _)
            case whitespace => whitespace mkString ""
        }
      }

      // remove first and last newline and split string into separate lines
      // adding termination symbol \u0000 in order to preserve empty strings between last newlines when splitting
      val split = (interpolator(indentedArgs).replaceAll( """(^[ \t]*\r?\n)|(\r?\n[ \t]*$)""", "") + '\u0000').split("\r?\n")

      // find smallest indentation
      val prefix = split filter (!_.trim().isEmpty) map { s =>
        """^\s+""".r.findFirstIn(s).getOrElse("")
      } match {
        case prefixes: Array[String] if prefixes.length > 0 => prefixes reduce { (s1, s2) =>
          if (s1.length <= s2.length) s1 else s2
        }
        case _ => ""
      }

      // align all lines
      val aligned = split map { s =>
        if (s.startsWith(prefix)) s.substring(prefix.length) else s
      } mkString lineSeparator dropRight 1 // dropping termination character \u0000

      // combine multiple newlines to two
      aligned.replaceAll("""[ \t]*\r?\n ([ \t]*\r?\n)+""", lineSeparator * 2)
    }
  }

}

Interesting! This is cool. The code deserves more explanation, especially some use cases so other can understand more readily how they could use this facility. If this code was made into a git project then it could have issue tracking, wiki pages, etc.

Mike

Thank you for your feedback, I really appreciate it. I will create a git project with a sample within the next days. The code tackles a feature I know from the Xtend language, which I used to write code generators based on String templates. Scala has all the nice language features to write internal DSLs. The new String interpolation gives us a template language out-of-the-box. This snippet adds auto-aligning (using the given indentation) of cascaded Strings. Perhaps it is useful for someone else...

Added a better sample. The lines returned by genColumn() are aligned correctly.

Compared to full-blown template languages like the one of Play framework, String interpolation does not have code-blocks containing plain-text lines. Instead of mixing code and text, other functions are called which embed an interpolated String within a specific control structure. Example: genColumns()