FastTry

Ruby 2.3 introduced the safe navigation operator &., however I find that its syntax is too discrete an can be easy to miss when briefly scanning code. Instead I much prefer the syntax of try as it seems way more obvious and intentional.

FastTry is a simple method wrapper to the safe navigation operator. By default it is configured as the try method.

Features / Goals:

• Utilize the safe navigation operator &. while improving readability
• Improve performance over other implementations such as the ActiveSupport#try method
• Do not worry about most obscure syntax limitations if they cannot be avoided. Speed and simplicity is key.
• The method provided should behave very similarly to the safe navigation operator. If you need to retain the exact behaviour of ActiveSupport try, simply set your own custom method name(s) for FastTry.
• The only dependency is Ruby 2.3+. It does NOT require Rails /ActiveSupport anything else however it works great with it too!

Setup

Add the following line to your gemfile:

gem 'fast_try', git: 'https://github.com:westonganger/fast_try.git'

## OR if you dont want to use an initializer and default to FastTry.methods = [:try]
gem 'fast_try', require: ['fast_try', 'fast_try/apply'], git: 'https://github.com:westonganger/fast_try.git'

If you want change the name(s) of the methods to create/overwrite just add an initializer. If using Rails, simply run rails generate fast_try:create_initializer

FastTry.method_names = [:try, :custom_try, :try!]

require 'fast_try/apply'

Usage

str.try(:upcase).try(:downcase)

# the above statement is now equivalent to using the safe navigation operator Ex.
str&.upcase&.downcase

Known Limitations

Our main goal is speed and simplicity. As such we may not handle some obscure syntax. Please create a PR or Issue if you find a limitation that should be documented here.

• Apparently safe navigation does not work with class methods so this does not either. Ex. Array&.bad_method results in NoMethodError.

Differences between FastTry and ActiveSupport#try

It is not our goal to maintain any consistency with the ActiveSupport version of the try method. I do however want to maintain a simple list of the differences. Please create a PR or Issue if you find a difference that should be documented here.

• Nothing reported yet

Credits

Created and Maintained by Weston Ganger - @westonganger

Implementation originally based on this StackOverflow answer by engineersmnky on https://stackoverflow.com/questions/50471518/ruby-is-it-possible-to-alias-a-method-to-the-safe-navigation-operator

Benchmarks

As tested on master branch. See benchmark: test/benchmarks.rb

Results when method is found
       user     system      total        real
               FastTry  0.430000   0.020000   0.450000 (  0.456562)
       Safe Navigation  0.070000   0.000000   0.070000 (  0.069512)
     ActiveSupport try  0.860000   0.100000   0.960000 (  0.959851)
         Check for nil  0.070000   0.000000   0.070000 (  0.074626)
           respond_to?  0.230000   0.020000   0.250000 (  0.239758)
                rescue  0.060000   0.000000   0.060000 (  0.063295)
  Calculating -------------------------------------
               FastTry    80.000M memsize (     0.000  retained)
                           2.000M objects (     0.000  retained)
                           1.000  strings (     0.000  retained)
       Safe Navigation     0.000  memsize (     0.000  retained)
                           0.000  objects (     0.000  retained)
                           0.000  strings (     0.000  retained)
     ActiveSupport try   200.000M memsize (     0.000  retained)
                           5.000M objects (     0.000  retained)
                           1.000  strings (     0.000  retained)
         Check for nil     0.000  memsize (     0.000  retained)
                           0.000  objects (     0.000  retained)
                           0.000  strings (     0.000  retained)
           respond_to?    40.000M memsize (     0.000  retained)
                           1.000M objects (     0.000  retained)
                           1.000  strings (     0.000  retained)
                rescue     0.000  memsize (     0.000  retained)
                           0.000  objects (     0.000  retained)
                           0.000  strings (     0.000  retained)

  Results when method is not found
         user     system      total        real
               FastTry  0.230000   0.000000   0.230000 (  0.227693)
       Safe Navigation  0.060000   0.000000   0.060000 (  0.065258)
     ActiveSupport try  0.300000   0.000000   0.300000 (  0.292541)
         Check for nil  0.060000   0.000000   0.060000 (  0.063945)
           respond_to?  0.240000   0.000000   0.240000 (  0.245455)
                rescue  3.580000   0.000000   3.580000 (  3.575365)
  Calculating -------------------------------------
               FastTry    80.000M memsize (     0.000  retained)
                           2.000M objects (     0.000  retained)
                           1.000  strings (     0.000  retained)
       Safe Navigation     0.000  memsize (     0.000  retained)
                           0.000  objects (     0.000  retained)
                           0.000  strings (     0.000  retained)
     ActiveSupport try   120.000M memsize (     0.000  retained)
                           3.000M objects (     0.000  retained)
                           1.000  strings (     0.000  retained)
         Check for nil     0.000  memsize (     0.000  retained)
                           0.000  objects (     0.000  retained)
                           0.000  strings (     0.000  retained)
           respond_to?    40.000M memsize (     0.000  retained)
                           1.000M objects (     0.000  retained)
                           1.000  strings (     0.000  retained)
                rescue     2.640B memsize (     0.000  retained)
                           6.000M objects (     0.000  retained)
                           1.000  strings (     0.000  retained)