Functional maps

A functional map in AbstractAlgebra is a map which can be applied by evaluating a Julia function or closure. It is represented by a map object that contains such a function/closure, usually in a field called image_fn.

All functional maps belong to the map class FunctionalMap.

A generic concrete type Generic.FunctionalMap is provided by the Generic module to implement a generic functional map type. This allows for functional maps that contain no extra data, other than a Julia function/closure.

Custom map types can also be defined which have map class FunctionalMap.

Functional map interface

All functional map types must define their supertypes as in the following example:

mutable struct MyFunctionalMap{D, C} <: Map{D, C, FunctionalMap, MyFunctionalMap}
   # some fields
   image_fn::Function
end

Of course MyFunctionalMap need not be parameterised if the types D and C of the domain and codomain objects are known.

Required functions for functional maps

The following functions must be defined for all functional map types or classes:

image_fn(M::Map(MyFunctionalMap))

Return the Julia function or closure that corresponds to application of the map $M$. This function only needs to be provided if this function is not stored in an image_fn field of the MyFunctionalMap type.

Generic functional maps

The Generic module provides a concrete type FunctionalMap which merely keeps track of a Julia function/closure implementing the map.

Such maps can be constructed using the following function:

map_from_func(image_fn::Function, domain, codomain)

julia> f = map_from_func(x -> x + 1, ZZ, ZZ)
Map defined by a Julia function
  from integers
  to integers

julia> f(ZZ(2))
3