This is fundamentally impossible. Conceptually, lens is nothing more than a pair of functions: one to get a value from object and one to obtain new object using a given value. That functions can be implemented by the means of accessing the source object's fields or not. In fact, even GenLens macro can use a chain field accessors like _.field1.field2 to generate composite lenses to the fields of nested objects. That can be confusing at first, but this feature have its uses. For example, you can decouple the format of data storage and representation:
import monocle._
case class Person private(value: String) {
import Person._
private def replace(
array: Array[String], index: Int, item: String
): Array[String] = {
val copy = Array.ofDim[String](array.length)
array.copyToArray(copy)
copy(index) = item
copy
}
def replaceItem(index: Int, item: String): Person = {
val array = value.split(delimiter)
val newArray = replace(array, index, item)
val newValue = newArray.mkString(delimiter)
Person(newValue)
}
def getItem(index: Int): String = {
val array = value.split(delimiter)
array(index)
}
}
object Person {
private val delimiter: String = ";"
val nameIndex: Int = 0
val cityIndex: Int = 1
def apply(name: String, address: String): Person =
Person(Array(name, address).mkString(delimiter))
}
val name: Lens[Person, String] =
Lens[Person, String](
_.getItem(Person.nameIndex)
)(
name => person => person.replaceItem(Person.nameIndex, name)
)
val city: Lens[Person, String] =
Lens[Person, String](
_.getItem(Person.cityIndex)
)(
city => person => person.replaceItem(Person.cityIndex, city)
)
val person = Person("John", "London")
val personAfterMove = city.set("New York")(person)
println(name.get(personAfterMove)) // John
println(city.get(personAfterMove)) // New York
While not very performant, that example illustrates the idea: Person class don't have city or address fields, but by wrapping data extractor and a string rebuild function into Lens, we can pretend it have them. For more complex objects, lens composition works as usual: inner lens just operates on extracted object, relying on outer one to pack it back.
