f# - Eliminating my explicit state passing via like, monads and stuff

Question

I'm working through the book Land of Lisp in F# (yeah weird, I know). For their first example text adventure, they make use of global variable mutation and I'd like to avoid it. My monad-fu is weak, so right now I'm doing ugly state passing like this:

let pickUp player thing (objects: Map<Location, Thing list>) =
    let objs = objects.[player.Location]
    let attempt = objs |> List.partition (fun o -> o.Name = thing)
    match attempt with
    | [], _ -> "You cannot get that.", player, objs
    | thing :: _, things ->
        let player' = { player with Objects = thing :: player.Objects }
        let msg = sprintf "You are now carrying %s %s" thing.Article thing.Name
        msg, player', things

let player = { Location = Room; Objects = [] }   

let objects =
    [Room, [{ Name = "whiskey"; Article = "some" }; { Name = "bucket"; Article = "a" }];
    Garden, [{ Name = "chain"; Article = "a length of" }]]
    |> Map.ofList

let msg, p', o' = pickUp player "bucket" objects
// etc.

How can I factor out the explicit state to make it prettier? (Assume I have access to a State monad type if it helps; I know there is sample code for it in F# out there.)

Answer 1

If you want to use the state monad to thread the player's inventory and world state through the pickUp function, here's one approach:

type State<'s,'a> = State of ('s -> 'a * 's)

type StateBuilder<'s>() =
  member x.Return v : State<'s,_> = State(fun s -> v,s)
  member x.Bind(State v, f) : State<'s,_> =
    State(fun s ->
      let (a,s) = v s
      let (State v') = f a
      v' s)

let withState<'s> = StateBuilder<'s>()

let getState = State(fun s -> s,s)
let putState v = State(fun _ -> (),v)

let runState (State f) init = f init

type Location = Room | Garden
type Thing = { Name : string; Article : string }
type Player = { Location : Location; Objects : Thing list }

let pickUp thing =
  withState {
    let! (player, objects:Map<_,_>) = getState
    let objs = objects.[player.Location]
    let attempt = objs |> List.partition (fun o -> o.Name = thing)    
    match attempt with    
    | [], _ -> 
        return "You cannot get that."
    | thing :: _, things ->    
        let player' = { player with Objects = thing :: player.Objects }        
        let objects' = objects.Add(player.Location, things)
        let msg = sprintf "You are now carrying %s %s" thing.Article thing.Name
        do! putState (player', objects')
        return msg
  }

let player = { Location = Room; Objects = [] }   
let objects =
  [Room, [{ Name = "whiskey"; Article = "some" }; { Name = "bucket"; Article = "a" }]
   Garden, [{ Name = "chain"; Article = "a length of" }]]    
  |> Map.ofList

let (msg, (player', objects')) = 
  (player, objects)
  |> runState (pickUp "bucket")