Document the use of the alternate operator

[gfontenot]

Related: #284

Our use of Alternative is something that sticks out to me as being insanely powerful, but we don't talk about it ever. We should add some documentation around this. Ideas:

• Decoding multiple JSON formats
• Decoding into enums rather than structs
• Decoding from different JSON types (int/string as in Using an alternate decode for an array of enums #284)

[alskipp]

Another use for the Alternative operator could be for supplying default values to avoid the use of Optionals in models. Here's a quick example:

struct Player {
  let id: Int, name: String, lives: Int, goldCoins: Int
}

extension Player: Decodable {
  static func decode(j: JSON) -> Decoded<Player> {
    return curry(self.init)
      <^> j <| "id"
      <*> j <| "name" <|> pure("Anonymous Player")
      <*> j <| "lives"
      <*> j <| "goldCoins" <|> pure(0)
  }
}

let playersJSON: AnyObject = [
  ["id": 1, "name": "Gertrude", "lives": 5, "goldCoins": 20],
  ["id": 2, "name": "Dave", "lives": 1],
  ["id": 3, "lives": 3],
  ["id": 4, "lives": 1, "goldCoins": 13],
]


let players: [Player]? = decode(playersJSON)
print(players!)

What do you think? If you thought it a reasonable example then something similar could be added to the included Argo Playground file.

[paulyoung]

I do this when the server might return null instead of an empty array.

[Marcin-Kapusta]

@paulyoung How are You doing this with Arrays. I've created this Issue I was trying use .success or pure without any success. My goal is similar than Yours. Server returns null for Array and I would like to convert it to just empty Array for not optional Array property.

[paulyoung]

@Marcin-Kapusta here's one example: https://github.com/the-grid/Portal/blob/31e406ce9319dad7fd31c073dfdb6a20d7511c3f/Portal/Models/Item.swift#L39

[rob5408]

I don't know about anyone else, but I definitely needed extra parentheses to get this working...

extension Team: Decodable {
    static func decode(_ json: Argo.JSON) -> Decoded<Team> {
        return curry(Team.init)
            <^> (json <| "id" <|> pure("123"))
            <*> (json <| "name" <|> pure("Anonymous"))
    }
}

Without them I got an error "Cannot convert value of type '(Id, Name) -> Team' to expected argument type '(_) -> Team'"

(Swift 3, Argo 4.1.2, Runes 4.0.1, Curry 3.0.0)