A monoid is a simple concept. It is a generalization of some patterns that you very likely already have seen. Being aware of those can help in designing some operations and can simplify things. Without much further ado let us look at three simple math equations.

1 + 2       = 3
(1 + 2) + 3 = 1 + (2 + 3)
1 + 0       = 0 + 1

Table of Content

Binary Operations

When we look at the first equation we just see the following: There exists some kind of binary operation that takes two things of the same type, and somehow combines those two things into one result of the same type. When we look at the type-signature of our + operation we see something like

int -> int -> int

or when we generalize the idea, we expect any type. So we think of functions with the signature

'a -> 'a -> 'a

Associativity

The second equation tells us that our binary operation + has another property. The order in which we do the calculation don’t change the end result. We can first calculate 1 + 2 and then add 3 or we can first calculate 2 + 3 and then add 1. Both result in 6.

Identity

The last equation tells us that there exists some kind of zero-element or in mathematics named identity that don’t effect the result of the operation. It works as some kind of noop-operation.

For the binary operation + this kind of element is 0. No matter which number we have, when we add zero to it, it doesn’t change the number at all.

Monoids

Whenever all three properties are fulfilled, we name it a monoid. The question is probably how such kind of simple generalization is even helpful. But before we look into this, let’s look at some other example first, to get a better hang of the three rules. First all three rules again.

  1. There exists a binary operation that combines two things, and returns something of the same type.
  2. The binary operation is associative.
  3. There is some kind of Zero/Identity/Noop-element for the binary operation.

To understand the rules better let’s look at -, * and /. As all of those are binary operations all of them already fulfil the first rule, but do they also fulfil the second and third rule?

Subtraction

Subtraction is not associative. (1 - 2) - 3 gives us -1 - 3 that result in -4. But 1 - (2 - 3) gives us 1 - (-1) and this returns 2.

There also does not exists an identity element. We could think once again of 0. As 1 - 0 return once again 1 unchanged. But when we do 0 - 1 we get -1.

Multiplication

Multiplication is a monoid as both rules are fulfilled. We can do multiplication in any order and it always yield the same result. But what is our identity element? This time it is 1 not 0. Multiplying a number with 1 never changes the number itself.

(1 * 2) * 3 = 6
1 * (2 * 3) = 6
6 * 1 = 6
1 * 6 = 6

Division

Division is not associative:

(100.0 / 2.0) / 5.0 =  50.0 / 5.0 = 10.0
100.0 / (2.0 / 5.0) = 100.0 / 0.4 = 250.0

and we also don’t have an identity element. We could once again think of 1. As 3.0 / 1.0 don’t change 3.0, but the reverse 1.0 / 3.0 is once again something different.

What is the purpose of all of this?

Now that we have seen more examples we should get familiar with the concept. But why are those rules anyway useful? Actually, all three rules gives us an ability that we can use in programming.

Binary Operations

When we have a binary operation that combines two things that returns another new thing of the same type. It simply means we always can combine a whole list of elements with List.reduce. Let’s assume we have a list of numbers and we just want to add, subtract, multiply or divide all numbers. Then we just can write:

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let xs = [1.0 .. 10.0]

List.reduce (+) xs // 55.0
List.reduce (-) xs // -53.0
List.reduce (*) xs // 3628800.0
List.reduce (/) xs // 2.755731922e-07

If you are unfamiliar with List.reduce. You can think of it as a way to always combines the first two elements of a list, until you only have a single element left. When we use List.reduce on

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[1;2;3;4;5]

it basically combines the first two elements. 1 + 2 and replaces it with 3. So what happens is just:

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[1;2;3;4;5]
[3;3;4;5]
[6;4;5]
[10;5]
[15]

Once there is only a single result, it returns it.

This is not how it exactly works, but this is one way how you can think of it.

But think about it why it makes in general sense that we can reduce a list of something to a single value. When we can combine two things into one thing, we always can keep going combining two things until we end up with a single element. A reduce operation just does that repetitive combining for us.

Associativity

Associativity can enhance the reduce operation. If the exact order doesn’t play a role. It means the combining can be done in Parallel on multiple CPUs. As a simple example let’s look at a list with four elements.

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[1;2;3;4]

CPU1 could start combining 1 + 2 while CPU2 starts combining 3 + 4. Once both are finished CPU1 could combine the result 3 + 7.

But note that this is a naive approach, when we just combine numbers and always split every addition on it’s own CPU the whole combining process would be probably slower and not faster as before. To be more efficient we need to better divide the input. For example combine the first 1000 elements of a list on CPU1, and the elements 1001-2000 on CPU2 and so on. To get a fast operation it is a little bit more complicated. But there usually already exists libraries that addresses those problems. We could for example use FSharp.Collections.ParallelSeq

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// Sequence of all number from 1 to 10.000.000
let nums = [| 1L .. 10000000L |]

// Reduce just with one CPU
Seq.reduce (+) nums

//Real: 00:00:00.103, CPU: 00:00:00.093, GC gen0: 0, gen1: 0, gen2: 0
//val it : int64 = 50000005000000L

// Reduce with multiple CPUs
PSeq.reduce (+) nums

//Real: 00:00:00.107, CPU: 00:00:00.390, GC gen0: 0, gen1: 0, gen2: 0
//val it : int64 = 50000005000000L

And as you see, even then you have no guarantee that it is faster (I use a quad-core machine). The problem is that the combine operation itself is already fast, or probably the reduce algorithm in PSeq is not good enough. But still general speaking. Associativity opens up Parallelism, in the case of using multiple CPUs or using multiple computers (distributed computing).

But it also allows you to divide an operations into chunks so you can save intermediate result or calculate a result incrementally. In a reporting system you could for example aggregate all data for one day, and save the result. If you want to create a month report, you always just need to combine the results of let’s say the last 30 days. You don’t need to rerun the combine operation completely from the start.

Identity

There is one problem with reduce or in general we have one problem. Our binary operations always expect to combine two things. But what happens if we have zero or only one element? You probably ask why we then even want to run a reduce operation. But in normal circumstances we don’t want to check the amount of elements in a list. But this leads to a problem.

A reduce operation with a single element just returns the single element, as there is nothing to combine. But with an empty list it just throws an exception as it don’t know what it should return.

In such a case, the identity element is helpful, as we just can return the identity element. But it is also useful in other cases. We just have some kind of starting value that we can begin with. To solve the problem with reduce we can use fold instead of reduce.

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List.fold (+) 0 []          // 0
List.fold (+) 0 [1;2;3;4;5] // 15
List.fold (*) 1 []          // 1
List.fold (*) 1 [1;2;3;4;5] // 120

The additional value we pass to fold acts in this case as the identity element.

Monoids examples

As we now have a rough view what an monoid is, and what it allows us to do, let’s look at some more simple monoids.

String concatenation

String concatenation is a monoid, the identity element is just the empty string.

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List.fold (+) "" ["Hello"; " "; "World!"] // "Hello World!"

List appending

Appending lists is a monoid. The identity element is just the empty list.

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List.fold List.append [] [["foo"]; ["bar"; "baz"]]   // ["foo"; "bar"; "baz"]
List.fold List.append [] [[1;2;3]; [4;5;6]; [7;8;9]] // [1;2;3;4;5;6;7;8;9]

Maximum value

We can threat the max operation as a monoid. It just takes two values, and returns the one which is greater. Notice that combining doesn’t literally mean we really have to work with both values and combine them. A function that just throws away one value is still valid.

If you wonder why. The only thing we must ensure is that we can combine two things into one result. There is no restriction on the result itself. It only matters that we get the same result.

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(max (max 1 2) 3) // 3
(max 1 (max 2 3)) // 3

or with reduce.

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List.reduce max [1;2;3;4;5;6]         // 6
List.reduce max ["foo"; "abc"; "zoo"] // "zoo"

But what is the identity element? Well it depends on the type we use. Just consider what the purpose of the identity element is. It acts as a noop-operation. When we have one value and use it with the identity element, we always must get the input value back.

When we use max with int, we must find an int that always makes sure we get our input value unchanged back, no matter what our input is. That means the identity element for max with the int type is Int32.MinValue

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max Int32.MinValue -2147483648    // -2147483648
max Int32.MinValue 0              // 0
max Int32.MinValue 12345          // 12345
max Int32.MinValue Int32.MaxValue // 2147483647

The identity element for string is just the empty string

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max "" ""    // ""
max "" "Foo" // "Foo"
max "" "Bar" // "Bar"
max "" "Baz" // "Baz"

Combining Sets

Also combining two Sets is a monoid, once again with just the empty set as the identity element.

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let sa = set [1;2]
let sb = set [2;3]
let sc = set [3;4]

(Set.union (Set.union sa sb) sc) // set [1;2;3;4]
(Set.union sa (Set.union sb sc)) // set [1;2;3;4]

List.fold Set.union Set.empty [sa; sb; sc] // [1;2;3;4]
List.fold Set.union Set.empty [sc; sb; sa] // [1;2;3;4]

Commutative Monoids

Up so far you probably noticed one additional variation. For some combine operations the whole order on how we combine them don’t play a role. Actually + for numbers and the Set.union fall into this category. But other operation are just associative, for example List or String concatenation. When we concatenate three strings, it doesn’t matter if we do (a + b) + c or a + (b + c). But we cannot do (a + c) + b. This will give us a completely different string.

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("foo" + "bar") + "baz" // "foobarbaz"
"foo" + ("bar" + "baz") // "foobarbaz"
("foo" + "baz") + "bar" // "foobazbar"

But for other operations, the whole order doesn’t matter

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(1 + 2) + 3 // 6
1 + (2 + 3) // 6
(1 + 3) + 2 // 6

We can even shuffle an array before summing it, it will always give us the same sum. But shuffling an array of strings, will return another string. When we have a monoid where the whole order doesn’t play a role. then we have a Commutative Monoid.

For example adding numbers or multiplying them, combining sets with Set.union or getting the max value are Commutative Monoids.

Creating Monoids Types

Up so far we always used List.fold or List.reduce directly and provided the identity element directly. But overall it can help to create a type that combines the binary operation with the identity element in its own type.

We can overload the + and the Zero operator to get some nice behaviour. We treat + just as our combine operation. And Zero is our identity element.

Sum Monoid

As a simple example let’s create a Sum type.

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type Sum = Sum of int with
    static member (+) (Sum x, Sum y) = Sum (x + y)
    static member Zero = Sum 0

The advantage is that we can use List.sum with such a type. List.sum adds all elements together with the + operator. So it is like reduce, but in the case of an empty list, it returns the Zero element.

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List.sum [Sum 1; Sum 2; Sum 3]  // Sum 6
List.sum [Sum 5; Sum 10; Sum 5] // Sum 20

Defining a Sum type for int and + doesn’t seems like much value, and it isn’t. But it is only one example to understand the concept. A Product for example seems much more usable.

Product Monoid

The product Monoid just multiplies the numbers and we use 1 as Zero.

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type Product = Product of int with
    static member (+) (Product x, Product y) = Product (x * y)
    static member Zero = Product 1

List.sum [Product 5; Product 10; Product 3] // Product 150
List.sum [Product 3; Product 2]             // Product 6

Ordering Monoid

Let’s create a Monoid that adds two list together and sorts the list while doing it.

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type Order<'a when 'a : comparison> = Order of 'a list with
    static member (+) (Order xs : Order<'a>, Order ys) = Order (List.sort (List.append xs ys))
    static member Zero : Order<'a> = Order []

Order [3;4] + Order [1;2] + Order [6;6;10] // [1;2;3;4;6;6;10]
Order ["foo";"bar"] + Order ["zoo"]        // ["bar"; "foo"; "zoo"]

List.sum [Order [3;4]; Order [1;2]]           // [1;2;3;4]
List.sum [Order ["foo";"bar"]; Order ["zoo"]] // ["bar"; "foo"; "zoo"]

Summary

A Monoid is a simple way to aggregate data. When you design functions consider if there exists binary operations to somehow combine types. If you can implement them you get the ability to combine a list of types for free.

Additionally it opens up the possibility to allow combining data in parallel or build data incrementally.

Further Reading