I've found this pattern quite a few times in my code:

  if (doIt)
    object.callAMethod
  else
    object

I'm wondering if there could be a syntactically more pleasing way to write the code above, especially to avoid the repetition of the object variable. Something like:

   // using the Scalaz "pipe" operator
   // and "pimping" f: T => T with a `when` method
   object |> (_.callAMethod).when(doIt)

Unfortunately the line above fails because the type inference requires a parameter type for (_.callAMethod).

My best approach for now is this:

    implicit def doItOptionally[T](t: =>T) = new DoItOptionally(t)
    class DoItOptionally[T](t: =>T) {
      def ?>(f: T => T)(implicit doIt: Boolean = true) = 
        if (doIt) f(t) else t
    } 

    implicit val doIt = true
    object ?> (_.callAMethod)

Not great because I have to declare an implicit val but this pays off if there are several chained calls:

     object ?> (_.callAMethod) ?> (_.callAnotherMethod)

Does anyone have a better idea? Am I missing some Scalaz magic here?

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