I want to have a method that takes a parameter of type enum as a parameter and then operates on it to get all possible values of the enum type, and do some work with each of those values.
I'd be hoping for something like:
Widget foo (EnumType enumType) {
for(var value in enumType.values) {
print(value.name);
}
}
I've looked for solutions but the only ones I can find are addressed by passing a list of the values as a parm, however this doesn't solve my problem as, even with the list of objects, I can't know that they are enum values so if I try do the .name operation on them, dart throws an error Error: The getter 'name' isn't defined for the class 'Object'.
Maybe my only problem is that I don't know how to specify a variable as an EnumType but I haven't been able to find a correct type for this.
EnumType.values is the equivalent of an automatically generated static method on EnumType and as such is not part of any object's interface. You therefore will not be able to directly call .values dynamically.
I've looked for solutions but the only ones I can find are addressed by passing a list of the values as a [parameter], however this doesn't solve my problem as, even with the list of objects, I can't know that they are enum values so if I try do the .name operation on them, dart throws an error
You can use a generic function that restricts its type parameter to be an Enum:
enum Direction {
north,
east,
south,
west,
}
List<String> getNames<T extends Enum>(List<T> enumValues) =>
[for (var e in enumValues) e.name];
void main() {
print(getNames(Direction.values)); // Prints: [north, east, south, west]
}
The problem with enums is that they can't be passed as a parameter, what you can do instead is that pass all the values and then extract the name from the toString method.
void printEnumValues<T>(List<T> values){
for(var value in values){
final name = value.toString().split('.')[1];
print(name);
}
}
Also I would recommend you look into freezed union classes as that might allow you an alternative approach towards the problem you're trying to solve.
Related
Why I have to define a subclass to get the Type of superclass' generic param? Is the limit necessary?
I read the code of Fastjson of Alibaba and tried to figure out why use TypeReference must create an anonymous subclass. Then I found that an object cannot get its own generic param Type even its own Type.
public class TypeReference {
static ConcurrentMap<Type, Type> classTypeCache
= new ConcurrentHashMap<Type, Type>(16, 0.75f, 1);
protected final Type type;
protected TypeReference() {
Type superClass = getClass().getGenericSuperclass();
Type type = ((ParameterizedType) superClass).getActualTypeArguments()[0];
Type cachedType = classTypeCache.get(type);
if (cachedType == null) {
classTypeCache.putIfAbsent(type, type);
cachedType = classTypeCache.get(type);
}
this.type = cachedType;
}
// ...
}
Sorry for my poor English. Thanks for your answers.
Because of Type Erasure.
Consider the following example
List<String> stringList = new ArrayList<>();
List<Number> numberList = new ArrayList<>();
System.out.println(stringList.getClass() == numberList.getClass());
This will print true. Regardless of the generic type, both instances of ArrayList have the same class and a single Class object. So how could this single Class object return the right Type for both objects?
We can even get a step further,
List<String> stringList = Collections.emptyList();
List<Number> numberList = Collections.emptyList();
System.out.println(stringList == (Object)numberList);
Objects do not know their generic type. If a collection is immutable and always empty, it can be used to represent arbitrary empty lists. The same applies to stateless functions
Function<String, String> stringFunction = Function.identity();
Function<Number, Number> numberFunction = Function.identity();
System.out.println(stringFunction == (Object)numberFunction);
Prints true (on most systems; this is not a guaranteed behavior).
Generic types are only retained in some specific cases, like the signatures of field and method declarations and generic super types.
That’s why you need to create a subclass to exploit the fact that it will store the declared generic supertype. While it sometimes would be useful to construct a Type instance in a simpler way and a suitable factory method can be regarded a missing feature, getting the actual generic type of an arbitrary object (or its Class) is not possible in general.
So I basically have a simple class with a update() method. But because that update() method makes some math, I wanted to use compute() to make it run in another Isolate. The plan was to run the update() method in the Isolate and return the updated object like this:
compute(updateAsset, asset).then((value) => asset = value);
Asset updateAsset(Asset asset) {
asset.update();
return asset;
}
But then I get this error:
ArgumentError (Invalid argument(s): Illegal argument in isolate message : (object extends NativeWrapper - Library:'dart:ui' Class: Path))
Is there any possible way to send an object to an Isolate or do I have to send every single Value of that Asset as an Integer, create a new Object and return that?
According to the docs:
The content of message can be: primitive values (null, num, bool, double, String), instances of SendPort, and lists and maps whose elements are any of these. List and maps are also allowed to be cyclic.
So I see a 2 options that you can use.
You can send every value as an integer or other primitive in a Map or List if it's possible for your object to be deconstructed like that.
If that method is too difficult for any reason, you can instead convert you object to a primitive type, the easiest being String with JSON encoding. You can encode your object with the jsonEncode function and send the String that it returns over to your isolate where you would then decode it back to your object if necessary.
I'd like to store instances of models in a common provider using their classes or interfaces as a keys and then pop them up by class references. I have written some code:
class Provider {
public function new() { }
public function set<T:Any>(instance:T, ?type:Class<T>) {
if (type == null)
type = Type.getClass(instance);
if (type != null && instance != null)
map.set(type, instance);
}
public function get<T:Any>(type:Class<T>):Null<T> {
return cast map.get(type);
}
var map = new Map<Class<Any>, Any>();
}
...alas, it's even doesn't compile.
Probably I have to use qualified class name as a key rather than class/interface reference? But I'd like to keep neat get function design that takes type as argument and returns object just of type taken, without additional type casting.
Is it possible or should I change my approach to this problem?
The issue of using Class<T> as a Map key come up every so often, here is a related discussion. The naive approach of Map<Class<T>, T> fails to compile with something like this:
Abstract haxe.ds.Map has no #:to function that accepts haxe.IMap<Class<Main.T>, Main.T>`
There's several different approaches to this problem:
One can use Type reflection to obtain the fully qualified name of a class instance, and then use that as a key in a Map<String, T>:
var map = new Map<String, Any>();
var name = Type.getClassName(Main);
map[name] = value;
For convenience, you would probably want to have a wrapper that does this for you, such as this ClassMap implementation.
A simpler solution is to simply "trick" Haxe into compiling it by using an empty structure type ({}) as the key type. This causes ObjectMap to be chosen as the underlying map implementation.
var map = new Map<{}, Any>();
map[Main] = value;
However, that allows you to use things as keys that are not of type Class<T>, such as:
map[{foo: "bar"}] = value;
The type safety issues of the previous approach can be remedied by using this ClassKey abstract:
#:coreType abstract ClassKey from Class<Dynamic> to {} {}
This still uses ObjectMap as the underlying map implementation due to the to {} implicit cast. However, using a structure as a key now fails at compile time:
var map = new Map<ClassKey, Any>();
map[{foo: "bar"}] = value; // No #:arrayAccess function accepts arguments [...]
I created an extension method that lets me treat a List as DbSet for testing purposes (actually, I found this idea in another question here on stack overflow, and it's been fairly useful). Coded as follows:
public static DbSet<T> AsDbSet<T>(this List<T> sourceList) where T : class
{
var queryable = sourceList.AsQueryable();
var mockDbSet = new Mock<DbSet<T>>();
mockDbSet.As<IQueryable<T>>().Setup(m => m.Provider).Returns(queryable.Provider);
mockDbSet.As<IQueryable<T>>().Setup(m => m.Expression).Returns(queryable.Expression);
mockDbSet.As<IQueryable<T>>().Setup(m => m.ElementType).Returns(queryable.ElementType);
mockDbSet.As<IQueryable<T>>().Setup(m => m.GetEnumerator()).Returns(queryable.GetEnumerator());
mockDbSet.Setup(d => d.Add(It.IsAny<T>())).Callback<T>(sourceList.Add);
mockDbSet.Setup(d => d.Find(It.IsAny<object[]>())).Callback(sourceList.Find);
return mockDbSet.Object;
}
I had been using Add for awhile, and that works perfectly. However, when I try to add the callback for Find, I get a compiler error saying that it can't convert a method group to an action. Why is sourceList.Add an Action, but sourceList.Find is a method group?
I'll admit I'm not particularly familiar with C# delegates, so it's likely I'm missing something very obvious. Thanks in advance.
The reason Add works is because the List<T>.Add method group contains a single method which takes a single argument of type T and returns void. This method has the same signature as an Action<T> which is one of the overloads of the Callback method (the one with a single generic type parameter, Callback<T>), therefore the List<T>.Add method group can be converted to an Action<T>.
With Find, you are trying to call the Callback method (as opposed to Callback<T>) which expects an Action parameter (as opposed to Action<T>). The difference here is that an Action does not take any parameters, but an Action<T> takes a single parameter of type T. The List<T>.Find method group cannot be converted to an Action because all the Find methods (there is only one anyway) take input parameters.
The following will compile:
public static DbSet<T> AsDbSet<T>(this List<T> sourceList) where T : class
{
var mockDbSet = new Mock<DbSet<T>>();
mockDbSet.Setup(d => d.Find(It.IsAny<object[]>())).Callback<Predicate<T>>(t => sourceList.Find(t));
return mockDbSet.Object;
}
Note that I have called .Callback<Predicate<T>> because the List<T>.Find method expects and argument of type Predicate. Also note I have had to write t => sourceList.Find(t) instead of sourceList.Find because Find returns a value (which means it doesn't match the signature of Action<Predicate<T>>). By writing it as a lambda expression the return value will be thrown away.
Note that although this compiles it will not actually work because the DbSet.Find method actually takes an object[] for it's parameter, not a Predicate<T>, so you will likely have to do something like this:
public static DbSet<T> AsDbSet<T>(this List<T> sourceList) where T : class
{
var mockDbSet = new Mock<DbSet<T>>();
mockDbSet.Setup(d => d.Find(It.IsAny<object[]>())).Callback<object[]>(keyValues => sourceList.Find(keyValues.Contains));
return mockDbSet.Object;
}
This last point has more to do with how to use the Moq library that how to use method groups, delegates and lambdas - there is all sorts of syntactic sugar going on with this line which is hiding what is actually relevant to the compiler and what isn't.
I have two methods like so:
Foo[] GetFoos(Type t) { //do some stuff and return an array of things of type T }
T[] GetFoos<T>()
where T : Foo
{
return GetFoos(typeof(T)) as T[];
}
However, this always seems to return null. Am I doing things wrong or is this just a shortfall of C#?
Nb:
I know I could solve this problem with:
GetFoos(typeof(T)).Cast<T>().ToArray();
However, I would prefer to do this wothout any allocations (working in an environment very sensitive to garbage collections).
Nb++:
Bonus points if you suggest an alternative non allocating solution
Edit:
This raises an interesting question. The MSDN docs here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa664572%28v=vs.71%29.aspx say that the cast will succeed if there is an implicit or explicit cast. In this case there is an explicit cast, and so the cast should succeed. Are the MSDN docs wrong?
No, C# casting isn't useless - you simply can't cast a Foo[] to a T[] where T is a more derived type, as the Foo[] could contain other elements different to T. Why don't you adjust your GetFoos method to GetFoos<T>()? A method only taking a Type object can easily be converted into a generic method, where you could create the array directly via new T[].
If this is not possible: Do you need the abilities an array offers (ie. indexing and things like Count)? If not, you can work with an IEnumerable<T> without having much of a problem. If not: you won't get around going the Cast<T>.ToArray() way.
Edit:
There is no possible cast from Foo[] to T[], the description in your link is the other way round - you could cast a T[] to a Foo[] as all T are Foo, but not all Foo are T.
If you can arrange for GetFoos to create the return array using new T[], then you win. If you used new Foo[], then the array's type is fixed at that, regardless of the types of the objects it actually holds.
I haven't tried this, but it should work:
T[] array = Array.ConvertAll<Foo, T>(input,
delegate(Foo obj)
{
return (T)obj;
});
You can find more at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/exc45z53(v=VS.85).aspx
I think this converts in-place, so it won't be doing any re-allocations.
From what I understand from your situation, using System.Array in place of a more specific array can help you. Remember, Array is the base class for all strongly typed arrays so an Array reference can essentially store any array. You should make your (generic?) dictionary map Type -> Array so you may store any strongly typed array also while not having to worry about needing to convert one array to another, now it's just type casting.
i.e.,
Dictionary<Type, Array> myDict = ...;
Array GetFoos(Type t)
{
// do checks, blah blah blah
return myDict[t];
}
// and a generic helper
T[] GetFoos<T>() where T: Foo
{
return (T[])GetFoos(typeof(T));
}
// then accesses all need casts to the specific type
Foo[] f = (Foo[])GetFoos(typeof(Foo));
DerivedFoo[] df = (DerivedFoo[])GetFoos(typeof(DerivedFoo));
// or with the generic helper
AnotherDerivedFoo[] adf = GetFoos<AnotherDerivedFoo>();
// etc...
p.s., The MSDN link that you provide shows how arrays are covariant. That is, you may store an array of a more derived type in a reference to an array of a base type. What you're trying to achieve here is contravariance (i.e., using an array of a base type in place of an array of a more derived type) which is the other way around and what arrays can't do without doing a conversion.