I was testing out inheritance in Swift 3 and ran into an unexpected error. No matter how I alter the super.init() call, I can't make the error trace less problematic than this.
I have read through the documentation and other similar posts here on SO, but they don't have any examples of this particular problem. I am trying to create a class with properties that are either variable or constant and then creating another class that inherits from the first class and adds new properties.
The error comes from my subclass's init function: I set the new properties first, then call super.init() with the superclass's appropriate arguments. Swift then tells me that the third parameter "birthday" is an "extra argument."
Is there some sort of problem between my superclass having three properties and my subclass having two? I can't think of any other problem that could throw an error like this. Not sure which part is confusing me.
Here's my code:
class Person {
var name: String
var age: Int
let birthday: String
init(name: String, age: Int, birthday: String) {
self.name = name
self.age = age
self.birthday = birthday
}
}
class Student: Person {
var isEnrolled: Bool
var numberOfClasses: Int
init(isEnrolled: Bool, numberOfClasses: Int) {
self.isEnrolled = isEnrolled
self.numberOfClasses = numberOfClasses
super.init(name: name, age: age, birthday: birthday) {
self.name = name
self.age = age
self.birthday = birthday
}
}
}
Your initializer does not have a closure, so naturally, your approach cannot work. It says birthday is an extra argument, because the (non-existent) closure is the fourth argument in the list.
Student's initializer does not know what name, age or birthday is. You should include those parameters in the initializer as well and call super.init at the end.
init(name: String, age: Int, birthday: String, isEnrolled: Bool, numberOfClasses: Int) {
self.isEnrolled = isEnrolled
self.numberOfClasses = numberOfClasses
super.init(name: name, age: age, birthday: birthday)
}
Related
as shown in the code below：
struct Person {
var name: String
}
struct Group {
var person: Person
func callAsFunction() -> Person {
// Person is immutable value
person
}
}
var james = Person(name: "James")
var group = Group(person: james)
group().name = "Wong" //ERROR: Cannot assign to property: function call returns immutable value
group() return an immutable value, that can't be changed! So Is there any way to make the callAsFunction() method return a mutable value?
Thanks ;)
Updated:
My idea is to transfer all the calls and visits of the Group to the Person object in the Group, just like using Person directly.
I can't use dynamicMemberLookup because I don't know what method or property there will be in Person. For example, there may be 100 methods and properties in Person (not only one name property as demonstrated), and it is impossible for me to write 100 subscript methods with dynamicMemberLookup.
My needs are a bit like proxy objects in the Ruby language. Accessing an object (Group) actually accesses another object (Person) inside it, as if the Group does not exist.
ruby proxy patterns:
https://refactoring.guru/design-patterns/proxy/ruby/example
CallAsFunction is the closest implementation so far, but requires that Person cannot be a Struct, otherwise it cannot be assigned to its properties.
Maybe it's not possible to implement this feature in Swift yet?
You're using the wrong dynamic method. What you want is dynamicMemberLookup. Watch closely. First, the preparation:
struct Person {
var name: String
}
#dynamicMemberLookup
struct Group {
var person: Person
subscript(dynamicMember kp:WritableKeyPath<Person,String>) -> String {
get { self.person[keyPath:kp] }
set { self.person[keyPath:kp] = newValue }
}
}
Now look at what that allows you to say:
var group = Group(person: Person(name: "James"))
group.name = "Wong"
print(group.person) // Person(name: "Wong")
Do you see? We set the name of the Group even though it has no name property, and the result was that we set the name of the Group's person which does have a name property.
The callAsFunction simply returns (a copy of the) Person, which is a value type. You cannot then mutate the property of it like that. It is equivalent to the following:
struct Person {
var name: String
}
Person(name: "Foo").name = "Bar"
That returns the same error:
If Person was a reference type, it would have worked, but not for a value type. And even if you took your value type, and first assigned it to a variable before mutating it, you would only be mutating your copy, not the original.
If you want the behavior you want, you would use a #dynamicMemberLookup as suggested by matt (+1) and outlined in SE-0195.
You said:
I can't use dynamicMemberLookup because I don't know what method or property there will be in Person. For example, there may be 100 methods and properties in Person (not only one name property as demonstrated), and it is impossible for me to write 100 subscript methods with dynamicMemberLookup.
You do not need “100 subscript methods.” It is the motivating idea behind #dynamicMemberLookup, namely that the properties will be determined dynamically. E.g., here is Person with two properties, but Group only has the one #dynamicMemberLookup.
struct Person {
var name: String
var city: String
}
#dynamicMemberLookup
struct Group {
var person: Person
subscript(dynamicMember keyPath: WritableKeyPath<Person, String>) -> String {
get { person[keyPath: keyPath] }
set { person[keyPath: keyPath] = newValue }
}
}
var group = Group(person: Person(name: "James", city: "New York"))
group.name = "Wong"
group.city = "Los Angeles"
print(group.person) // Person(name: "Wong", city: "Los Angeles")
If you want to handle different types, make it generic:
struct Person {
var name: String
var city: String
var age: Int
}
#dynamicMemberLookup
struct Group {
var person: Person
subscript<T>(dynamicMember keyPath: WritableKeyPath<Person, T>) -> T {
get { person[keyPath: keyPath] }
set { person[keyPath: keyPath] = newValue }
}
}
And
var group = Group(person: Person(name: "James", city: "New York", age: 41))
group.name = "Wong"
group.city = "Los Angeles"
group.age = 42
print(group.person) // Person(name: "Wong", city: "Los Angeles", age: 42)
I want to know how Literal Convertibles work in Swift. The little I know is that the fact that, in var myInteger = 5, myInteger magically becomes an Int is because Int adopts a protocol, ExpressibleByIntegerLiteral and we don't have to do var myInteger = Int(5). Similarly String, Array, Dictionary etc all conform to some Literal protocols.
My Question is
Am I right in my little understanding of Literal Convertibles?
How can we implement these in our own types. For example
class Employee {
var name: String
var salary: Int
// rest of class functionality ...
}
How can I implement Literal Protocols to do var employee :Employee = "John Doe" which will automatically assign "John Doe" to employee's name property.
You are partially correct in your understanding of the various ExpressibleBy...Literal protocols. When the Swift compiler parses your source code into an Abstract Syntax Tree, it already identified what literal represents what data type: 5 is a literal of type Int, ["name": "John"] is a literal of type Dictionary, etc. Apple makes the base type conform to these protocols for the sake of completeness.
You can adopt these protocols to give your class an opportunity to be initialized from a compile-time constant. But the use case is pretty narrow and I don't see how it applies to your particular situation.
For example, if you want to make your class conform to ExpressibleByStringLiteral, add an initializer to set all your properties from a String:
class Employee: ExpressibleByStringLiteral {
typealias StringLiteralType = String
var name: String
var salary: Int
required init(stringLiteral value: StringLiteralType) {
let components = value.components(separatedBy: "|")
self.name = components[0]
self.salary = Int(components[1])!
}
}
Then you can init your class like this:
let employee1: Employee = "John Smith|50000"
But if you dream about about writing something like this, it's not allowed:
let str = "Jane Doe|60000"
let employee2: Employee = str // error
And if you pass in the wrong data type for salary, it will be a run time error instead of a compile-time error:
let employee3: Employee = "Michael Davis|x" // you won't know this until you run the app
TL, DR: it is a very bad idea to abuse these ExpressibleBy...Literal types.
This can be a scenario to work with Convertibles in custom types.
struct Employee : ExpressibleByStringLiteral {
var name: String = ""
init() {}
init(stringLiteral name: String) {
self.name = name
}
}
func reportName(_ employee: Employee) {
print("Name of employee is \(employee.name)")
}
reportName("John Doe") //Name of employee is John Doe
Seems like I'm having a problem with something that shouldn't be the case... But I would like to ask for some help.
There are some explanations here on the Stack I don't get.
Having two simple classes where one refers to another, as per below:
class User {
lazy var name: String = ""
lazy var age: Int = 0
init (name: String, age: Int) {
self.name = name
self.age = age
}
}
class MyOwn {
let myUser: User = User(name: "John", age: 100)
var life = myUser.age
//Cannot use instance member 'myUser' within property initializer
//property initializers run before 'self' is available
}
I get the commented compile error. May someone please tell me what should I do to solve the case?
As correctly pointed out by vadian you should create an init in such scenarios:
class MyOwn {
let myUser: User
var life: Int
init() {
self.myUser = User(name: "John", age: 100)
self.life = myUser.age
}
}
You can't provide a default value for a stored property that depends on another instance property.
You should declare life like this:
lazy var life:Int = {
return self.myUser.age
}()
Because you are trying to initialise one property(variable) with another during initialisation process. At this time variables are not available yet.
I've created the following class
class Person {
var firstName: String
var lastName: String
init(firstName: String, lastName: String) {
self.firstName = firstName
self.lastName = lastName
}
func fullName() -> String {
return "\(firstName) \(lastName)"
}
}
Then I instantiated a constant value from the class
let john = Person(firstName: "Johnny", lastName: "Applessed")
Question: Why I can change the content of the variable john? Isn't it a constant? Can someone explain that for me, thanks a lot.
john.firstName = "John"
print(john.firstName) // -> John
As #Wain has said – it's due to the nature of reference types. The instance being a let constant only means you cannot assign a new reference to it – but says nothing about the actual mutability of the instance itself.
If you change your class to a struct, you'll see how the behaviour differs with value types, as changing a property changes the actual value of your Person – therefore you are unable to do so if it's a let constant. However I somewhat doubt you'll want to make your Person a struct, as two people with the same name shouldn't be considered to be the same person.
If you only wish your properties to be assigned upon initialisation (and then read-only for the lifetime of the instance), then I would recommend making them let constants (instead of making their setters private). This will ensure that you cannot even change their value from within your class, once assigned.
The rule is as long you give a property a value before the super.init() call – you can make it a let constant (in this case, you just have to assign them in the initialiser before using self).
class Person {
let firstName: String
let lastName: String
init(firstName: String, lastName: String) {
self.firstName = firstName
self.lastName = lastName
}
...
The class instance itself is a constant, so you can't change it to reference another instance, but the instance is mutable because it's properties are created as vars.
Change firstName to have a private setter and see what you can do:
private(set) var firstName: String
When you're using a constant instance of a class in swift, doesn't mean you can't change the class attributes. It' means you can't instantiate a new object in this constant
let person = Person(firstName: "Johnny", lastName: "Appleseed")
person = Person(firstName: "John", lastName: "Appleseed") //--->It gets error: Cannor assign to value: 'person' is a 'let' constant
But you can create a constant inside class and set this values in the init
class Person {
let firstName: String
let lastName: String
init(firstName: String, lastName: String) {
self.firstName = firstName
self.lastName = lastName
}
func fullName() -> String {
return "\(firstName) \(lastName)"
}
}
//Tip: Don't init the class constants in declaration time or will get the same above error. Just init this constants at constructor/initialization of class.
And Now you have the expected result you want, even if create a 'var' instance of this object
var person = Person(firstName: "Johnny", lastName: "Appleseed")
person.firstName = "John" //--->It gets error: Cannor assign to value: 'person' is a 'let' constant
person = Person(firstName: "John", lastName: "Snow")
person.firstName = "Johnny" //--->It gets error: Cannor assign to value: 'person' is a 'let' constant
Your thinking was not wrong, but a little confuse cause you would be totally right if it was a struct instead a class.
I'm working through a learn-swift playground and upgrading it to Swift 2.0 as I learn the language. The following code (which likely worked with prior versions of Swift) now generates two errors: "'self' used before all stored properties are initialized" and "Constant 'self.capitalCity' used before initialized"
class Country
{
let name: String
let capitalCity: City!
init(name: String, capitalName: String)
{
self.name = name
self.capitalCity = City(name: capitalName, country: self)
}
}
class City
{
let name: String
unowned let country: Country
init(name: String, country: Country)
{
self.name = name
self.country = country
}
}
reading an answer to a similar question I see that I can change let capitalCity: City! to var capitalCity: City! and the syntax error is resolved.
I realize that in this contrived example a country's capital city can change, so that would be fine, but what if there were a case where the value really was a constant...
Is there any way to resolve the syntax error while keeping capitalCity a constant?
In this case I would suggest you to make the property a variable but hiding it (make it seem like a constant) through a computed property:
class Country {
let name: String
private var _capitalCity: City!
var capitalCity: City {
return _capitalCity
}
init(name: String, capitalName: String) {
self.name = name
self._capitalCity = City(name: capitalName, country: self)
}
}
Is there any way to resolve the syntax error while keeping capitalCity a constant?
Not the way you have things set up. The source of the problem is actually that in order to set capitalCity, you have to create a City whose country is self. That is the use of self to which the compiler is objecting:
self.capitalCity = City(name: capitalName, country: self)
^^^^
Since you have configured City's country as a constant, you must supply this value when you initialize your City. Thus you have no way out; you must make capitalCity an Optional var so that it has some other initial value that is legal, namely nil. Your proposed solution actually works like this:
class Country
{
let name: String
var capitalCity: City! = nil // implicit or explicit
init(name: String, capitalName: String)
{
self.name = name
// end of initialization!
// name is set (to name), and capitalCity is set (to nil)...
// ... and so the compiler is satisfied;
// now, we _change_ capitalCity from nil to an actual City,
// and in doing that, we _are_ allowed to mention `self`
self.capitalCity = City(name: capitalName, country: self)
}
}
Just do:
private(set) var capitalCity: City!
which gives you the read-only public interface you want.
I understand that you find var capitalCity: City! contrived. I'd say that the selected answer is truly contrived; it adds lines of code that have no purpose other than resolving a language-related issue. Lines like that are meaningless and meaning is what matters most in code.
Came across this recently while struggling with a similar problem and as of swift 5.5 (or possibly lower) there is another alternative that is interesting. If you convert Capital City to a lazy var you are actually able to use self in initialization.
class Country
{
let name: String
lazy var capitalCity: City = {
City(name: capitalName, country: self)
}()
private let capitalName: String
init(name: String, capitalName: String)
{
self.name = name
self.capitalName = capitalName
}
}
class City
{
let name: String
unowned let country: Country
init(name: String, country: Country)
{
self.name = name
self.country = country
}
}
Cheers!