Shorten repeat assignments with coffeescript - coffeescript

I'm parsing http POST requests with express.js and just need to pull in all the variables that were sent by the client. Right now it looks like this:
token = req.body.token
amount = req.body.amount
product = req.body.product
link = req.body.link
address = req.body.address
Is there a way to shorten these repeat assignments with coffeescript syntax?

You can use destructured assignment for such things:
Destructuring Assignment
To make extracting values from complex arrays and objects more convenient, CoffeeScript implements ECMAScript Harmony's proposed destructuring assignment syntax. When you assign an array or object literal to a value, CoffeeScript breaks up and matches both sides against each other, assigning the values on the right to the variables on the left.
In your case:
{ token, amount, product, link, address } = req.body

Related

What is the exact meaning of `pl.col("")` expression with empty string argument

The example in a section about 'list context' in the polars-book uses pl.col("") expression with an empty string "" as the argument.
# the percentage rank expression
rank_pct = pl.col("").rank(reverse=True) / pl.col("").count()
From the context and the output I can guess what pl.col("") expression does. But the API documentation does not seem to cover a case of empty string as the argument to pl.col and I would like to know the precise meaning in this use case. Any helpful answer is greatly appreciated!
The precise meaning is to act as a 'root' Expression to start a chain of Expressions inside a List context, i.e., inside arr.eval(....). I'll need to take a step back to explain...
'Root' Expressions
In general, only certain types of Expressions are allowed to start (or be the 'root' of) an Expression. These 'root' Expressions work with a particular context (select, filter,with_column, etc..) to identify what data is being addressed.
Some examples of root Expressions are polars.col, polars.apply, polars.map, polars.first, polars.last, polars.all, and polars.any. (There are others.)
Once we declare a "root" Expression, we can then chain other, more-generic Expressions to perform work. For example, polars.col("my_col").sum().over('other_col').alias('name').
The List context
A List context is slightly different from most contexts. In a List context, there is no ambiguity as to what data is being addressed. There is only a list of data. As such, polars.col and polars.first were chosen as "root" Expressions to use within a List context.
Normally, a polars.col root Expression contains information such as a string to denote a column name or a wildcard expression to denote multiple columns. However, this is not needed in a List context. There is only one option - the single list itself.
As such, any string provided to polars.col is ignored in a List context. For example, from the code from the Polars Guide, this code also works:
# Notice that I'm referring to columns that do not exist...
rank_pct = pl.col("foo").rank(reverse=True) / pl.col("bar").count()
Since any string provided to a polars.col Expression will be ignored in a List context, a single empty string "" is often supplied, just to prevent unnecessary clutter.
Edit: New polars.element expression
Polars now has a polars.element expression designed for use in list evaluation contexts. Using polars.element is now considered idiomatic for list contexts, as it avoids confusion associated with using col(“”).

Spread syntax in function call in Reason

In Javascript you can use the spread syntax in a function call like this:
console.log(...[1,2,3]);
Is there an equivalent in Reason? I tried the following:
let bound = (number, lower, upper) => {
max(lower, min(upper, number));
};
let parameters = (1,0,20);
bound(...parameters) |> Js.log;
But this gives an unknown syntax error:
Try reason snippet
There's not. Reason is a statically typed language, and lists are dynamically-sized and homogenous. It would be of very limited use, and not at all obvious how it would deal with too few or too many arguments. If you want to pass a list, you should just accept a list and deal with it appropriately, as a separate function if desired.
You could of course use a tuple instead, which is fixed-size and heterogenous, but I don't see a use-case for that either, since you might as well just call the function directly then.
For JavaScript FFI there is however the bs.splice attribute, which will allow you to apply a variable number of arguments to a js function using an array. But it needs to be called with an array literal, not just any array.

Swift: Converting a string into a variable name

I have variables with incremented numbers within, such as row0text, row1text, row2text, etc.
I've figured out how to dynamically create string versions of those variable names, but once I have those strings, how can I use them as actual variable names rather than strings in my code?
Example:
var row3text = "This is the value I need!"
var firstPart = "row"
var rowNumber = 3
var secondPart = "text"
var together = (firstPart+String(rowNumber)+secondPart)
// the below gives me the concatenated string of the three variables, but I'm looking for a way to have it return the value set at the top.
println (together)
Once I know how to do this, I'll be able to iterate through those variables using a for loop; it's just that at the moment I'm unsure of how to use that string as a variable name in my code.
Thanks!
Short Answer: There is no way to do this for good reason. Use arrays instead.
Long Answer:
Essentially you are looking for a way to define an unknown number of variables that are all linked together by their common format. You are looking to define an ordered set of elements of variable length. Why not just use an array?
Arrays are containers that allow you to store an ordered set or list of elements and access them by their ordered location, which is exactly what you're trying to do. See Apple's Swift Array Tutorial for further reading.
The advantage of arrays is that they are faster, far more convenient for larger sets of elements (and probably the same for smaller sets as well), and they come packaged with a ton of useful functionality. If you haven't worked with arrays before it is a bit of a learning curve but absolutely worth it.

Using LuaJ with Scala

I am attempting to use LuaJ with Scala. Most things work (actually all things work if you do them correctly!) but the simple task of setting object values has become incredibly complicated thanks to Scala's setter implementation.
Scala:
class TestObject {
var x: Int = 0
}
Lua:
function myTestFunction(testObject)
testObject.x = 3
end
If I execute the script or line containing this Lua function and pass a coerced instance of TestObject to myTestFunction this causes an error in LuaJ. LuaJ is trying to direct-write the value, and Scala requires you to go through the implicitly-defined setter (with the horrible name x_=, which is not valid Lua so even attempting to call that as a function makes your Lua not parse).
As I said, there are workarounds for this, such as defining your own setter or using the #BeanProperty markup. They just make code that should be easy to write much more complicated:
Lua:
function myTestFunction(testObject)
testObject.setX(testObject, 3)
end
Does anybody know of a way to get luaj to implicitly call the setter for such assignments? Or where I might look in the luaj source code to perhaps implement such a thing?
Thanks!
I must admit that I'm not too familiar with LuaJ, but the first thing that comes to my mind regarding your issue is to wrap the objects within proxy tables to ease interaction with the API. Depending upon what sort of needs you have, this solution may or may not be the best, but it could be a good temporary fix.
local mt = {}
function mt:__index(k)
return self.o[k] -- Define how your getters work here.
end
function mt:__newindex(k, v)
return self.o[k .. '_='](v) -- "object.k_=(v)"
end
local function proxy(o)
return setmetatable({o = o}, mt)
end
-- ...
function myTestFunction(testObject)
testObject = proxy(testObject)
testObject.x = 3
end
I believe this may be the least invasive way to solve your problem. As for modifying LuaJ's source code to better suit your needs, I had a quick look through the documentation and source code and found this, this, and this. My best guess says that line 71 of JavaInstance.java is where you'll find what you need to change, if Scala requires a different way of setting values.
f.set(m_instance, CoerceLuaToJava.coerce(value, f.getType()));
Perhaps you should use the method syntax:
testObject:setX(3)
Note the colon ':' instead of the dot '.' which can be hard to distinguish in some editors.
This has the same effect as the function call:
testObject.setX(testObject, 3)
but is more readable.
It can also be used to call static methods on classes:
luajava.bindClass("java.net.InetAddress"):getLocalHost():getHostName()
The part to the left of the ':' is evaluated once, so a statement such as
x = abc[d+e+f]:foo()
will be evaluated as if it were
local tmp = abc[d+e+f]
x = tmp.foo(tmp)

Getting UTF-8 Request Parameter Strings in mod_perl2

I'm using mod_perl2 for a website and use CGI::Apache2::Wrapper to get the request parameters for the page (e.g. post data). I've noticed that the string the $req->param("parameter") function returns is not UTF-8. If I use the string as-is I can end up with garbled results, so I need to decode it using Encode::decode_utf8(). Is there anyway to either get the parameters already decoded into UTF-8 strings or loop through the parameters and safely decode them?
To get the parameters already decoded, we would need to override the behaviour of the underlying class Apache2::Request from libapreq2, thus losing its XS speed advantage. But that is not even straightforward possible, as unfortunately we are sabotaged by the CGI::Apache2::Wrapper constructor:
unless (defined $r and ref($r) and ref($r) eq 'Apache2::RequestRec') {
This is wrong OO programming, it should say
… $r->isa('Apache2::RequestRec')
or perhaps forego class names altogether and just test for behaviour (… $r->can('param')).
I say, with those obstacles, it's not worth it. I recommend to keep your existing solution that decodes parameters explicitly. It's clear enough.
To loop over the request parameters, simply do not pass an argument to the param method and you get a list of the names. This is documented (1, 2), please read more carefully.