what makes a variable be visible (intellij idea) - scala

With intellij idea, how do I find out what makes a variable be visible?
An example of when it is hard:
Suppose you look at class A, and you see a variable something. If you jump to source you see that it's defined in trait X. But you don't extend trait X directly. What do you extend, then, that makes this variable visible? If you have a deeply nested hierarchy, tracking can be hard.
Any recommendations or solutions?
EDIT: Please vote for the feature if you're interested: http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-124369

I don't think that IntelliJ IDEA has any shortcut for "finding what makes a variable visible".
However you can determine it using the "Find Usages" option (Alt + F7). For example:
import java.nio._
object TempObj extends App {
def func = 2
val p = file.Paths.get("some-path")
func
}
So Find Usages on "file", tells you that its from the Package "file" (in heading of the new Tab it also shows the complete package name, ex: Find Usages of java.nio.file in Project Files).
Whereas Find Usages on func will tell you that its a Method (And the Tab heading now says: Find Usages of func() in Project and Libraries)
So now in way you can determine, what exactly makes the variable visible. This also works for imports since it shows the package from which it is imported and you can then look for import of that packages.

I know of two almost-solutions to this problem.
Go-to-declaration, as you mentioned, solves this problem in the case of local variables.
More generally, the "find usages" feature gives you a neat little breakdown by type and file of different uses of the variable. From this you can see if it's involved in a static import.
It's not perfect, but with a moment's thought these two are generally sufficient to figure out what you want.

Use ctrl+b or F4 to jump to source code. Alternatively you can use ctrl+shift+a to get option/action. You can find shortcuts at http://gaerfield.github.io/ide-shortcuts/ as well. Hope it will help.

From what I understood you want to see the code that creates an Object you use, for instance Mystery someMystery;.
That gives you two options to populate someMystery:
someMystery = ... where ... is your code to populate
someMystery and if that is the case you should follow
that code (with ctrl+B as far as you need to) to the point where it
actually creates the Mystery object.
Use CDI to populate that object instance for you, in which case you should look into the CDI mechanism in order to see in what way the object instance is populated.
In either way IMO there is no way to know for sure if the someMystery instance is of some more concrete class than Mystery, because it is decided in runtime, not in compile time, so your next bet would be to run the program in debug and see what object goes into someMystery, although you are not guaranteed to get the same type of object every time.
PS. My answer is based entirely on my java understanding of the topic, can't say if it is valid for scala also.

This might not be exactly the answer you were hoping to get.
However, quoting yourself,
If you have a deeply nested hierarchy, tracking can be hard.
Have you considered using composition over inheritance? Perhaps this would remove the need for the feature you are looking for.

Deeply nested hierarchy doesn't sound good. I understand your pain about that.
When you override vals or defs there is a little circle next to the line number that shows where it is from even when it is from nested hierarchy. Hovering over vals with the command key down also shows you a little tooltip where it is from.
Does this help?
https://youtu.be/r3D9axSlBo8

if you want class, field or method to be visible, you need to implement them as public. If it was your question.

Related

Documentation of OCaml code in Eclipse

I'm using Eclipse with the OcaIDE-Plugin to write my ocaml-project.
I have written several ocaml-functions that I want to document (comment, return values and params).
I've created my documentation in the .ml-files like described in this link: http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual-ocaml/ocamldoc.html
Here is an example of one function:
(** sorting tuples where first element is key *)
let my_comp x y = (*Some code*)
Unfortunately, my comments don't show up, when I press F2 at one of the functions, it only shows the name and the file it is contained.
When writing comments in an mli-file, it works as expected, but i also want to document "private" functions that are not accessible from the outside. Can I define functions in the mli, that are NOT accessible from the outside, just for the documentation?
How can I make Eclipse to show my documention?
Well, as you said, you would like to show the documentation but not export the function out of the module. That, sadly, won't work.
I guess OcaIDE can be considered as incomplete but it doesn't look like it's something people care about (I don't know a single person working on OcaIDE). If you like having autocompletion etc, maybe try to program with emacs and install merlin (look, I found the perfect post for you : here)
As for the suggestion of defining a function in the mli not accessible from the outside, it's completely opposed to why mli files are created, so don't expect that to be possible. ;-)
I hoped I've been able to help you.

Can I use Eclipse templates to insert methods and also call them?

I'm doing some competitions on a website called topcoder.com where the objective is to solve algorithmic problems. I'm using Eclipse for this purpose, and I code in Java, it would be help me to have some predefined templates or macros that I can use for common coding tasks. For example I would like to write methods to be able to find the max value in and int[] array, or the longest sequence in an int[] array, and so on (there should be quite many of these). Note I can't write these methods as libraries because as part of the competition I need to submit everything in one file.
Therefore ideally, I would like to have some shortcut available to generate code both as a method and as a calling statement at once. Any ideas if this is possible?
Sure you can - I think that's a nifty way to auto-insert boilerplate or helper code. To the point of commenters, you probably want to group the code as a helper class, but the general idea sounds good to me:
You can see it listed in your available templates:
Then as you code your solution, you can Control+Space, type the first few characters of the name you gave your template, and you can preview it:
And then you can insert it. Be sure if you use a class structure to position it as an inner class:
Lastly - if you want to have a template inserts a call to method from a template, I think you would just use two templates. One like shown above (to print the helper code) and another that might look like this, which calls a util method and drops the cursor after it (or between the parentheses if you'd like, etc):
MyUtils.myUtilMethod1();${cursor}

How to create a scala class based on user input?

I have a use case where I need to create a class based on user input.
For example, the user input could be : "(Int,fieldname1) : (String,fieldname2) : .. etc"
Then a class has to be created as follows at runtime
Class Some
{
Int fieldname1
String fieldname2
..so..on..
}
Is this something that Scala supports? Any help is really appreciated.
Your scenario doesn't seem to make sense. It's not so much an issue of runtime instantiation (the JVM can certainly do this with reflection). Really, what you're asking is to dynamically generate a class, which is only useful if your code makes use of it later on. But how can your code make use of it later on if you don't know what it looks like? For example, how would your later code know which fields it could reference?
No, not really.
The idea of a class is to define a type that can be checked at compile time. You see, creating it at runtime would somewhat contradict that.
You might want to store the user input in a different way, e.g. a map.
What are you trying to achieve by creating a class at runtime?
I think this makes sense, as long as you are using your "data model" in a generic manner.
Will this approach work here? Depends.
If your data coming from a file that is read at runtime but available at compile time, then you're in luck and type-safety will be maintained. In fact, you will have two options.
Split your project into two:
In the first run, read the file and write the new source
programmatically (as Strings, or better, with Treehugger).
In the second run, compile your generated class with the rest of your project and use it normally.
If #1 is too "manual", then use Macro Annotations. The idea here is that the main sub-project's compile time follows the macro sub-project's runtime. Therefore, if we provide the main sub-project with an "empty" class, members can be added to it dynamically at compile time using data that the macro sees at runtime. - To get started, Modify the macro to read from a file in this example
Else, if you're data are truly only knowable at runtime, then #Rob Starling's suggestion may work for you as it did me. I'll share my attempt if you want to be a guinea pig. For debugging, I've got an App.scala in there that shows how to pass strings to a runtime class generator and access it at runtime with Java reflection, even define a Scala type alias with it. So the question is, will your new dynamic class serve as a type-parameter in Slick, or fail to, as it sometimes does with other libraries?

What is scala.mobile supposed to accomplish?

...and why has the package this misleading name (I assumed it had something to do with JavaME or mobile/smart phones)?
I found no references on the internet about scala.mobile.Code or scala.mobile.Location at all nor did I manage to do anything with those classes except getting ClassCastExcetions or NoSuchMethodErrors.
Actually there is not even a single test against scala.mobile in the Scala's test tree which could help understanding that code.
The classes really smell like they were forgotten in the source tree a long time ago and got accidentally released since that.
Maybe I just missed something about them?
Update:
scala.mobile was removed in Scala 2.9.
I just checked the source code.
When Scala changed the name mangling of class files a few years ago and it seems people forgot to update these classes accordingly.
So my answer would be:
At least Location has no purpose, because it is not possible to get anything sensible out of it (except exceptions) and Code without Location is severely limited. It works though if you pass the class literal to Code directly:
import scala.mobile._
val c = new Code(classOf[scala.collection.mutable.StringBuilder])
c.apply[StringBuilder, String]("append")("Foo")
c.apply[String]("toString")() // returns "Foo"
c.apply[Int]("length")() // returns 3
Looks like yet-another implementation in the standard library of reflection-slightly-nicer.
The description of Location pretty much explains what that is about:
The class Location provides a create method to instantiate objects
from a network location by specifying the URL address of the jar/class file.
It might be used by remote actors. Maybe.
As for why it has this misleading name? Well, back in 2004 smart phones had really low penetration, so maybe the association wasn't all that strong.

ASTNodes And Views

I would like to know if there is a function that when i give it an ASTNode object (the ASTNode can be a class, method or a field in a CompilationUnit) as an argument it can show this object in a view (Tree view or Table view). If there isn't any such function, is there another way or workaround of doing it?
Thanks for your help.
You may be able to use the ASTView plugin
It's not clear if you are referring to Java or just something else. I'm assuming you need a Java tool. I'm not sure what exactly you expect to see in the "view".
Do check out nWire. It may be what you are looking for. Given any component in your code (like Class, field, etc.) it can show all possible associations to other components.