Is there a way to allow a user class with generics to be specified dynamically? That is, say I have a class hierarchy like this:
public interface IMyObject { }
Then I have a class like this:
public class MyObject<?> : IMyObject { }
I want to be able to use the object something like this:
MyObject<object> firstOrder;
MyObject<object, object> secondOrder;
MyObject<object, object, object> thirdOrder;
//And so on...
//MyObject<object, object, object> , ..., object> nthOrder;
I know for things like Func<>, Action<> or other delegates, I don't know that I've ever pushed the capacity of what these can do or whether their argument lists can so expansive.
Is there a way to do this in C#?
Thanks...
No, in C# you have to define each permutation separately. If you look at the examples you cited, Action<T> and Func<T>, you'll notice that the .NET framework provides a large number of explicit overloads (Action<T1, T2>, Action<T1, T2, T3>, etc.). But there's no way to make this open-ended; you have to define each one yourself.
No, you cannot have variadic type arguments. It might be cool, but it's not possible with the language as it stands. As for Func and Action, there are manual declarations for each number of type arguments. It's not something special that .NET just for those delegates.
Related
I am having trouble understanding with some of the code snippets about this part of the Java tutorial: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/IandI/interfaceAsType.html
public Object findLargest(Object object1, Object object2) {
Relatable obj1 = (Relatable)object1;
Relatable obj2 = (Relatable)object2;
if ((obj1).isLargerThan(obj2) > 0)
return object1;
else
return object2;
}
and:
public interface Relatable {
// this (object calling isLargerThan)
// and other must be instances of
// the same class returns 1, 0, -1
// if this is greater than,
// equal to, or less than other
public int isLargerThan(Relatable other);
}
In the first example, why am I downcasting Object types into Relatable types? What happens if the first method doesn't include the first two statements?
Let's say I wrote a Rectangle class that implements the Relatable interface and has the "findLargest" method. If I know that I'm comparing two Rectangle objects, why not just make the first method downcast the objects into Rectangles instead?
You cast the Objects into Relatable types because otherwise you cannot use the methods declared in the Relatable interface. Since Object does not have the isLargerThan method, you would get a compiler error without casting. Honestly, in my opinion the findLargest method as shown here was not very well designed; a better illustration of the purpose of Interfaces would be to ask for Relatable objects as the parameters like so:
public Object findLargest(Relatable object1, Relatable object2) {
//implementation not shown to save space
}
This way, the user must pass Relatable objects, but they can pass any object whose class implements Relatable (such as Rectangle)
"If I know that I'm comparing two Rectangle objects..."True, if you know that you are comparing two Rectangle objects, there is little use for an interface, but the purpose of interfaces is to allow you to create a generic "type" of object that can be used to define common features of several different classes.For example, what if you also had a Circle class and a Square class (both of which implemented Relatable)? In this case, you do not necessarily know the exact type of object you have, but you would know that it is Relatable, so it would be best to cast to type Relatable and use the isLargerThan method in a case like this.
Interfaces define a set of methods which every class which the interface implements has to implement. The downcast is necessary to get access to these methods.
You don't know if you are comparing rectangles with this interface. You could get any Relatble passed. This is one of the cases generics come in handy.
1.In the first example, why am I down casting Object types into Relatable types? What happens if the first method doesn't include the first two statements?
Answer
Every object has some basic functionality and you want a specific object write now. You are down casting your object into a "Relatable" so you can use the "isLargerThan" method(an object wont have it since it has only basic common stuff).
If you didn't down cast, you would not pass compilation.
2.Let's say I wrote a Rectangle class that implements the Relatable interface and has the "findLargest" method. If I know that I'm comparing two Rectangle objects, why not just make the first method downcast the objects into Rectangles instead?
Answer
Since you want to create something generic.
Lets say you have a Student and a Driver. Both of them are People. You can create an interface called IPeople and make both the Student and the driver implement it.
IPeople will have a method called "getAge()" that each of them will implement.
IPeople will have all the functionality that you need for "People". That's how you create cross object functionality under the "same hat".
In an abstract class, I wish to define static methods, but I'm having problems.
In this simple example
abstract class Main {
static String get name;
bool use( Element el );
}
class Sub extends Main {
static String get name => 'testme';
bool use( Element el ) => (el is Element);
}
I receive the error:
function body expected for method 'get:name' static String get name;
Is there a typo in the declaration, or are static methods incompatible with abstract classes?
Dart doesn't inherit static methods to derived classes. So it makes no sense to create abstract static methods (without implementation).
If you want a static method in class Main you have to fully define it there and always call it like Main.name
== EDIT ==
I'm sure I read or heard some arguments from Gilad Bracha about it but can't find it now.
This behaviour is IMHO common mostly in statically typed languages (I don't know many dynamic languages). A static method is like a top level function where the class name just acts as a namespace. A static method has nothing to do with an instantiated object so inheritance is not applicable. In languages where static methods are 'inherited' this is just syntactic sugar. Dart likes to be more explicit here and to avoid confusion between instance methods and static methods (which actually are not methods but just functions because they don't act on an instance). This is not my primary domain, but hopefully may make some sense anyways ;-)
Looks like you are trying to 'override' a static method. I'm not sure what you are trying to achieve there. I'm not aware of any OO languages that support that (and not sure how they could).
A similar question in Java might help clarify Polymorphism and Static Methods
Note also that it is considered bad practice to refer to statics from an instance of the class in Java (and other OO languages). Interestingly I noticed Dart does not let you do this so is in effect removing this bad practice entirely.
So you couldn't even fool yourself into thinking it would behave polymorphically in Dart because you can't call the static from the instance.
We cannot create an instance of an interface.
But why does Arrays.asList(Object[] a) in the Java API, return a List (List being an interface)?
Thank you!
It creates an instance of a class which implements the interface.
You don't know what that class is; it could even use a different class every other Tuesday (it doesn't).
You just use the class through the interface.
Java and OOO programming in general lets you define how an object should be used (that´s the interface of the object) so only the library implementor needs to worry about the gory details of how things actually work. That´s why it is good practice to never return a class itself but just an interface, in addition to better maintanibility it will also let you use mocks or stubs objects when coding tests for your applications.
Java in particular let´s you create an interface implementation on fly. i.e you can do something like
return new List() {
boolean add() {...}
void addAll {...}
...
}
This is of course an overkill for complex interfaces like List but actually very handy for smaller interfaces.
I would like to pass an interface to a method signature which takes Object as its parameter, so I wonder about this question
public Stream GetViewStream(string viewName, object model, ControllerContext context)
instead of object I shall like to pass an interface Imodel, without modifying the signature. Is there a base class for interfaces?
Also in the new mvc2 is there a way to avoid controllercontext altogether?
I'd only answer the first question - Why there's no common base interface for all interfaces ?
First of all, there's no common pre-defined base interface for all interfaces, unlike the System.Object case. Explaining this can get very interesting.
Let us assume, you could have a common interface for all interfaces in the system. That means, all interfaces will need to force their implementations to provide implementation-details for that common base interface. In general, interface are used to give specific special behaviors to their concrete implementation classes. Obviously you only want to define an interface when you only know what to do and don't know HOW to do that. So, if you let there be a common base interface for all interface and force the implementations to expect them to provide details of how to do it - why would you want to do it ? What common task each class should do that varies from one another ?
Lets look at the other side of the coin, why we have System.object as base class of any .Net type - It is simple it gives you some methods that have COMMON implementation for any .Net type and for those methods that it might vary from type-to-type they have made it virtual ex: .ToString()
There's possibly no assumption of any
system-wide interface method which is
virtual/abstract to all its
implementations.
One common practice of using Interface is say, defining a particular behavior to any type. Like I'd have an interface IFlyable which will give Fly() to all types that implement IFlyable. This way I can play with any Flyable object regardless of its inheritance hierarchy coming into picture. I can write a method like this..
public void FlyTheObject(IFlyable flyingObject)
{
flyginObject.Fly();
}
It does not demand anything from the object but the implementation of the Fly() method.
EDIT
Additionally, All interfaces will resolve to Object because interfaces cannot be instantiated. The object is always of a concrete class that can be instantiated. This class may or may not implement your interface but as we know, any .Net type is ultimately based to System.Object, so you will be able to take the instance into an object type regardless of the fact if it implements a particular interface or not.
No, there is no base class for interfaces. Nor there is base interface for interfaces.
As for your second question (and partly first one) - what are actually you trying to do?
There is no base class for interfaces, but you can pass any interface variable e.g:
private IEnumerable<int> myInterfaceVariable = new List<int>();
to your method because by definition anything that is stored in that variable must be an instance of a class that inherits from the interface - therefore it must be an object.
The following compiles fine:
public class InterfaceAsObject
{
private IEnumerable<int> myInterfaceVariable = new List<int>();
private void CallDoSomething()
{
DoSomething(myInterfaceVariable);
}
private void DoSomething(object input)
{
}
}
Re 1, there is no base interface, but if I understand you correctly, you can achieve what I think you want by just passing your object that implements IModel via the model parameter and cast (and check!) the parameter to IModel. I use 'as' and check for null.
If you don't need total flexibility, a better way of doing this is to define the interface that the model parameter must support. If the specific objects support derived interfaces (e.g. IDerivedModel : IModel) this will work too.
Look up a text-book on polymorphism.
On C# 3.0 and .NET 3.5, imagine there's an interface:
public interface INameable
{
string Name {get;}
}
and many immutable classes that implement the interface.
I would like to have a single extension method
public static T Rename<T>(this T obj) where T : INameable
{
...
}
that returns a wrapped instance of the original object with just the name changed and all other property reads and method calls routed to the original object.
How to get a generic wrapper class for this, without implementing it for all INameable implementing types? Do you think that's possible?
No, this isn't possible, unless T is constrained to be an interface or to be a class with all members virtual, and this constraint isn't possible to specify at compile time (though you could write a runtime check if you're happy with that approach).
The reason you cannot do it for arbitrary types is that if you take an object of type T then you must return an object that is assignable to T. If I pass an object that looks as follows...
public sealed class SomeClass : INameable
{
public string Name { get; }
public string Abc { get; }
}
...then there is no way you can create another type that is assignable to SomeClass. Not using Reflection.Emit or any other method, because the type is sealed.
However, if you're happy with the restrictions that I've mentioned then you could use something like the Castle DynamicProxy framework to create a type that proxies the passed in object and intercepts the calls to either forward or re-implement as appropriate.
Well, yes, it's possible, but it involves generating code in memory.
You can look at Reflection.Emit and here.
Note that it will involve a lot of code.
That is, if I assume I understand you correctly.
Here's what I think you're asking for:
SomeNameableObject a1 = new SomeNameableObject("ThisIsTheFirstName");
SomeNameableObject a2 = a1.Rename("ThisIsTheSecondName");
// a1 works, still has the name ThisIsTheFirstName
// a2 works, but everything is routed to a1,
// except for the name, which is ThisIsTheSecondName
Is that correct?