In my code, I have an array of a class that may not have any members at the point where I want to get the properties through reflection. Mirror(reflecting:) requires an instance but I'm stuck at how to deal with this if I don't have any instances yet.
Here's how Apple's documentation shows an example of reflection:
struct Point {
let x: Int, y: Int
}
let p = Point(x: 21, y: 30)
print(String(reflecting: p))
// Prints "▿ Point
// - x: 21
// - y: 30"
To simplify my scenario, essentially what I want to do is mirror "Point" rather than "p".
Any ideas?
I'm going to close this myself because this was just an all-round bad idea. I encourage others not to use this approach for a couple of reasons:
It works only if you have at least one item in an array of a class/struct
You are stuck with the property names as they appear in the class as your header titles
Instead, I am using logic to search through the cell identifiers which I set in the storyboard. When I find the cell identifier which matches my property name, I set the text to the value. The header of the row is set in the storyboard, so it is easily edited and (manually) formatted.
Here's the code for anyone who is interested.
func tableView(_ tableView: NSTableView, viewFor tableColumn: NSTableColumn?, row: Int) -> NSView? {
if viewOrder!.orders.count == 0 {
return nil
}
let cellIdentifier = tableColumn!.identifier.rawValue
let orderRow = viewOrder!.orders[row]
var text = ""
let mirror = Mirror(reflecting: orderRow)
for (name, value) in mirror.children {
if name == cellIdentifier {
text = "\(value)"
}
}
if let cell = orderTableView.makeView(withIdentifier: NSUserInterfaceItemIdentifier(cellIdentifier), owner: nil) as? NSTableCellView {
cell.textField?.stringValue = text
return cell
} else {
print("Didn't create cell in column \(tableColumn!.headerCell.title): \(cellIdentifier) : \(text)")
}
return nil
}
Note that the code above is optimized for reading and I'm sure it can be tighter. I am, of course, open to comments on better ways to do this.
Related
Say I have two structs that define a linked list:
....
....
type node struct {
item interface{}
next *node
}
type LinkedList struct {
first *node
N int
}
...
...
and I want to compare the value of the type of the underlying node, say, in a find function where we check if k == node.item such that:
func (l *LinkedList) find (key interface{}) bool {
result := false
if !l.isEmpty() {
for x:= l.first; x != nil; x = x.next {
if x.item == key {
result = true
break
}
}
return result
}
this will not work for the expected find function because the underlying types are different, hence the func will always return false. We can confirm this upon reflecting the type:
fmt.Println(reflect.TypeOf(key), reflect.TypeOf(x.item))
>>> string, *main.node
Tried workarounds?
I've tried asserting the type but alas this does not work and panics
tmp := x.item.(string)
>>>panic: interface conversion: interface {} is *main.node, not string
This case is the same for using fmt.Sprintf(x.item)
I'm a bit stumped as to where to go from here. Is there a way to do this?
Inserting item to linked list
The following snippet should clarify how insertion is handled
func (l *LinkedList) insertFirst(item interface{}) {
var first *node = new(node)
oldfirst := l.first
first.item = item
first.next = oldfirst
l.first = first
l.N++
}
.....
//which gets called somewhere like
var n *node = new(node)
n.item = item
l.insertFirst(n)
.....wait no theres the error!
----------
burak-serdar you are 100% correct that I am inserting the node in the node!
The interface comparison in find() is a valid comparison and it will work if the type of the key and the type of the value stored in the node are the same. However, evidence points to you adding a node in place of a value.
I have the following:
enum SomeType {
VariantA(String),
VariantB(String, i32),
}
fn transform(x: SomeType) -> SomeType {
// very complicated transformation, reusing parts of x in order to produce result:
match x {
SomeType::VariantA(s) => SomeType::VariantB(s, 0),
SomeType::VariantB(s, i) => SomeType::VariantB(s, 2 * i),
}
}
fn main() {
let mut data = vec![
SomeType::VariantA("hello".to_string()),
SomeType::VariantA("bye".to_string()),
SomeType::VariantB("asdf".to_string(), 34),
];
}
I would now like to call transform on each element of data and store the resulting value back in data. I could do something like data.into_iter().map(transform).collect(), but this will allocate a new Vec. Is there a way to do this in-place, reusing the allocated memory of data? There once was Vec::map_in_place in Rust but it has been removed some time ago.
As a work-around, I've added a Dummy variant to SomeType and then do the following:
for x in &mut data {
let original = ::std::mem::replace(x, SomeType::Dummy);
*x = transform(original);
}
This does not feel right, and I have to deal with SomeType::Dummy everywhere else in the code, although it should never be visible outside of this loop. Is there a better way of doing this?
Your first problem is not map, it's transform.
transform takes ownership of its argument, while Vec has ownership of its arguments. Either one has to give, and poking a hole in the Vec would be a bad idea: what if transform panics?
The best fix, thus, is to change the signature of transform to:
fn transform(x: &mut SomeType) { ... }
then you can just do:
for x in &mut data { transform(x) }
Other solutions will be clunky, as they will need to deal with the fact that transform might panic.
No, it is not possible in general because the size of each element might change as the mapping is performed (fn transform(u8) -> u32).
Even when the sizes are the same, it's non-trivial.
In this case, you don't need to create a Dummy variant because creating an empty String is cheap; only 3 pointer-sized values and no heap allocation:
impl SomeType {
fn transform(&mut self) {
use SomeType::*;
let old = std::mem::replace(self, VariantA(String::new()));
// Note this line for the detailed explanation
*self = match old {
VariantA(s) => VariantB(s, 0),
VariantB(s, i) => VariantB(s, 2 * i),
};
}
}
for x in &mut data {
x.transform();
}
An alternate implementation that just replaces the String:
impl SomeType {
fn transform(&mut self) {
use SomeType::*;
*self = match self {
VariantA(s) => {
let s = std::mem::replace(s, String::new());
VariantB(s, 0)
}
VariantB(s, i) => {
let s = std::mem::replace(s, String::new());
VariantB(s, 2 * *i)
}
};
}
}
In general, yes, you have to create some dummy value to do this generically and with safe code. Many times, you can wrap your whole element in Option and call Option::take to achieve the same effect .
See also:
Change enum variant while moving the field to the new variant
Why is it so complicated?
See this proposed and now-closed RFC for lots of related discussion. My understanding of that RFC (and the complexities behind it) is that there's an time period where your value would have an undefined value, which is not safe. If a panic were to happen at that exact second, then when your value is dropped, you might trigger undefined behavior, a bad thing.
If your code were to panic at the commented line, then the value of self is a concrete, known value. If it were some unknown value, dropping that string would try to drop that unknown value, and we are back in C. This is the purpose of the Dummy value - to always have a known-good value stored.
You even hinted at this (emphasis mine):
I have to deal with SomeType::Dummy everywhere else in the code, although it should never be visible outside of this loop
That "should" is the problem. During a panic, that dummy value is visible.
See also:
How can I swap in a new value for a field in a mutable reference to a structure?
Temporarily move out of borrowed content
How do I move out of a struct field that is an Option?
The now-removed implementation of Vec::map_in_place spans almost 175 lines of code, most of having to deal with unsafe code and reasoning why it is actually safe! Some crates have re-implemented this concept and attempted to make it safe; you can see an example in Sebastian Redl's answer.
You can write a map_in_place in terms of the take_mut or replace_with crates:
fn map_in_place<T, F>(v: &mut [T], f: F)
where
F: Fn(T) -> T,
{
for e in v {
take_mut::take(e, f);
}
}
However, if this panics in the supplied function, the program aborts completely; you cannot recover from the panic.
Alternatively, you could supply a placeholder element that sits in the empty spot while the inner function executes:
use std::mem;
fn map_in_place_with_placeholder<T, F>(v: &mut [T], f: F, mut placeholder: T)
where
F: Fn(T) -> T,
{
for e in v {
let mut tmp = mem::replace(e, placeholder);
tmp = f(tmp);
placeholder = mem::replace(e, tmp);
}
}
If this panics, the placeholder you supplied will sit in the panicked slot.
Finally, you could produce the placeholder on-demand; basically replace take_mut::take with take_mut::take_or_recover in the first version.
I'm learning Rust and would like to know how I can improve the code below.
I have a vector of tuples of form (u32, String). The u32 values represent line numbers and the Strings are the text on the corresponding lines. As long as all the String values can be successfully parsed as integers, I want to return an Ok<Vec<i32>> containing the just parsed String values, but if not I want to return an error of some form (just an Err<String> in the example below).
I'm trying to learn to avoid mutability and use functional styles where appropriate, and the above is straightforward to do functionally if that was all that was needed. Here's what I came up with in this case:
fn data_vals(sv: &Vec<(u32, String)>) -> Result<Vec<i32>, String> {
sv.iter()
.map(|s| s.1.parse::<i32>()
.map_err(|_e| "*** Invalid data.".to_string()))
.collect()
}
However, the small catch is that I want to print an error message for every invalid value (and not just the first one), and the error messages should contain both the line number and the string values in the offending tuple.
I've managed to do it with the following code:
fn data_vals(sv: &Vec<(u32, String)>) -> Result<Vec<i32>, String> {
sv.iter()
.map(|s| (s.0, s.1.parse::<i32>()
.or_else(|e| {
eprintln!("ERROR: Invalid data value at line {}: '{}'",
s.0, s.1);
Err(e)
})))
.collect::<Vec<(u32, Result<i32, _>)>>() // Collect here to avoid short-circuit
.iter()
.map(|i| i.1
.clone()
.map_err(|_e| "*** Invalid data.".to_string()))
.collect()
}
This works, but seems rather messy and cumbersome - especially the typed collect() in the middle to avoid short-circuiting so all the errors are printed. The clone() call is also annoying, and I'm not really sure why it's needed - the compiler says I'm moving out of borrowed content otherwise, but I'm not really sure what's being moved. Is there a way it can be done more cleanly? Or should I go back to a more procedural style? When I tried, I ended up with mutable variables and a flag to indicate success and failure, which seems less elegant:
fn data_vals(sv: &Vec<(u32, String)>) -> Result<Vec<i32>, String> {
let mut datavals = Vec::new();
let mut success = true;
for s in sv {
match s.1.parse::<i32>() {
Ok(v) => datavals.push(v),
Err(_e) => {
eprintln!("ERROR: Invalid data value at line {}: '{}'",
s.0, s.1);
success = false;
},
}
}
if success {
return Ok(datavals);
} else {
return Err("*** Invalid data.".to_string());
}
}
Can someone advise me on the best way to do this? Should I stick to the procedural style here, and if so can that be improved? Or is there a cleaner functional way to do it? Or a blend of the two? Any advice appreciated.
I think that's what partition_map() from itertools is for:
use itertools::{Either, Itertools};
fn data_vals<'a>(sv: &[&'a str]) -> Result<Vec<i32>, Vec<(&'a str, std::num::ParseIntError)>> {
let (successes, failures): (Vec<_>, Vec<_>) =
sv.iter().partition_map(|s| match s.parse::<i32>() {
Ok(v) => Either::Left(v),
Err(e) => Either::Right((*s, e)),
});
if failures.len() != 0 {
Err(failures)
} else {
Ok(successes)
}
}
fn main() {
let numbers = vec!["42", "aaaezrgggtht", "..4rez41eza", "55"];
println!("{:#?}", data_vals(&numbers));
}
In a purely functional style, you have to avoid side-effects.
Printing errors is a side-effect. The preferred style would be to return an object of the style:
Result<Vec<i32>, Vec<String>>
and print the list after the data_vals function returns.
So, essentially, you want your processing to collect a list of integers, and a list of strings:
fn data_vals(sv: &Vec<(u32, String)>) -> Result<Vec<i32>, Vec<String>> {
let (ok, err): (Vec<_>, Vec<_>) = sv
.iter()
.map(|(i, s)| {
s.parse()
.map_err(|_e| format!("ERROR: Invalid data value at line {}: '{}'", i, s))
})
.partition(|e| e.is_ok());
if err.len() > 0 {
Err(err.iter().filter_map(|e| e.clone().err()).collect())
} else {
Ok(ok.iter().filter_map(|e| e.clone().ok()).collect())
}
}
fn main() {
let input = vec![(1, "0".to_string())];
let r = data_vals(&input);
assert_eq!(r, Ok(vec![0]));
let input = vec![(1, "zzz".to_string())];
let r = data_vals(&input);
assert_eq!(r, Err(vec!["ERROR: Invalid data value at line 1: 'zzz'".to_string()]));
}
Playground Link
This uses partition which does not depend on an external crate.
Side effects (eprintln!) in an iterator adapter are definitely not "functional". You should accumulate and return the errors and let the caller deal with them.
I would use fold here. The goal of fold is to reduce a list to a single value, starting from an initial value and augmenting the result with every item. This "single value" can very well be a list, though. Here, though, there are two possible lists we might want to return: a list of i32 if all values are valid, or a list of errors if there are any errors (I've chosen to return Strings for errors here, for simplicity.)
fn data_vals(sv: &[(u32, String)]) -> Result<Vec<i32>, Vec<String>> {
sv.iter().fold(
Ok(Vec::with_capacity(sv.len())),
|acc, (line_number, data)| {
let data = data
.parse::<i32>()
.map_err(|_| format!("Invalid data value at line {}: '{}'", line_number, data));
match (acc, data) {
(Ok(mut acc_data), Ok(this_data)) => {
// No errors yet; push the parsed value to the values vector.
acc_data.push(this_data);
Ok(acc_data)
}
(Ok(..), Err(this_error)) => {
// First error: replace the accumulator with an `Err` containing the first error.
Err(vec![this_error])
}
(Err(acc_errors), Ok(..)) => {
// There have been errors, but this item is valid; ignore it.
Err(acc_errors)
}
(Err(mut acc_errors), Err(this_error)) => {
// One more error: push it to the error vector.
acc_errors.push(this_error);
Err(acc_errors)
}
}
},
)
}
fn main() {
println!("{:?}", data_vals(&[]));
println!("{:?}", data_vals(&[(1, "123".into())]));
println!("{:?}", data_vals(&[(1, "123a".into())]));
println!("{:?}", data_vals(&[(1, "123".into()), (2, "123a".into())]));
println!("{:?}", data_vals(&[(1, "123a".into()), (2, "123".into())]));
println!("{:?}", data_vals(&[(1, "123a".into()), (2, "123b".into())]));
}
The initial value is Ok(Vec::with_capacity(sv.len())) (this is an optimization to avoid reallocating the vector as we push items to it; a simpler version would be Ok(vec![])). If the slice is empty, this will be fold's result; the closure will never be called.
For each item, the closure checks 1) whether there were any errors so far (indicated by the accumulator value being an Err) or not and 2) whether the current item is valid or not. I'm matching on two Result values simultaneously (by combining them in a tuple) to handle all 4 cases. The closure then returns an Ok if there are no errors so far (with all the parsed values so far) or an Err if there are any errors so far (with every invalid value found so far).
You'll notice I used the push method to add an item to a Vec. This is, strictly speaking, mutation, which is not considered "functional", but because we are moving the Vecs here, we know there are no other references to them, so we know we aren't affecting any other use of these Vecs.
I'm writing a document generator. There is a DocumentItem interface - this is part of the document.
type DocumentItem interface {
compose() string
}
For example, a document consists of paragraphs and tables.
type Paragraph struct {
text string
}
type Table struct{}
The Paragraph and Table types correspond to the DocumentItem interface.
func (p *Paragraph) compose() string {
return ""
}
func (t *Table) compose() string {
return ""
}
The Document type contains the content []*DocumentItem field.
type Document struct {
content []*DocumentItem
}
I'm looking for a way that would allow NewParagraph() and NewTable() functions to create the necessary data types and add them to the content field.
func (d *Document) NewParagraph() *Paragraph {
p := Paragraph{}
d.content = append(d.content, &p)
return &p
}
func (d *Document) NewTable() *Table {
t := Table{}
d.content = append(d.content, &t)
return &t
}
I use an slice of interface pointers in order to be able to modify the data in the corresponding variables after they are included in the document.
func (p *Paragraph) SetText(text string) {
p.text = text
}
func main() {
d := Document{}
p := d.NewParagraph()
p.SetText("lalala")
t := d.NewTable()
// ...
}
But I get compiler errors:
cannot use &p (type *Paragraph) as type *DocumentItem in append
cannot use &t (type *Table) as type *DocumentItem in append
If I cast the types to an DocumentItem interface, I will lose access to specific functions, which in the case of one type may differ from the other. For example, add text to a paragraph and add a row of cells and then add text to cell for the table.
Is it possible at all?
Full example at https://play.golang.org/p/uJfKs5tJ98
Don't use pointer to interface, only a slice of interfaces:
content []DocumentItem
If the dynamic value wrapped in the interface value is a pointer, you lose nothing, you will be able to modify the pointed object.
This was the only thing that had to be changed. To verify, I added printing at the end:
fmt.Printf("%+v", p)
Output (try it on the Go Playground):
&{text:lalala}
I'm trying to access an element a dictionary element and downcast it to a type other than AnyObject but keep getting the same compiler error: Could not find an overload for 'subscript' that accepts the supplied arguments.
I know I can just do this using two if statements like so:
if let x = dict["key"] {
if let y = x as? String {
// ...
}
}
But I feel there has to be a more elegant solution than this. The format that makes the most sense to me is:
if let x = dict["key"] as? String {
// ...
}
But this just results in the error, mentioned above. I've tried dozens of variations of this, but none of it seems to make any difference. Is this something that just can't be done in Swift?
The reason your desired formulation isn't working is that you're trying to unwrap two Optionals with a single as?. There are two Optionals because both the subscripting of your dictionary and the attempted cast to String return optional values. There isn't a way to do it in one if statement that will be runtime-safe, but there is a way:
if let x = dict["key"]! as? String {
println(x)
}
The problem is that if dict["key"] ends up being nil, the forced unwrapping will crash your app. Better to do it this way (you can skip the first if), even if it is an extra step:
let x: AnyObject? = dict["key"]
if let y = x as? String {
println(y)
}
The extra step is just the cost of working with a Dictionary<String, AnyObject> - if you can get your dictionary type more specific, you won't have to do it any more.
I was also struggling with this thing but then i fount out that optional chaining is the solution. Just use
if let x = dict["key"]? as? String {
println(x)
}
It gives you both the safety and compactness.
In the end I had to use this one-line solution:
if let name = jsonDict["name"] as AnyObject? as? String {
println("name is \(name)")
} else {
println("property was nil")
}