Fluent binding and conversions - data-binding

When following the Tutorial for TipCalc's iOS UI, I noticed that the binding method described is obsolete(?) and decided to start using Fluent bindings like described here.
Everything gone fine except for one thing: the iOS slider on the tutorial uses a float value between 0 and 1, and the view model uses a int between 0 and 100. So, obviously, I need a conversion here.
Since it's a two-way-binding, how can bind it to be converted for ViewModel -> View and View -> ViewModel? (ideally with fluent binding)
Also, I'd like to know how can I register a conversion under a "name" to later reuse it. Like it seems to be done on this line.
I tried to search on MvvmCross repos for these named conversions but I didn't find anything like a list of the available conversions, there is such a thing?
Thanks a lot for any help!!

I noticed that the binding method described is obsolete(?)
The message attached to that method is:
[Obsolete("Please use SourceDescribed or FullyDescribed instead")]
So use SourceDescribed if you only want to describe the source, or FullyDescribed if you want to describe the source and target.
set.Bind(label).For(l => l.Text).SourceDescribed("'Hello ' + SourceText");
or:
set.Bind(label).FullyDescribed("Text 'Hello ' + SourceText");
Since it's a two-way-binding, how can bind it to be converted for ViewModel -> View and View -> ViewModel?
Two way converters implement both Convert and ConvertBack.
For example - see:
public class TwoWayConverter : MvxValueConverter<double, string>
{
protected override string Convert(double value, Type targetType, object parameter, CultureInfo culture)
{
return (value*value).ToString();
}
protected override double ConvertBack(string value, Type targetType, object parameter, CultureInfo culture)
{
double doubleValue;
double.TryParse(value, out doubleValue);
return Math.Sqrt(doubleValue);
}
}
from https://github.com/MvvmCross/MvvmCross-Tutorials/blob/master/ValueConversion/ValueConversion.Core/Converters/Converters.cs
I'd like to know how can I register a conversion under a "name" to later reuse it
The names are registered by reflection and convention - see a full description in https://github.com/MvvmCross/MvvmCross/wiki/Value-Converters#referencing-value-converters-in-touch-and-droid
a list of the available conversions
MvvmCross doesn't provide many by default - these are mainly app things.
The only built-in converters that I know of are for:
color
visible
language
command parameter
All of these are discussed in https://github.com/MvvmCross/MvvmCross/wiki/Value-Converters#the-mvx-visibility-valueconverters

Related

Dart - Casting List<SuperType> to List<SubType> using generics

I am new to Flutter and Dart, coming from native Android.
Android has a very nice database abstraction architecture called the Room Persistence Library. As far as I am aware, no such database abstraction architecture exists for Flutter using the MVVM / MVC design patterns.
My solution was to create a Dart version of it myself. I got it pretty much done after a few headaches, but I cannot seem to get LiveData to work properly using generics.
I set up my class like this:
class LiveData<T> {
...
}
Now when I want to return some data, it can either be an Object or List<Object>. I found a neat hack for differentiating the two from T:
...
// Parse response
// This checks if the type is an instance of a single entity or a list.
if (entity is T) {
cachedData = rawData.isEmpty ? null : entity.fromMap(rawData.first) as T;
} else {
cachedData = rawData.map((e) => entity.fromMap(e)).toList() as T;
}
...
The problem lies in the second block:
cachedData = rawData.map((e) => entity.fromMap(e)).toList() as T;
With the error:
- Unhandled Exception: type 'List<Entity>' is not a subtype of type 'List<Vehicle>' in type cast
The question then becomes: How can I cast Entity to Vehicle when I do not have access to the Vehicle class. Only an instance of it is assigned to an Entity entity variable.
Here's a snippet to demonstrate my access to Vehicle:
final Entity entity;
...assign Vehicle instance to entity...
print(entity is Vehicle) // True
I've tried using .runtimeType to no avail. I have also thought about splitting LiveData into two classes, the second one being LiveDataList. Although this seems to be the easiest solution to not bug the code- it would bug me (bad pun is intentional) and break the otherwise pretty direct port of Room.
As a temporary solution, I have abstracted out the build logic into a generic function to be passed to the LiveData in the constructor.
final T Function(List<Map<String, dynamic>> rawData) builder;
And now I call that instead of the previous code to build the cachedData.
// Parse response
cachedData = builder(rawData);
With the constructor for the LiveData<List<Vehicle>> called when accessing all vehicles in the Dao<Vehicle> being:
class VehicleDao implements Dao<Vehicle> {
...
static LiveData<List<Vehicle>> get() {
return LiveData<List<Vehicle>>(
...
(rawData) => rawData.map((e) => Vehicle.fromMap(e)).toList(),
...
);
}
}
In Dart (and indeed in many languages) generics screws with the concept of inheritance. You would think that if Bar inherits from Foo, that List<Bar> would also be castable to List<Foo>.
This is not actually going to be the case because of how generics work. When you have a generic class, every time you use that class with a different type, that type is treated as a completely separate class. This is because when the compiler compiles those types, class MyGenericType<Foo> extends BaseClass and class MyGenericType<Bar> extends BaseClass are basically converted to something like class MyGenericType_Foo extends BaseClass and class MyGenericType_Bar extends BaseClass.
Do you see the problem? MyGenericType_Foo and MyGenericType_Bar are not descendants of one another. They are siblings of each other, both extending from BaseClass. This is why when you try to convert a List<Entity> to List<Vehicle>, the cast doesn't work because they are sibling types, not a supertype and subtype.
With all this being said, while you cannot directly cast one generic type to another based on the relationship of the generic type parameter, in the case of List there is a way to convert one List type to another: the cast method.
List<Entity> entityList = <Entity>[...];
List<Vehicle> vehicleList = entityList.cast<Vehicle>(); // This cast will work
One thing to note though, if you are casting from a supertype generic to a sub-type generic and not all the elements of the list are that new type, this cast will throw an error.

Provide a Converter for data-binding by defining a pair of SerializableFunction objects

In Vaadin 8 Framework, and Vaadin 10 Flow, the data-binding capability lets us provide a Converter to mediate between the widget’s expected data type (such as String for a TextField) and the data type of the backing bean property (such as Integer number).
In this example, the built-in Converter implementation StringToIntegerConverter is used.
binder
.forField( this.phaseField )
.withConverter(
new StringToIntegerConverter( "Must enter an integer number" )
)
.bind( Panel::getPhase , Panel::setPhase ) ;
But what about defining a Converter for other types? How can I easily define a short-and-sweet Converter? For example, a String-to-UUID converter. I want to show the canonical 36-character hex string in a TextField, and going the other direction, parse that string back into a UUID.
// String to UUID
UUID uuid = UUID.fromString( myString ) ;
// UUID to String
String myString = uuid.toString() ;
I see that Binder.BindingBuilder offers the pair of methods withConverter that both take a pair of SerializableFunction objects.
Binder.BindingBuilder::withConverter(SerializableFunction<TARGET,NEWTARGET> toModel, SerializableFunction<NEWTARGET,TARGET> toPresentation)
Binder.BindingBuilder::withConverter(SerializableFunction<TARGET,NEWTARGET> toModel, SerializableFunction<NEWTARGET,TARGET> toPresentation, String errorMessage)
➥ So how do I define the pair of SerializableFunction objects/classes?
I noticed that this interface lists a known subinterface ValueProvider<SOURCE,TARGET>. That looks familiar, and I have a hunch it is the key to easily defining a short simple converter. But I do not quite comprehend the syntax with lambdas and all that is going on here.
I am not asking how to write a class implementing Converter. I am asking how to write the pair of SerializableFunction arguments to pass to the Binder.BindingBuilder::withConverter methods listed above as bullet items.
Quoting that JavaDoc:
Interface Binder.BindingBuilder<BEAN,TARGET>
…
withConverter
default <NEWTARGET> Binder.BindingBuilder<BEAN,NEWTARGET> withConverter(SerializableFunction<TARGET,NEWTARGET> toModel, SerializableFunction<NEWTARGET,TARGET> toPresentation)
Maps the binding to another data type using the mapping functions and a possible exception as the error message.
The mapping functions are used to convert between a presentation type, which must match the current target data type of the binding, and a model type, which can be any data type and becomes the new target type of the binding. When invoking bind(ValueProvider, Setter), the target type of the binding must match the getter/setter types.
For instance, a TextField can be bound to an integer-typed property using appropriate functions such as: withConverter(Integer::valueOf, String::valueOf);
Type Parameters:
NEWTARGET - the type to convert to
Parameters:
toModel - the function which can convert from the old target type to the new target type
toPresentation - the function which can convert from the new target type to the old target type
Returns:
a new binding with the appropriate type
Throws:
IllegalStateException - if bind has already been called
You can do it by passing two lambda expressions to withConverter, so something like this:
binder.forField(textField)
.withConverter(text -> UUID.fromString(text), uuid -> uuid.toString())
.bind(/* ... */);
If you need a more complicated conversion, then the right-hand side of the lambda can be surrounded with brackets, e.g.
binder.forField(textField).withConverter( text -> {
if ( text == null ) {
return something;
} else {
return somethingElse;
}
}, uuid -> { return uuid.toString(); } )
.bind(/* ... */);
If you need your converter multiple times, I recommend creating a separate class implementing interface com.vaadin.data.Converter. However, using lambdas is possible, too, as you already know (see answer of #ollitietavainen). But this is not Vaadin specific, it's a Java 8+ feature you can read about e.g. here. Basically, you can use lambdas whereever an object implementing an interface with only one method is required.

swt/jface databinding: PojoProperties vs PojoObservable

I'm writing a JFace dialog, and I'd like to use databing to a model object.
Looking at code I can see that there are times when I find a PojoProperties used to build the binding, while other time it is used a PojoObservables.
Looking at the Javadoc I can read:
PojoObservables: A factory for creating observable objects for POJOs (plain old java objects) that conform to idea of an object with getters and setters but does not provide property change events on change.
PojoProperties: A factory for creating properties for POJOs (plain old Java objects) that conform to idea of an object with getters and setters but does not provide property change events on change.
The same question applies to the difference that exists between BeansObservables and BeansProperties
The (obvious) difference sems to be that the observable allows to observe objects and the properties allows to observe properties, but since a Pojo has a getter and a setter for its data, what is the difference between them? And which of them should I choose for my dialog?
Here follows a code excerpt:
The POJO:
public class DataObject {
private String m_value;
public String getValue() {
return m_value;
}
public void setValue(String i_value) {
m_value = i_value;
}
}
The DIALOG (relevant part):
#Override
protected Control createDialogArea(Composite parent) {
Composite container = (Composite) super.createDialogArea(parent);
m_combo = new Combo(container, SWT.BORDER);
m_comboViewer = new ComboViewer(container, SWT.NONE);
}
The BINDING (relevant part):
// using PojoObservable
IObservableValue observeValue = PojoObservables.observeValue(m_dataObject, "value");
IObservableValue observeWidget = SWTObservables.observeSelection(m_combo);
// using PojoProperties
IObservableValue observeValue = PojoProperties.value("value").observe(m_dataObject);
IObservableValue observeWidget = ViewerProperties.singleSelection().observe(m_comboViewer);
I understand that one time I'm using a combo and another I'm using a ComboViewer, but I can get the combo from the viewer and bind the other way if I need...
Also, can I mix the two, for example use the observeValue with the ViewerProperties?
IObservableValue observeValue = PojoObservables.observeValue(m_dataObject, "value");
IObservableValue observeWidget = ViewerProperties.singleSelection().observe(m_comboViewer);
I am playing around a little with JFace viewers (especially ComboViewer) & databinding and discovered that if I use
SWTObservables.observeSelection(comboViewer.getCombo());
then databinding is not working correctly.
However, if I use
ViewersObservables.observeSingleSelection(comboViewer);
Then everything is working as expected.
Maybe this is a special for my case, so to get it a better overview I'll describe my set up in following paragraph.
I have modelObject with field named selectedEntity and entities and bind this ComboViewer to the modelObject.
I want to display all "entities" in model object, if I add any entity to the modelObject.entities collection then I want to this entity be added to combo automatically.
If user selects some item in combo I want to modelObject.selectedEntity be set automatically.
If I set modelObject.selectedEntity I want to combo selection be set automatically.
Source code can be found at: https://gist.github.com/3938502
Since Eclipse Mars, PojoObservables is deprecated in favor of PojoProperties and BeansObservables is deprecated in favor of BeanProperties so the answer to which one should be used has now become evident.

why and when to use properties

I am very confused with properties in asp.net.
I just don't understand why we use properties and when I should use them. Could anybody elaborate a little on this.
public class Customer
{
private int m_id = -1;
public int ID
{
set
{
m_id = value;
}
}
private string m_name = string.Empty;
public string Name
{
set
{
m_name = value;
}
}
public void DisplayCustomerData()
{
Console.WriteLine("ID: {0}, Name: {1}", m_id, m_name);
}
}
Properties provide the opportunity to protect a field in a class by reading and writing to it through the property. In other languages, this is often accomplished by programs implementing specialized getter and setter methods. C# properties enable this type of protection while also letting you access the property just like it was a field.
Another benefit of properties over fields is that you can change their internal implementation over time. With a public field, the underlying data type must always be the same because calling code depends on the field being the same. However, with a property, you can change the implementation. For example, if a customer has an ID that is originally stored as an int, you might have a requirements change that made you perform a validation to ensure that calling code could never set the ID to a negative value. If it was a field, you would never be able to do this, but a property allows you to make such a change without breaking code. Now, lets see how to use properties.
Taken From CSharp-Station
There are a couple of good reasons for it. The first is that you might need to add validation logic in your setter, or actually calculate the value in the getter.
Another reason is something to do with the IL code generated. If you are working on a large project that is spread over multiple assemblies then you can change the code behind your property without the application that uses your assembly having to recompile. This is because the "access point" of the property stays the same while allowing the implementation code behind it to be altered. I first read about this when I was looking into the point of automatic properties as I didnt see the point between those and a normal public variable.
It's easy.
All fields in class MUST be private (or protected). To show fields to another class yyou can use properties or get/set methods. Properties a shorter.
P.S. Don't declare write-only properties. It is worst practices.
Properties are a convenient way to encapsulate your classes' data.
Quoting from MSDN:
A property is a member that provides a flexible mechanism to read,
write, or compute the value of a private field. Properties can be used
as if they are public data members, but they are actually special
methods called accessors. This enables data to be accessed easily and
still helps promote the safety and flexibility of methods.
Let's consider two common scenarios:
1) You want to expose the Name property without making it changeable from outside the class:
private string m_name = string.Empty;
public string Name
{
get
{
return m_name;
}
}
2) You want to perform some checks, or run some code every time the data is accessed or set:
private string m_name = string.Empty;
public string Name
{
get
{
return m_name;
}
set
{
m_name = (String.IsNullOrEmpty(value)) ? "DefaultName" : value;
}
}
see:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/x9fsa0sw.aspx
The most important reason is for validation purpose in setter and manipulation part can be implemented in get part.
For Ex.
Storing weekdays, which should be from 1-7, if we take normal variable and declare it as public, anyone can assign any value.
But in Properties setter you can control and validate.
The next one you can use it for tracking. That means, you can know how many times set and get functions has been called by clients (statistical purpose, may be not useful frequently).
Finally, you can control read only, write only and read/write for the properties according to your requirements.

How do I create a shallow copy of an object so that it may be serialize and sent via a web method call?

I would like to serialize the properties of the HttpBrowserCapibilities object so that it may be returned via a web method call. Currently the object cannot be serialized:
Cannot serialize member System.Web.Configuration.HttpCapabilitiesBase.Capabilities of type System.Collections.IDictionary, because it implements IDictionary.
...which is understandable. However, I would like to simply copy out the properties and their values to a hierarchy, i.e.
<HttpBrowserCapabilities>
<IsMobile>true</IsMobile>
</HttpBrowserCapabilities>
I'm starting to think I would need to use reflection to copy this object, but I haven't reached a conclusion. Does anyone have any suggestions to keep this simple?
Thanks,
George
Originally I posted an answer using XmlDocument, but I glossed over some of the web method stuff and didn't realize you were really trying to map a DTO.
Reflection sounds complicated but it really isn't. The following snippet will do what you want:
public static void Populate(object dest, IDictionary dictionary)
{
Type t = dest.GetType();
foreach (object key in dictionary)
{
PropertyInfo prop = t.GetProperty(key.ToString(),
BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Public);
if ((prop != null) && prop.CanWrite)
{
object value = dictionary[key];
prop.SetValue(dest, value, null);
}
}
}
Then invoke this as:
BrowserCapsDto dto = new BrowserCapsDto();
Populate(dto, Capabilities); // Capabilities is the real BrowserCaps
It's pretty easy because you already have an IDictionary and thus you already know all of the possible names you can map; you don't actually need to use any reflection on the source, just the destination.

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