Array subclasses cannot be deserialized, Error #1034 - apache-flex

I've just found a strange error when deserializing from a ByteArray, where Vectors cannot contain types that extend Array: there is a TypeError when they are deserialized.
TypeError: Error #1034: Type Coercion failed: cannot convert []#4b8c42e1 to com.myapp.ArraySubclass.
at flash.utils::ByteArray/readObject()
at com.myapp::MyApplication()[/Users/aaaidan/MyApp/com/myapp/MyApplication.as:99]
Here's how:
public class Application extends Sprite {
public function Application() {
// register the custom class
registerClassAlias("MyArraySubclass", MyArraySubclass);
// write a vector containing an array subclass to a byte array
var vec:Vector.<MyArraySubclass> = new Vector.<MyArraySubclass>();
var arraySubclass:MyArraySubclass = new MyArraySubclass();
arraySubclass.customProperty = "foo";
vec.push(arraySubclass);
var ba:ByteArray = new ByteArray();
ba.writeObject(arraySubclass);
ba.position = 0;
// read it back
var arraySubclass2:MyArraySubclass = ba.readObject() as MyArraySubclass; // throws TypeError
}
}
public class MyArraySubclass extends Array {
public var customProperty:String = "default";
}
It's a pretty specific case, but it seems very odd to me. Anyone have any ideas what's causing it, or how it could be fixed?

well, it seems array serialization is hardcoded. you should definitely post a bug report.
actually the code you posted doesn't throw an error since ba.readObject() as MyArraySubclass is simply null. MyArraySubclass(ba.readObject()) however would.
what you could try to fix it, would be to implement IExternalizable, altough I'm not sure it'll work any better.
I guess the problem is that Array is a very very special class in ActionScript (in the sense that in some way it is nothing more than any other dynamic class, but in other ways it's not at all) which leads to a lot of Array-specific code in the VM. Also, a question is, why do you need to subclass Array?

Related

TypeError: Error #1034: Type Coercion failed: cannot convert Object#1456c7b9 to mx.messaging.messages.IMessage

Im trying to connect a Flash client to BlazeDS. There has been some success with this from others using the vanilla BlazeDS setup. However I'm using the new Spring BlazeDS Integration from springsource and running aground.
The flash client actually seems to be working in that I can see the correct data in the body of the returned object, but for some reason unknown it fails casting as an IMessage. It fails in PollingChannel.as on this line with the subject line error
var messageList:Array = msg.body as Array;
for each (var message:IMessage in messageList) <--
On application load I register a whole bunch of classes like so
registerClassAlias( "flex.messaging.messages.RemotingMessage", RemotingMessage );
registerClassAlias("mx.messaging.messages.IMessage", IMessage);
etc..
my code is basically
var channelSet:mx.messaging.ChannelSet = new mx.messaging.ChannelSet();
var channel:mx.messaging.channels.AMFChannel = new AMFChannel("my-amf", "http://localhost:8400/SpringA/messagebroker/amf");
channelSet.addChannel(channel);
var consumer:mx.messaging.Consumer = new Consumer();
consumer.channelSet = channelSet;
consumer.destination = "simple-feed";
consumer.subscribe();
consumer.addEventListener(MessageEvent.MESSAGE, test);
private function test(event:IMessage)
{
trace("msg..");
// breakpoint never makes it here
}
I have a flex client which works 100% with same destination/channel.
The error in the title means that you, for some reason, got an object that is not implementing or extending the IMessage interface, therefore the loop can not cast it in this part:
for each (var message:IMessage in messageList){
Either you should somehow make sure that you don't add anything that is not extending or implementing IMessage, or check if the variable IS actually ext./imp. it. Also - if you want to do that, you will have to change the for each like this:
for each (var obj in messageList){
if (obj is IMessage){
var message:IMessage = obj as IMessage;
// DO STUFF HERE
}
}
Add this Object mapping:
registerClassAlias("flex.messaging.io.ObjectProxy", ObjectProxy);
If on your Java VO objects you have overridden the hashcode() method, this situation could happen.
Remove the hashcode() override (if you are able to).
See my blog for the backstory on how I discovered this. http://squaredi.blogspot.com/2013/12/remoting-landmine-without-stack-trace.html
I had the same error when trying to send an actionscript object to the backend. My problem was that my c# equivalent object was missing an public parameterless constructor.

Image to Object with as3

I'm trying to convert an image in my assets folder
"./assets/image1.png"
to type Object. It needs to be Object because that's what the function I'm using it in is expecting.
Any ideas what would be the simplest way to do this?
Do you mean something like :
[Embed(source="assets/logo.jpg")]
private var logo:Class;
private function init(e:Event):void
{
this.displayImage(logo as Object);
}
private function displayImage(img:Object):void
{
//Assuming you have an image control on stage with an instance
//name of "myImage"
myImage.source = img;
}
If the function you are passing the image to is expecting an Object object, you can in pass anything, it won't reject it. That doesn't mean the function will work correctly, though. Any value will be an Object (except for undefined, which will be accepted but coerced to null and maybe some other strange cases).
So, assuming you didn't write the function yourself, do you have any doc that describes what it expects? Or maybe you have the source code for it?. Otherwise, if the only thing you know about what this function expects is that the parameter must be of type Object... you're in trouble, I think.
Why don't you create a new Object containing the information about the image... including the path.
var obj:Object = new Object();
obj.path = "/assets/image.jpg";
obj.height = 32;
obj.width = 32;
trace(obj.path);
// or, if Flex
Alert.show(obj.path);
And then just pass the new Object into the function and access it like I have above.

best way to store / lookup name value pairs

I have a list of error codes I need to reference, kinda like this:
Code / Error Message
A01 = whatever error
U01 = another error
U02 = yet another error type
I get the Code returned to me via a web service call and I need to display or get the readable error. So I need a function when passed a Code that returns the readable description. I was just going to do a select case but thought their might be a better way. What is the best way / most effieient way to do this?
Use a Dictionary, (in C#, but the concept and classes are the same):
// Initialize this once, and store it in the ASP.NET Cache.
Dictionary<String,String> errorCodes = new Dictionary<String,String>();
errorCodes.Add("A01", "Whatever Error");
errorCodes.Add("U01", "Another Error");
// And to get your error code:
string ErrCode = errorCodes[ErrorCodeFromWS];
You would use a dictionary. A dictionary uses a hashmap internally for performance, so it is good in that regard. Also, because you want this to go as quickly as possible by the sounds of it, I would statically initialize it in its own class instead of, for example, in an XML file or slimier. You would probably want something like:
public static class ErrorCodes
{
private static Dictonary<string, string> s_codes = new Dicontary<string, string>();
static ErrorCodes()
{
s_codes["code"] = "Description";
s_codes["code2"] = "Description2";
}
public static string GetDesc(string code)
{
return s_codes[code];
}
}
That way, if you wanted to move the back end to a file instead of being static, then you could.

What does this this ActionScript syntax mean? ( Syntax for returning Objects Inline )

I am a Java programmer and need to work on a Flex/ActionScript project right now. I got an example of using ITreeDataDesriptor from Flex 3 Cookbook, but there is one line of actionscript code that's hard for me to understand. I appreciate if someone could explain this a little further.
public function getData(node:Object, model:Object=null):Object
{
if (node is Office) {
return {children:{label:node.name, label:node.address}};
}
}
The part that I didn't understand was "{children:{label:node.name, label:node.address}}". Office is simply a value object that contains two String properties: name and address.
The following return expression (modified from the question) ...
return {children:{label:node.name, body:node.address}}
... is functionally equivalent to this code ...
var obj:Object = new Object();
obj.children = new Object();
obj.children.label = node.name;
obj.children.body = node.address;
return obj;
The anonymous object returned in the question code complicates matters because it defines a property twice. In that case, the first declaration is used, and the subsequent one(s) are ignored. No compile-time or runtime error is thrown.
I think in Java you would call that a map or an associative array. In Javascript and Actionscript you can say this to create an object with certain properties:
var myobject = {
'prop1': 100,
'prop2': {
'a': 1
}
}
trace( myobject.prop1 ); // 100
trace( myobject.prop2.a ); // 1
In your example it's just returned as a nameless object.
return {children:{label:node.name, label:node.address}};
Means you are returning a new Object. The {} are the Object's constructor, and in this case its an Anonymous object.
Thank you both for the quick response. So if I understand your explanations correctly, the return statement is returning an anonymous object, and this object has only one property named "children", which is again an associative array - ok, here is the part I don't quite understand still, it seems that both properties in this array are named "label", is this allowed?

how to refactor code inside curly braces in flex

Data binding in ActionScript is really cool. But what if I want to refactor a big switch or if statement inside the curly braces into a function, for example:
{person.gender == 'male' ? 'Mr.' : 'Ms.'}
into:
{salutation(person)}
The compiler doesn't let me do that. I know about properties and I could write getters and setters on the person object. But since I am using inlined JSON objects now that's not convenient(I think). What are other good ways to refactor this code?
To answer Matt's comment. The data type of person is just plain Object. It was decoded from JSON format coming from a service call.
You'll need to make the Person class (assuming you have one) bindable in order for this to work.
However, since you are saying you're using JSON objects, I'm assuming you just have anonymous objects that were parsed from a JSON string. In that case, I'm pretty sure that won't work. You'll need to create a strongly typed object that has bindable properties.
Just FYI: to avoid having to write custom JSON parsers for every object you want to create, you can create strong typed objects from vanilla objects using a bytearray trick:
public static function toInstance( object:Object, clazz:Class ):* {
var bytes:ByteArray = new ByteArray();
bytes.objectEncoding = ObjectEncoding.AMF0;
// Find the objects and byetArray.writeObject them, adding in the
// class configuration variable name -- essentially, we're constructing
// and AMF packet here that contains the class information so that
// we can simplly byteArray.readObject the sucker for the translation
// Write out the bytes of the original object
var objBytes:ByteArray = new ByteArray();
objBytes.objectEncoding = ObjectEncoding.AMF0;
objBytes.writeObject( object );
// Register all of the classes so they can be decoded via AMF
var typeInfo:XML = describeType( clazz );
var fullyQualifiedName:String = typeInfo.#name.toString().replace( /::/, "." );
registerClassAlias( fullyQualifiedName, clazz );
// Write the new object information starting with the class information
var len:int = fullyQualifiedName.length;
bytes.writeByte( 0x10 ); // 0x10 is AMF0 for "typed object (class instance)"
bytes.writeUTF( fullyQualifiedName );
// After the class name is set up, write the rest of the object
bytes.writeBytes( objBytes, 1 );
// Read in the object with the class property added and return that
bytes.position = 0;
// This generates some ReferenceErrors of the object being passed in
// has properties that aren't in the class instance, and generates TypeErrors
// when property values cannot be converted to correct values (such as false
// being the value, when it needs to be a Date instead). However, these
// errors are not thrown at runtime (and only appear in trace ouput when
// debugging), so a try/catch block isn't necessary. I'm not sure if this
// classifies as a bug or not... but I wanted to explain why if you debug
// you might seem some TypeError or ReferenceError items appear.
var result:* = bytes.readObject();
return result;
}

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