You mean if it has a converter from A -> B and B -> C and you ask for
a conversion from A -> C, it would figure it out? That's and
interesting idea. I guess you'd need to make sure there is no loss of
fidelity when doing the conversions.
On Thu, Aug 15, 2013 at 8:00 AM, Gary Gregory <garydgreg...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Should the framework try to convert transitively?
>
> Gary
>
> On Aug 15, 2013, at 6:56, James Carman <ja...@carmanconsulting.com> wrote:
>
>> I personally think we're over-thinking this thing. Keep it simple, folks:
>>
>> public interface Converter<F,T>
>> {
>> T convert(F from);
>> }
>>
>> You can auto-detect the F/T parameters when a Converter is registered.
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 15, 2013 at 4:42 AM, Jörg Schaible
>> <joerg.schai...@scalaris.com> wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Emmanuel Bourg wrote:
>>>
>>>> Le 14/08/2013 17:39, Adrian Crum a écrit :
>>>>
>>>>> Instead of
>>>>>
>>>>> int columnInt = record.getValueAsInt(1);
>>>>>
>>>>> the developer would use
>>>>>
>>>>> Integer columnInt = Util.convertTo(record.getValue(1), Integer.class);
>>>>
>>>> +1 for the static method, that would allow the use of a static import
>>>> and a very concise syntax like:
>>>>
>>>> Integer columnInt = to(Integer.class, record.getValue(1));
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> That being said, [convert] could offer several patterns to perform type
>>>> conversion, and the use of proxies could be one of them.
>>>
>>> I never had a look at [convert], but this proposed syntax reminds me
>>> strongly to an own little framework, where I have following methods in an
>>> interface to convert strings into arbitrary objects:
>>>
>>> ================= %< ==============
>>> <T> T get(Class<T> type, String key);
>>> <T> T get(ValueConverter<T> converter, String key);
>>> ================= %< ==============
>>>
>>> The value converter itself is very primitive:
>>>
>>> ================= %< ==============
>>> public interface ValueConverter<T>
>>> {
>>> T get(CharSequence value);
>>> }
>>> ================= %< ==============
>>>
>>> The question is now, how to know about existing converters. I was inspired
>>> by XStream and use a class ConverterLookup that has following method:
>>>
>>> ================= %< ==============
>>> public <T> ValueConverter<T> lookup(final Class<T> type)
>>> {
>>> ValueConverter<?> converter = converterCache.get(type);
>>> if (converter == null) {
>>> for (final Iterator<ConverterFactory> iter = converters.iterator();
>>> converter == null && iter.hasNext();) {
>>> converter = iter.next().willConvert(type);
>>> }
>>>
>>> synchronized (converterCache) {
>>> if (converter != null) {
>>> converterCache.putIfAbsent(type, converter);
>>> }
>>> }
>>> }
>>>
>>> @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
>>> final ValueConverter<T> checkedConverter = (ValueConverter<T>) converter;
>>> return checkedConverter;
>>> }
>>> ================= %< ==============
>>>
>>> I.e. the ConverterLookup has a (priorized) set of ConverterFactory
>>> implementations that can be requested for a ValueConverter of the given
>>> type.
>>>
>>> The ConverterLookup has additionally one static method "getDefaultLookup()"
>>> that returns an instance of the ConverterLookup where the set of
>>> ConverterFactory implementations is detected and instantiated using the Java
>>> SPI mechanism. That makes it very convenient to add new ConverterFactory
>>> implementations even to the default ConverterLookup. Therefore the
>>> implementation of the two get methods is quite simple:
>>>
>>> ================= %< ==============
>>> @Override
>>> public <T> T get(final Class<T> type, final String key)
>>> {
>>> final ValueConverter<T> converter =
>>> ConverterFactory.getDefaultLookup().lookup(type);
>>> return get(converter, key);
>>> }
>>>
>>> @Override
>>> public <T> T get(final ValueConverter<T> converter, final String key)
>>> {
>>> final String value = retrieveString(key); // get String to convert
>>> return converter.get(value);
>>> }
>>> ================= %< ==============
>>>
>>> You may ask, why there is an additional ConverterFactory to create the
>>> ValueConverter instances? Actually it can be useful for a converter to
>>> implement both interfaces:
>>>
>>> ================= %< ==============
>>> public abstract class AbstractFactoryConverter<T> implements
>>> ValueConverter<T>, ConverterFactory
>>> {
>>> private final Class<? super T> type;
>>> protected AbstractFactoryConverter(final Class<? super T> type)
>>> {
>>> this.type = type;
>>> }
>>>
>>> @Override
>>> public int getPriority()
>>> {
>>> return getClass().getAnnotation(Priority.class).value();
>>> }
>>>
>>> @Override
>>> public ValueConverter<?> willConvert(final Class<?> type)
>>> {
>>> return this.type == type ? this : null;
>>> }
>>> }
>>>
>>> @Priority
>>> public class StringConverter extends AbstractFactoryConverter<String>
>>> {
>>> public StringConverter()
>>> {
>>> super(String.class);
>>> }
>>>
>>> @Override
>>> public String get(final CharSequence value)
>>> {
>>> return value == null ? null : value.toString();
>>> }
>>> }
>>> ================= %< ==============
>>>
>>> However, to handle types in a generic way, the factory provides a much
>>> better possibility. See the implementation of my EnumConverterFactory:
>>>
>>> ================= %< ==============
>>> public class EnumConverterFactory implements ConverterFactory
>>> {
>>> @Override
>>> public ValueConverter<?> willConvert(final Class<?> type)
>>> {
>>> if (Enum.class.isAssignableFrom(type)) {
>>> return new ValueConverter<Enum<?>>() {
>>> @Override
>>> @SuppressWarnings({"rawtypes", "unchecked"})
>>> public Enum<?> get(final CharSequence value)
>>> {
>>> return Enum.valueOf((Class<Enum>) type, value.toString());
>>> }
>>> };
>>> }
>>> return null;
>>> }
>>>
>>> @Override
>>> public int getPriority()
>>> {
>>> return Priority.LOW;
>>> }
>>> }
>>> ================= %< ==============
>>>
>>> Apart from those factories, I have one for all the primitive types, one for
>>> arrays and one based on reflection that uses a given type's constructor
>>> taking a single String. That allows me to write following code for an
>>> instance 'store' that owns the two get methods above:
>>>
>>> ================= %< ==============
>>> int i = store.get(int.class, "42");
>>> Long l = store.get(Long.class, "42");
>>> URL url = store.get(URL.class, "http://www.apache.org/";);
>>> Priority p = store.get(Priority.class, "LOW"); // an enum
>>> Priority[] pArray = store.get(Priority[].class, "LOW,HIGH");
>>>
>>> ValueConverter<URL[].class> converter =
>>> new ArrayConverterFactory('|').willConvert(URL[].class);
>>> URL[] urlArray = store.get(converter,
>>> "http://www.apache.org/|http://commons.apache.org/";);
>>> ================= %< ==============
>>>
>>> The code above is a bit simplified (stripped exception handling), but
>>> the complete stuff contains just 2 interfaces, 1 annotation, one exception
>>> and 7 classes with not too much code. I always intended to add this to
>>> [lang] in a package 'converter', when I learned that we have a [convert]
>>> component. Now I am not sure what to do with it ...
>>>
>>> - Jörg
>>>
>>>
>>>
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