I am trying to see if Go supports a language feature I use in other OO languages (such as Java). I'd like to define a few interfaces and pass an object that supports some of them to a function as a parameter.
In Java I might define a bunch of single method interfaces like HasAdd, HadMul, HasSub, HasDiv, HasSin, HasCos, HasTan, etc.
And then I might define a generic method whose argument T is defined as <T extends HasSin & HasAdd>. I pass in a T to the method. Note I don't have to define an intermediate Interface that contains both HasSin and HasAdd. (Which is great because n interfaces results in needing 2^n intermediate interfaces to cover all cases).
I know go does not support generics. But can it do something like func(HasSin & HasAdd obj)? It seems it should support this behavior. I just haven't found documentation that cinches it either way.
I have seen this: https://golangbot.com/interfaces-part-2/ where there is an example of something similar near the bottom of the article but it does indeed use an intermediate interface.
Declare an interface with the methods required by the function:
type SinAdder interface {
Sin(float64) float64
Add(float64, float64) float64
}
If you declared the single method interfaces Siner and Adder, then you can declare SinAdder in terms of those interfaces:
type SinAdder interface {
Siner
Adder
}
Use that interface in the function:
func example(arg SinAdder) {
}
Any value that has the Sin and Add methods can be passed to example.
You can void declaring the SinAdder interface by using an anonymous interface definition in the function argument:
func example(arg interface { Siner; Adder }) {
}
Related
I have below code try to assign embed struct to its parent struct. There are two set of structure: Guider is the parent struct, DataBlock extends from it. The method func Put(x Guider) accept a parameter with type Guider. It works when I pass a DataBlock variable.
However, the other case is Mock extends from zerolog.Event, but it fails to pass the parameter on the method Test(e zerolog.Event)
I got the following error:
cannot use m (variable of type Mock) as type zerolog.Event in argument to Test
Why are these two cases works differently? How can I make them both work?
package main
import (
"fmt"
"github.com/rs/zerolog"
)
type Guider interface {
Guid() string
}
type FSEntity struct {
guid string
}
func (e FSEntity) Guid() string {
return e.guid
}
func Put(x Guider) {
fmt.Printf("%+v\n", x)
}
type Mock struct {
zerolog.Event
}
func Test(e zerolog.Event) {
}
//Child struct:
type DataBlock struct {
FSEntity
data []byte
}
func main() {
myVar := DataBlock{}
myVar.guid = "test"
myVar.data = []byte("moar test")
Put(myVar) // it works
m := Mock{}
Test(m) // it doesn't work. cannot use m (variable of type Mock) as type zerolog.Event in argument to Test
}
First, a couple of definitions:
Polymorphism
Polymorphism is the provision of a single interface to entities of different types or the use of a single symbol to represent multiple different types.
Subtyping
Subtyping (also subtype polymorphism or inclusion polymorphism) is a form of type polymorphism in which a subtype is a datatype that is related to another datatype (the supertype) by some notion of substitutability, meaning that program elements, typically subroutines or functions, written to operate on elements of the supertype can also operate on elements of the subtype
Inheritance
In object-oriented programming, inheritance is the mechanism of basing an object or class upon another object (prototype-based inheritance) or class (class-based inheritance), retaining similar implementation.
Object composition
Object composition and object aggregation are closely related ways to combine objects or data types into more complex ones.
Golang follows composition over inheritance principle, e.g. it doesn't support inheritance. So when you're saying
Mock extends from zerolog.Event
you actually mean that Mock includes zerolog.Event struct.
The way Golang implements polymorphism is interface. All types that implement some interface can be used in its place. It's what you see when use Guider.
However, it doesn't work for simple structs. zerolog.Event is a struct inside Mock.
So, normally, Test function should accept some interface as a parameter, and both mock and real event should implement this interface. However, it looks like zerolog doesn't provide interface for Event. So instead you should access the Event field of you struct. Example
Put(myVar) is legal because myVar is a DataBlock which contains (not inherits from and not implements) an FSEntity which in turn implements the Guider interface.
Since Put accepts a Guider, the reference to myVar is compatible, by virtue of the anonymous FSEntity field it contains which implements Guider. The implementation of Guider on FSEntity is (in effect) elevated to the containing struct (providing a means of delegating interfaces). This only occurs if the contained field is anonymous.
But in the case of Test(m), the function accepts a zerolog.Event which is a struct type, not an interface. As such, there is no "delegation" possible. Test() must be passed a zerolog.Event and in this scenario, this requires that you use the type name of the anonymous field:
Type(m.Event)
Some bonus info:
If DataBlock contained two anonymous fields which both implemented Guider then implicit delegation/elevation cannot take place; golang does not know which of the contained implementations should be delegated to/elevated (if any). In that scenario you must again use the name of the field that you wish to pass to the Put() function:
// given...
type Foo string
func (f Foo) Guid() string {
return string(f)
}
// and...
type DataBlock struct {
FSEntity
Foo
data []byte
}
// then...
Put(myVar) // is now illegal
// and must instead use either/or:
Put(myVar.FSEntity)
Put(myVar.Foo)
Whether implicit or explicit, the crucial distinction is that it is a field of the DataBlock (myVar) that is passed to Put(), not myVar itself.
If you want to pass the DataBlock to Put(), using a Guider interface, then DataBlock must itself implement the Guider interface.
Take this with a grain of salt, since I'm not familiar with zerolog package.
Your Guider is an interface, which might have any underlying type as long as Guid() method is satisfied. I assume this is happening through DataBlock containing FSEntity, which itself implements Guid() method, therefore satisfies MIGHT the interface.
On the other hand, I don't know what methods should be implemented to satisfy zerolog.Event or if it's even an interface, or a struct straight up. If it's an interface, you might need to implement it's required methods to be able to use DataBlock as zerolog.Event type. You might want/need to dig into that direction for some very specific answers.
I am referring to the code in this link: Interfaces in Golang
Under the "Type assertions" section, the first piece of code has a line like so in the main function: var val interface {} = "Geeks for Geeks"
I did not understand this syntax. Usually, we create an interface type at the package level like
type some_interface interface {
// methods
}
and then create a variable of this interface type var s some_interface for use. What does this line actually do? Is it an "anonymous interface" (like anonymous struct). What is the use of declaring an interface using this method?
Thanks in advance
It is an empty interface, basically any type.
The empty interface
The interface type that specifies zero methods is known as the empty
interface:
interface{}
An empty interface may hold values of any type. (Every type implements
at least zero methods.)
Empty interfaces are used by code that handles values of unknown type.
For example, fmt.Print takes any number of arguments of type
interface{}.
I have several implementation of the same method SetRateForMeasure:
package repartition
type Repartition interface {
Name() string
Compute(meters []models.Meter, totalsProd, totalsConso map[string]float64) []models.Meter
SetRateForMeasure(meter models.Meter, measure models.Measure, total float64) float64
}
Then, in my code (in repartition.go), I call it:
rate := repartition.SetRateForMeasure(meter, measure, total)
where repartition is the interface defined before.
Thing is, when I add a new implementation of this method, the arguments of my functions might differ.
For example, the static repartition use a static percentage that is only used in this case.
I end up adding parameters so that I have a common interface to all methods, but it results that there is a lot of unused parameters depending on the implementation.
If I add it to common interface, it will be unused for the other definitions.
I tried to remove this method from my interface definition, but now
rate := repartition.SetRateForMeasure()
is no more defined.
How should I organize my code ?
There is no function overloading in Go, so you cannot declare the same function with different arguments. There's a few ways you can implement this though:
You can add multiple functions with different names and signatures
You can change the function to accept a struct instead of arguments
SetRateForMeasure(args SetRateOptions) float64
type SetRateOptions struct {
Meter models.Meter
Measure models.Measure
Total float64
Percentage *float64 // If nil, use default percentage
... // more parameters as needed
}
Go doesn't support method overriding. You either define methods with different names that take different parameters
or you can declare the method to accept a parameter struct.
type SetRateParams struct {
Meter models.Meter
Measure models.Measure
Total float64
}
type Repartition interface {
SetRateForMeasure(params SetRateParams) float64
}
Optionally, you can declare params in your structs as pointers, so you can represent "not-provided" semantics with nil instead of using the zero-value. This might be relevant in case of numerical params where 0 could be a valid value.
Using a struct param has also the advantage that you don't have to change all the call sites in case you decide to add an additional param 6 months from now (you just add it to the struct).
There are also worse solutions with interface{} varargs, for the sake of stating what is possible, but unless you loathe type safety, I wouldn't recommend that.
Does the notion of a reference to an instance method of a particular object break the type-safety in Java?
According to
https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/javaOO/methodreferences.html
you can have a custom class ComparisonProvider that DOES not implement the Comparator interface, and still use an instance of this class as the second argument of the method
Arrays.sort(T[] a, Comparator c)
Sure, the implementation of your ComparisonProvider MUST have a method whose signature exactly matches the Comparator.compare() method, but that is still not an instance of Comparator, isn't it?
In essence, Java 8 allows us to use instances of classes as if they were implementing a particular interface, while actually they are not.
This means, that we are loosing Type-safety in Java, do we?
lambda expressions and method reference don't have a predefined type, they are poly expressions, as seen here. That means that their type is derived from the context in which they are used.
In your example these both would be legal for example:
BiFunction<Person, Person, Integer> biFun = myComparisonProvider::compareByName;
Comparator<Person> comp = myComparisonProvider::compareByName;
But at the same time you can't do:
Arrays.sort(pers, biFun);
When you actually try to sort the array like this:
Arrays.sort(pers, myComparisonProvider::compareByName);
At the bytecode level that is a Comparator:
// InvokeDynamic #0:compare:(LTest$ComparisonProvider;)Ljava/util/Comparator;
Also notice that this would print true:
Comparator<Person> comp = myComparisonProvider::compareByName;
System.out.println(comp instanceof Comparator); // true
You can enable a flag : -Djdk.internal.lambda.dumpProxyClasses=/Your/Path/Here
and look at what that method reference is transformed into:
final class Test$$Lambda$1 implements java.util.Comparator
and inside it there's the compare method implementation(I've simplified it and removed some of it's code to make it a little more obvious):
public int compare(java.lang.Object, java.lang.Object);
Code:
4: aload_1
5: checkcast // class Test3$Person
8: aload_2
9: checkcast // class Test$Person
12: invokevirtual Test$ComparisonProvider.compareByName:(Test$Person;Test$Person;)I
Java 8 allows us to use instances of classes as if they were implementing a particular interface, while actually they are not
Not exactly, it allows you to use a single method of some instance of a class as if it were implementing some functional interface.
And it doesn't add any functionality that didn't exist in Java 7 - it just gives you a short cut to writing that functionality.
For example, instead of:
Arrays.sort(someArray, someInstance::someMethod);
In Java 7 you could use anonymous class instance to write:
Arrays.sort(someArray, new Comparator<SomeType> () {
public int compare (SomeType one, SomeTypeTwo) {
return someInstance.someMethod(one,two);
}
});
As long as the instance method is accessible (i.e. public), you can use it as you see fit.
Comparator is a functional interface, which means that when requested you can pass an instance of a class implementing it, use a lambda expression that conforms to the type of single abstract method declared in it or use a method reference that also conforms to.
Java 8 Functional interface makes the difference. This tries to catch the concept of function. Afterall what is important in Comparator is not the type itself but the method (and its type) that should be provided at runtime. In pre Java 8 you need to provide a function object, while in Java 8 you can simply provide the function (just what is needed).
So for the type system everything is correct, provided that the lambdas or references you use are of the type of the method of the functional interface.
I'm really struggling to find a name for a type of function I've come across.
Here is the function in question:
https://github.com/go-fsnotify/fsnotify/blob/master/fsnotify.go#L32
This is how I'm using it (as per the fsnotify example):
select {
case event := <-watcher.Events:
log.Println("Event Triggered: ", event)
In that Println 'event' is returning the formatted string as per the function above, I'm just struggling to understand how a straight call to 'event' is using that function yet I would be expecting it to be accessed like the struct fields (event.Name, event.Op):
event.funcForReturningNicelyFormattedEvent()
It feels like this is a 'default' function as it has no name and it just returns the formatted data - I'm struggling to come up with the name/type/search term so I can find out more and understand the concept and importantly the reasoning behind it better.
Any help is appreciated.
It's very simple - println uses the String() method on any struct that implements it automatically. This is a classic use case of Go's implicit interfaces: every struct that has the methods an interface includes, is considered to be implementing the interface.
If it has func String() string it is considered a Stringer and used by fmt. You can use it on your own structs too, of course.
Function Println checks if the passed value implements interface Stringer. If it does it calls method String on this value. Event type implements that interface by supplying its implementation of String method in the excerpt you linked to.
In Go you don't have to declare that you implement interface.