What is the idiomatic way to define something like map[type]interface{}?
As far I can see the type (as keyword) is not something comparable so can not be used as a key in a map. Maybe I'm going in the wrong way, so U would accept any suggestion.
TL;DR;
Example motivation
Let's assume in the application model I have type called Person, being stored in a table named "person" of a rdbms.
If I would like to link the entity object Person to the the table name. Things that by definition doens't come together, so it is wise to avoid polluting the Person struct with "not-naturally-related" (this is where my java-OO-based mind appears) [pointer|value]-recieve methods, so a map could be in handy here, right? (maps are great for associating things from differents worlds or sets, right?)
var tableNameByType map[type]string = map[type]string{
Person: "person",
}
This statement causes the compiler to yell at me complaining about expected type, found 'type'. I have tried used instead of type, interface{} and struct, with no better results.
Use reflect.Type as the key:
var tableNameByType map[reflect.Type]string = map[reflect.Type]string{
reflect.TypeOf(Person{}): "person",
}
You can get the name for a type using:
name := tableNameByType[reflect.TypeOf(Person{})]
... or the name for value v using:
name := tableNameByType[reflect.ValueOf(v).Type()]
You can avoid instantiating the struct value by replacing reflect.TypeOf(Person{}) with reflect.TypeOf((*Person)(nil)).Elem() in the above code.
Related
I'm working on several web server projects in Go, and there is a common problem that I'm always facing. I know we can achieve something like polymorphism in Go with interfaces and methods, but many times I had a scenario that I needed polymorphism on some data-holder structs that (maybe) just had some common fields, and no methods at all.
For example consider a story writing platform, where each user can write short stories and novels:
type ShortStory struct {
Name string
ID int
Body string
}
type LongStory struct {
Name string
ID int
Chapters []string
}
Now I simply want to have a data layer function, say GetStories(), which fetches all stories written by a user from database.
func GetStories(id int) []SOME_TYPE {
...
}
There are really no methods that I want to have on my ShortStory and LongStory structs. I know I can add a dummy method and let them satisfy some Storier interface, then use that interface as return type. But since there is no method I would want on a data container model, adding a dummy method just for the language to enable a feature, seems like a poor design choice to me.
I can also make the function return []interface{}, but that's against the whole idea of "typed language" I believe.
Another way is to have two separate GetShortStories() and GetLongStories() methods, which return a slice of their own type. But at some point I would finally want to merge those two slices into one and there I would again need a []interface{}. Yes, I can return a JSON like:
{
"short_stories" : [...],
"long_stories" : [...]
}
But I want my json to be like:
[{...}, {...}, {...}]
And I wouldn't change my APIs because of a language's limits!
I'm not a pro in Go, so am I missing something here? Is there a Go-ish approach to this, or is it really bad language design on Golang's side?
If you cannot express what you want to do using the features of a language, you should first try to change the way you structure your program before blaming the language itself. There are concepts that cannot be expressed in Go but can be expressed well in other languages, and there are concepts you cannot express well in other languages but you can in Go. Change the way you solve the problem to effectively use the language.
One way you can address your problem is using a different type of struct:
type Story struct {
Name string
ID int
ShortBody string
Chapters []string
}
If the Chapters is empty, then it is a short story.
Another way:
type Story struct {
Name string
ID int
Content StoryContent
}
type StoryContent interface {
Type() string
}
type ShortStory interface {
StoryContent
Body() string
}
type LongStory interface {
StoryContent
Chapters() []string
}
etc.
I would like to know if there is easy way to convert from one struct to another in Go when one struct includes the other.
For example
type Type1 struct {
Field1 int
Field2 string
}
type Type2 struct {
Field1 int
}
I know that it can be handled like this
var a Type1{10, "A"}
var b Type2
b.Field1 = a.Field1
but if there are many fields, I will have to write numerous assignments. Is there any other way to handle it without multiple assignments?
In a word, is there anything like b = _.omit(a, 'Field2') in javascript?
Not directly, no. You can freely convert between identical types only.
You can get various levels of solutions to this type of problem:
writing the assignments out yourself (likely the best performance)
using reflection to copy from one to the other based on field names
something quick-and-dirty like marshalling one type to JSON then unmarshalling to the other type (which is basically using reflection under the hood with a plaintext middleman, so it's even less efficient, but can be done with little work on your part)
I'm developing an application where data is stored in mongodb. There are several collections and of course all of them have some common fields (like Id, creation date, etc) and methods (for example Insert). In my vision, I need to create base model struct with needed fields and methods, and then embed this struct into my models. Unfortunately, this doesn't work because method defined for base model doesn't see child fields.
I don't know how to explain further. Here is code in playground:
https://play.golang.org/p/_x-B78g4TV
It uses json instead of mgo, but idea is still the same.
I want the output to be:
Saving to 'my_model_collection'
{"_id":42, "foo": "Some value for foo", "bar": "Here we set some value for bar"}
Not:
Saving to 'my_model_collection'
{"_id":42}
Writing that insert method for each my model seems to be against DRY, so what is correct/idiomatic way to achieve this in Go?
This is not possible, for details see my answer: Can embedded struct method have knowledge of parent/child?
You may do 2 things:
1. Abandon method and make it a helper / utility function
The idea is to make Insert() detached from BaseModel and make it a simple function, and you pass the document to it which you want to save.
I personally prefer this option, as it requires less hassle and maintenance. It could look like this:
func Insert(doc interface{}) {
j, _ := json.Marshal(doc)
fmt.Println(string(j))
}
You also had a "typo" in the tags:
type MyModel struct {
*BaseModel
Foo string `json:"foo"`
Bar string `json:"bar"`
}
Using it:
Insert(m)
Output (try it on the Go Playground):
{"_id":42,"foo":"Some value for foo","bar":"Here we set some value for bar"}
2. Pass the (pointer to) the wrapper to the BaseModel
In this approach, you have to pass a pointer to the embedder struct so the BaseModel.Insert() method will have a pointer to it, and may use that to save / marshal. This is basically manually maintaining a "reference" to the struct that embeds us and is being saved/marshalled.
This is how it could look like:
type BaseModel struct {
Id int `json:"_id"`
collectionName string
wrapper interface{}
}
And then in the Insert() method save the wrapper:
func (m *BaseModel) Insert() {
fmt.Printf("Saving to '%v'\n", m.collectionName)
j, _ := json.Marshal(m.wrapper)
fmt.Println(string(j))
}
Creation is slightly more complex:
func NewMyModel() *MyModel {
mm := &MyModel{
Foo: "Some value for foo",
}
mm.BaseModel = NewBaseModel("my_model_collection", mm)
return mm
}
But output is as you wish:
Saving to 'my_model_collection'
{"_id":42,"foo":"Some value for foo","bar":"Here we set some value for bar"}
Try it on the Go Playground.
In Golang, you can't override a parent method, because that's not how polymorphism works. The Insert method will apply on the BaseModel member, and not on MyModel.
Also, you're trying to use mgo in an improper way. If you want to insert documents in collections, then you already have an Insert method for a Collection struct which works on interface{} types (same as json.Marshal).
Of course, you can have a BaseModel that will contain fields shared by all of your models. In fact, GORM uses a similar approach and provides a Model struct to be included in every child model.
Well known problem ;o) Member variables (like collectionName) which name starts with lower letter are not visible from other packages (like json). Therefore change struct to:
type BaseModel struct {
Id int `json:"_id"`
CollectionName string `json:"collectionName"`
}
and world will be better place to live in.
I get cannot use map[string]MyType literal (type map[string]MyType) as type map[string]IterableWithID in argument to MapToList with the code below, how do I pass in a concrete map type to method that expects a interface type?
https://play.golang.org/p/G7VzMwrRRw
Go's interface convention doesn't quite work the same way as in, say, Java (and the designers apparently didn't like the idea of getters and setters very much :-/ ). So you've got two core problems:
A map[string]Foo is not the same as a map[string]Bar, even if Bar implements Foo, so you have to break it out a bit (use make() beforehand, then assign in a single assignment).
Interface methods are called by value with no pointers, so you really need to do foo = foo.Method(bar) in your callers or get really pointer-happy to implement something like this.
What you can do to more-or-less simulate what you want:
type IterableWithID interface {
SetID(id string) IterableWithID // use as foo = foo.SetID(bar)
}
func (t MyType) SetID(id string) IterableWithID {
t.ID = id
return t
}
...and to deal with the typing problem
t := make(map[string]IterableWithID)
t["foo"] = MyType{}
MapToList(t) // This is a map[string]IterableWithID, so compiler's happy.
...and finally...
value = value.SetID(key) // We set back the copy of the value we mutated
The final value= deals with the fact that the method gets a fresh copy of the value object, so the original would be untouched by your method (the change would simply vanish).
Updated code on the Go Playground
...but it's not particularly idiomatic Go--they really want you to just reference struct members rather than use Java-style mutators in interfaces (though TBH I'm not so keen on that little detail--mutators are supes handy to do validation).
You can't do what you want to do because the two map types are different. It doesn't matter that the element type of one is a type that implements the interface which is the element type of the other. The map type that you pass into the function has to be map[string]IterableWithID. You could create a map of that type, assign values of type MyType to the map, and pass that to the function.
See https://play.golang.org/p/NfsTlunHkW
Also, you probably don't want to be returning a pointer to a slice in MapToList. Just return the slice itself. A slice contains a reference to the underlying array.
Originally I figured I'd only use pointers for optional struct fields which could potentionally be nil in cases which it was initially built for.
As my code evolved I was writing different layers upon my models - for xml and json (un)marshalling. In these cases even the fields I thought would always be a requirement (Id, Name etc) actually turned out to be optional for some layers.
In the end I had put a * in front of all the fields including so int became *int, string became *string etc.
Now I'm wondering if I had been better of not generalising my code so much? I could have duplicated the code instead, which I find rather ugly - but perhaps more efficient than using pointers for all struct fields?
So my question is whether this is turning into an anti-pattern and just a bad habbit, or if this added flexibility does not come at a cost from a performance point of view?
Eg. can you come up with good arguments for sticking with option A:
type MyStruct struct {
Id int
Name string
ParentId *int
// etc.. only pointers where NULL columns in db might occur
}
over this option B:
type MyStruct struct {
Id *int
Name *string
ParentId *int
// etc... using *pointers for all fields
}
Would the best practice way of modelling your structs be from a purely database/column perspective, or eg if you had:
func (m *MyStruct) UnmarshalXML(d *xml.Decoder, start xml.StartElement) error {
var v struct {
XMLName xml.Name `xml:"myStruct"`
Name string `xml:"name"`
Parent string `xml:"parent"`
Children []*MyStruct `xml:"children,omitempty"`
}
err := d.DecodeElement(&v, &start)
if err != nil {
return err
}
m.Id = nil // adding to db from xml, there's initially no Id, until after the insert
m.Name = v.Name // a parent might be referenced by name or alias
m.ParentId = nil // not by parentId, since it's not created yet, but maybe by nesting elements like you see above in the V struct (Children []*ContentType)
// etc..
return nil
}
This example could be part of the scenario where you want to add elements from XML to the database. Here ids would generally not make sense, so instead we use nesting and references on name or other aliases. An Id for the structs would not be set until we got the id, after the INSERT query. Then using that ID we could traverse down the hierachy to the child elements etc.
This would allow us to have just 1 MyStruct, and use eg. different POST http request handler functions, depending if the call came from form input, or xml importing where a nested hierarchy and different relations might need come different handling.
In the end I guess what I'm asking is:
Would you be better off separating struct models for db, xml- and json operations (or whatever scenario that you can think of), than using struct field pointers all the way, so we can reuse the model for different, yet related stuff?
Apart from possible performance (more pointers = more things for the GC to scan), safety (nil pointer dereference), convenience (s.a = 2 vs s.a = new(int); *s.a = 42), and memory penalties (a bool is one byte, a *bool is four to eight), there is one thing that really bothers me in the all-pointer approach. It violates the Single responsibility principle.
Is the MyStruct you get from XML or DB same as MyStruct? What if the DB schema will change? What if the XML changes format? What if you'll also need to unmarshal it into JSON, but in a slightly different manner? And what if you need to support all that (and in multiple versions!) at the same time?
A lot of pain comes to you when you try to make one thing do many things. Is having one do-it-all type instead of N specialised types really worth it?