I've created my class in Dart this way, but I'm getting the Non-nullable instance field 'text' must be initialized. Try adding an initializer expression, or add a field initializer in this constructor, or mark it 'late'. I would like to know if there's a way to do it in a 'Python' style where this kind of class creation is possible, thank you in advance.
class Lexer {
String _text;
int _pos;
String _current_char;
Lexer(String text) {
this._text = text;
this._pos = -1;
this._current_char = '';
this.advance();
}
void advance() {
this._pos++;
this._current_char = this._pos < this._text.length ? this._text[this._pos] : '';
}
}
class Lexer {
String _text;
int _pos;
String _current_char;
This declares several members with type String. Since they are declared as String and not as String?, these members are non-nullable; they are not allowed to ever be null. (This is part of the new null-safety feature from Dart 2.12.)
Dart initializes objects in two phases. When the constructor's body runs, Dart expects all member variables to already be initialized. Because your members are non-nullable and haven't been initialized to non-null values yet, this is an error. The error message explains what you can do:
Non-nullable instance field 'text' must be initialized. Try adding an initializer expression, or add a field initializer in this constructor, or mark it 'late'.
Use initializer expressions. This means using an initializer list:
Lexer(String text)
: _text = text,
_pos = -1,
_current_char = '' {
advance();
}
Note that if you're initializing members with a construction parameter of the same name, you can use shorthand:
Lexer(this._text)
: _pos = -1,
_current_char = '' {
advance();
}
Adding field initializers. This means initializing members inline in the class declaration.
class Lexer {
String _text = '';
int _pos = -1,
String _current_char = '';
Marking your members as late. This means that you promise that the variables will be initialized before anything attempts to use them.
class Lexer {
late String _text;
late int _pos,
late String _current_char;
Making your members nullable, which allows them to be implicitly null by default:
class Lexer {
String? _text;
int? _pos,
String? _current_char;
However, that will require that all accesses explicitly check that the members aren't null before using them.
You also might want to read: Dart assigning to variable right away or in constructor?
Related
In the documentation for #dynamicMemberLookup it says,
Apply this attribute to a class, structure, enumeration, or protocol to enable members to be looked up by name at runtime.
If I'm not mistaken, instance methods are considered members of a struct / class. However, when I try to call a function dynamically I get an error saying:
Dynamic key path member lookup cannot refer to instance method foo()
To reproduce the problem:
struct Person {
var name: String
var age: Int
func greet() {
print("hello, my name is \(name)")
}
}
#dynamicMemberLookup
struct Wrapper {
var value: Person
subscript<T>(dynamicMember keypath: KeyPath<Person, T>) -> T {
value[keyPath: keypath]
}
}
let person = Person(name: "John Doe", age: 21)
let wrapper = Wrapper(value: person)
wrapper.greet() // << Error: Dynamic key path member lookup cannot refer to instance method `greet()`
// Or
let function = wrapper.greet // << Error: Dynamic key path member lookup cannot refer to instance method `greet()`
function()
How can I dynamically call greet() using #dynamicMemberLookup? Is there any way to achieve what I'm trying to do?
Thanks in advance!
No, dynamicMemberLookup does not work for methods. As the signature of the subscript suggests, it only works for things that can be represented as a KeyPath. Method calls cannot be part of a key path. :(
Key-Path Expression
A key-path expression refers to a property or subscript of a type.
The path consists of property names, subscripts, optional-chaining
expressions, and forced unwrapping expressions. Each of these key-path
components can be repeated as many times as needed, in any order.
At compile time, a key-path expression is replaced by an instance of
the KeyPath class.
I suspect the reason why it is called "dynamic member lookup" is because it also works with subscripts. The alternative of dynamicPropertyOrSubscriptLookup is rather a mouthful isn't it?
One rather hacky fix would be to change greet into a computed property:
var greet: () -> Void { {
print("hello, my name is \(name)")
} }
If greet has had parameters, you could also change it into a subscript, but I think that is an even uglier solution.
class A {
final int? b; // Error
}
Error:
The final variable 'b' must be initialized.
Since the field b is nullable, it could be left uninitialised and hence needs no initialisation work. But it gives an error.
Not initializing a final field, regardless of whether it's nullable, is almost certainly a mistake. This was not different before null safety was introduced.
Suppose that final fields were allowed to be implicitly initialized to null. Then in a class such as:
class A {
final int? b;
}
there would be no point for b to exist at all since it'd always be null.
But maybe A provides a constructor that could initialize b to a non-null value:
class A {
final int? b;
A();
A.nonNull() : b = 42;
}
But now there's no way to tell if the default A() constructor actually wants b to be initialized to null or if the programmer just forgot to initialize it. The latter is much more likely, so Dart errs on the side of requiring explicit initialization.
You need to initialize b first like int b or string b; Assigning value is optional.
I created a model class, this is one of my a variable in model class
Datetime hotel_effect_open_date
but JSON response hotel_effect_open_date is null, getting an error in my application. and I modified to DateTime to String, it's working. In API created in the .net core, it looks like this,
Nullable<DateTime> hotel_effect_open_date
How to create a nullable variable in DART language?
Now Dart is in the process of redesigning its type system. So that expression of that type can be either nullable or non-nullable. Something like this:
type? variable; // variable can be null.
Example:
int? a; // a can now be null.
Reference: Dart nullability syntax decision
TLDR:
int? aNullableInt = null;
Detailed explanation:
Dart 2... and above
documentation:
https://dart.dev/null-safety
With null safety, all of the variables in the following code are
non-nullable:
// In null-safe Dart, none of these can ever be null.
var i = 42; // Inferred to be an int.
String name = getFileName();
final b = Foo();
To indicate that a variable might have the value null, just add ? to
its type declaration:
int? aNullableInt = null;
Dart <2
DateTime example;
example = null;
Uninitialized variables have an initial value of null. Even variables with numeric types are initially null, because numbers—like everything else in Dart—are objects.
int lineCount;
assert(lineCount == null);
I've recently came across this question How do I solve the 'Failed assertion: boolean expression must not be null' exception in Flutter
where the problem comes from a should be invalid code that gets treated as valid.
This code can be summarized as :
int stuff;
if (stuff = null) { // = instead of ==
}
But why does this code compiles ? As the following will not.
int stuff;
if (stuff = 42) {
}
With the following compile error :
Conditions must have a static type of 'bool'.
So I'd expect out of consistency that if (stuff = null) to gives the same error.
null is a valid value for a bool variable in Dart, at least until Dart supports non-nullable types.
bool foo = null;
or just
bool foo;
is valid.
Therefore in the first case there is nothing wrong from a statical analysis point of view.
In the 2nd case the type int is inferred because of the assignment, which is known to not be a valid boolean value.
bool foo = 42;
is invalid.
When you say var stuff; with no initial value it is giving stuff a static type of dynamic. Since dyamic might be a bool, it's legal to assign null to a variable of type dynamic, and it's legal to use a possibly null bool in a conditional, the compiler doesn't flag this. When you say int stuff; the compiler knows that stuff could not be a bool. The reported error in that case is cause by the static type of stuff, not the assignment to null.
Edit: Got the real answer from someone who knows how to read the spec.
The static type of an assignment expression is the right hand side of the assignment. So the expression stuff = null has the static type of Null which is assignable to bool.
The reasoning is that the value of an assignment is the right hand side, so it makes sense to also use it's type. This allows expressions like:
int foo;
num bar;
foo = bar = 1;
Commonly assignment operation returns the value that it assigns.
int a = 0;
print(a = 3);//Prints 3
So,
When stuff = null,
'stuff = null' returns null. if statement needs a boolean .null is a sub-Type of boolean.
if(null){}
is valid
When stuff = 42,
'stuff = 42' returns 42. if statement needs a boolean .42 is not a sub-Type of boolean.
if(42){}
is not valid
I have an enum of type String which needs to have multiple variables that have the same value. My enum looks something like this:
class MyClass {
enum MyEnum: String {
case blahA = "blaha"
case blahB = "blahb"
...
static var blahD = "blah"
static var blahE = "blah"
}
}
The reason why I'm using static var's in the above construction is because both "blahD" and "blahE" need to reference the same String value, used in different places (don't ask me why, it just has to be this way). However, I have a method where I need to pass in the value of the enum as follows:
if let testString = myString(foo: MyEnum.blahD) {...}
I unfortunately am getting the following compilation error:
Cannot convert value of type "String" to expected argument type "MyClass.MyEnum".
How do I get around passing the above variable which has duplicate values in my enum in the method, but cast it to the type of "MyClass.MyEnum"?
You can do this if you make the extra case reference the other enum case directly instead of just assigning them the same string value:
class MyClass {
enum MyEnum: String {
case blahA = "blaha"
case blahB = "blahb"
...
case blahD = "blah"
static var blahE = MyEnum.blahD
}
}
Then you can pass MyEnum.blahE the same way you would pass MyEnum.blahD
If the function takes a value of type MyEnum, you cannot do this. The type properties blahD and blahE are simply not of that type. Only the cases of the enum are of type MyEnum.
The function parameter's type must be changed to String.
The only other way around it would be to add a case to the enum that has a raw value matching the value of those two properties: case blahDOrE = "blah". Then you could construct that case: MyEnum(rawValue: MyEnum.blahD), but I can't see that being very useful.