Map BuiltList<String> to BuiltList<Int> - dart

I have a list of strings in BuiltList, and want to convert them to another BuiltList of int values.
final lengths = BuiltList<String>(['a', 'bbbb', 'cdea']).rebuild((b) =>
b.map((e) => e.length)
);
When using map in the builder, Dart Analysis says "error: The return type 'int' isn't a 'String', as defined by anonymous closure.".
How can I map from String to Int using the built_collection library?

rebuild is to update a built value https://pub.dartlang.org/documentation/built_value/latest/built_value/Built/rebuild.html
You want a different list:
final strings = BuiltList<String>(['a', 'bbbb', 'cdea']);
final lengths = BuiltList<int>(string.map((e) => e.length));

Related

Generic method that returns List<T> instead returns List<dynamic>

I tried writing a simple generic method that would iteratively copy a nested List, for example a List<List<int>>. But unfortunately, the recursive call seems to always return List<dynamic>, so I get the following error
The argument type List<dynamic> can't be assigned to the parameter type T
List<T> listDeepCopy<T>(List<T> list){
List<T> newList = List<T>();
list.forEach((value) {
if( value is List ){
newList.add(listDeepCopy(value)); // <-- listDeepCopy() always returns List<dynamic>
}
else{
newList.add(value);
}
});
return newList;
}
So if I call
List<List<int>> list = [[1,2],[3,4]];
List<List<int>> copy = listDeepCopy(list);
T is List<int>
value is T - i.e. List<int>
listDeepCopy(value) should equal listDeepCopy<List<int>>, which would return a List<int>, which should be possible to add to newList, which is a List<List<int>>
Where am I going wrong here, and how can I make something like this work?
I probably would implement it as:
List<T> listDeepCopy<T>(List<T> list) {
var copy = list.toList();
for (var i = 0; i < copy.length; i += 1) {
var element = copy[i];
if (element is List) {
copy[i] = listDeepCopy(element) as T;
}
}
return copy;
}
void main() {
List<List<int>> list = [
[1, 2],
[3, 4]
];
List<List<int>> copy = listDeepCopy(list);
list[0][0] = 99;
print(copy); // Prints: [[1, 2], [3, 4]]
}
A problem with your approach is that Dart cannot properly infer the generic type parameter for that recursive listDeepCopy(value) call. value is of type T that is known to be a List (which is shorthand for List<dynamic>), and I am not aware of a way to extract the static element type. (Maybe #lrn will see this and provide a better, more complete explanation.)
In such a case, it's better to rely on polymorphism by calling a method on the List that returns a copy of itself: .toList().
(As an example where this matters, consider a shallow copy scenario:
List<T> shallowCopy1<T>(List<T> list) => <T>[...list];
List<T> shallowCopy2<T>(List<T> list) => list.toList();
extension StaticType<T> on T {
Type get staticType => T;
}
void main() {
List<num> list = <int>[1, 2, 3];
var copy1 = shallowCopy1(list);
var copy2 = shallowCopy2(list);
print('original: staticType: ${list.staticType}, runtimeType: ${list.runtimeType}');
print('copy1: staticType: ${copy1.staticType}, runtimeType: ${copy1.runtimeType}');
print('copy2: staticType: ${copy2.staticType}, runtimeType: ${copy2.runtimeType}');
}
Although both copies preserve the static type of the original List, only copy2 preserves the object's actual (runtime) type. A proper copy depends on the runtime type of the object being copied, and the only robust way to do that is for the object to create a copy of itself.)
You can't do it the way you are trying to do it.
The problem is that deepClone<T> converts a List<dynamic> to a List<T> (which is fine) and then tries to convert elements that are themselves lists into typed list ... but you don't know the type.
In effect, when you check that value is List, you don't know what kind of list to convert it to.
There are two cases:
Either T is List<X> or Iterable<X> for some type X, but you have no way to get your hands on that X. Dart doesn't allow you to destructure types at runtime.
Or T is Object or another general supertype with no "list element" type inside it, and then you simply do not have any information about what List type to convert the nested list to. (That's actually the simplest case, because then you should simply not deepClone the list at all).
There is a way to figure out which case you are in (<T>[] is List<Iterable<Object?>>), but it won't help you in the former case, unless you want to do an exhaustive search of all the possible types that X might be.
What I'd do instead is to build a converter, instead of using a single function.
abstract class Cloner<T> {
const factory Cloner() = _ValueCloner<T>;
T clone(dynamic source);
Cloner<List<T>> get list => _ListCloner(this);
}
abstract class _BaseCloner<T> implements Cloner<T> {
const _BaseCloner();
Cloner<List<T>> get list => _ListCloner<T>(this);
}
class _ValueCloner<T> extends _BaseCloner<T> {
const _ValueCloner();
T clone(dynamic source) => source as T;
}
class _ListCloner<T> extends _BaseCloner<List<T>> {
final Cloner<T> _base;
_ListCloner(this._base);
List<T> clone(dynamic source) =>
<T>[for (var o in source as List<dynamic>) _base.clone(o)];
}
Then, if you actually know the type of the data, you can build your cloner as:
var typedList =
Cloner<int>().list.list.clone(
<dynamic>[<dynamic>[1, 2], <dynamic>[3, 4]]);
which yields a List<List<int>> with the value <List<int>>[<int>[1, 2], <int>[3, 4]].

Is there a way to pass an argument to the `test` function of the `firstWhere` method of an iterable

I am learning Dart and I'm following the Codelabs tutorial on iterable collections.
I have just read about the firstWhere method of iterables for finding the first element that satisfies some criterion.
The tutorial gives an example similar to the following:
bool predicate(String item, {int minLength = 6}) => item.length > minLength;
void main() {
const items = ['Salad', 'Popcorn', 'Toast', 'Lasagne'];
var foundItem = items.firstWhere(predicate);
print(foundItem);
}
Which would print Popcorn as it is the first string with 6 or more characters.
I'm wondering whether it is possible to pass the minLength argument to predicate when calling items.firstWhere(predicate).
sure, but like this:
final minLength = 6;
final foundItem = items.firstWhere((String item) => item.length > minLength));
what you example is doing is just extracting the method (String item) => item.length > minLength; to a separate global variable. which isn't necessary and I wouldn't recommend.

TypeError while attempting to sort a list of custom objects

I'm new to Dart and tried to get a class to implement List using the answers here, and tried to sort a list of these objects using the docs here. I deleted most of my code in an effort to post a MWE:
import 'dart:collection';
class Transaction<E> extends ListBase<E>{
DateTime when;
Transaction(this.when);
List innerList = new List();
int get length => innerList.length;
void set length(int length){
innerList.length = length;
}
void operator[]=(int index, E value){
innerList[index] = value;
}
E operator [](int index) => innerList[index];
void add(E value) => innerList.add(value);
void addAll(Iterable<E> all) => innerList.addAll(all);
}
class Forecaster{
var transactions;
Forecaster(){
this.transactions = new List<dynamic>();
}
void tabulate(){
transactions.sort((a,b) => a.when.compareTo(b.when)); //problem line?
for(var d in transactions){
d.asMap().forEach((index,content){
int len = content.toStringAsFixed(2).length;
});
}
}
void forecast(var forWhen){
var first = new Transaction(DateTime.now());
first.addAll([5,9]);
transactions.add(first);
}
}
void main(){
Forecaster myTest = new Forecaster();
var dub = myTest;
dub..forecast(DateTime.now())
..tabulate();
}
Running with the problem line results in an exception (Uncaught exception: TypeError: Closure 'Forecaster_tabulate_closure': type '(dynamic, dynamic) => dynamic' is not a subtype of type '(dynamic, dynamic) => int') I don't understand. If I comment out the problem line, the TypeError goes away. Is the TypeError because I did something wrong when defining Transaction? I'm attempting this with DartPad.
I'm new to Dart too, so my explanation might not be 100% on the money, but I believe, yes, the main issue is the type assignment of transactions. I think because you initialize it as a var, it is having trouble deducing the type of a.when, which is means it also doesn't know the type of a.when.compareTo(), and assumes dynamic. You are feeding the output of compareTo into List.sort() which is expecting an int from the anonymous function. Thus the error that it wanted an int but got dynamic.
The easiest way to address this is to initialize transactions with a more explicit type rather than as var:
List<Transaction> transactions;
Forecaster(){
this.transactions = new List<Transaction>();
}
Also, to confirm that it is an issue with it not being able to infer the return type of compareTo, I tried leaving your code as-is, but explicitly casting the result as int, and that also worked:
transactions.sort((a,b){
return (a.when.compareTo(b.when) as int);
});
Note: code like the above and using lots of dynamics and vars is in general not great practice with Dart - you lose a lot of the benefits of having a typed language. You might also notice that when you type in an IDE, you don't get methods auto-suggested when you do stuff like this - for example, until I changed transactions to an explicit type of list, typing a.when did not trigger autocomplete, and my IDE thought the type was dynamic, not DateTime.
Your problem is with the types. The code:
var transactions;
Forecaster(){
this.transactions = new List<dynamic>();
}
void tabulate(){
transactions.sort((a,b) => a.when.compareTo(b.when));
first declares transactions to have type dynamic.
Then you call sort on that with an argument which is inferred to have type dynamic Function(dynamic, dynamic) (because there is no clue available to say otherwise in the type of transactions).
However, the actual run-time type of transactions is List<Transaction>, and that requires a function argument of type int Function(Transaction, Transaction). The type dynamic Function(dynamic, dynamic) is not a sub-type of int Function(Transaction, Transaction) (the return type has to be a subtype of int for that to be the case) so you get a run-time error.
If you change transactions to have type List<Transaction>, then the type inference will have a clue when it gets to the function literal. It will infer that (a, b) => a.when.compareTo(b.when) in a context expecting int Function(Transaction, Transaction) will have that type.
Even if you just change transactions to List<dynamic>, it will still work, it will just make a.when.compareTo(b.when) be dynamic invocations.

How can I specify type annotations in Dart with `combineReducers`?

I receive a message at the List from linter saying:
Specify type annotations
However I can't understand what type it wants. For Map I could get like so:
<String, String>{}
Where my Map is at the end, and I specify the type at the beginning, but I can't find the correct type for my reducer and my epics.
My current code:
final profileReducer = combineReducers<Profile>([
TypedReducer<Profile, UpdateProfileBalanceAction>(_updateProfileBalance),
TypedReducer<Profile, FetchProfileResultAction>(_setProfile),
]);
and:
final epics = combineEpics<AppState>([
TypedEpic<AppState, FetchProfileAction>(profileEpic),
]);
The correct type I needed to use was:
final Function profileReducer = combineReducers<Profile>(
<Profile Function(Profile, dynamic)>[
TypedReducer<Profile, FetchProfileResultAction>(_setProfile),
]);
But to make that more usable, I created a type:
import 'package:utgard/store/models/profile.dart';
typedef ProfileReducers = Profile Function(Profile, dynamic);
Then I can use in my reducers, like so:
final Function profileReducer = combineReducers<Profile>(<ProfileReducers>[
TypedReducer<Profile, FetchProfileResultAction>(_setProfile),
]);
Dart doesn't support union type so typing actions properly won't be possible.. A "less realistic type" will be required
You can do the following:
final profileReducer = combineReducers<Profile>(<TypedReducer<Profile, Action>>[
TypedReducer<Profile, UpdateProfileBalanceAction>(_updateProfileBalance),
TypedReducer<Profile, FetchProfileResultAction>(_setProfile),
]);

How to convert an Iterable of type X to type Y Re: Iterable<WordPair> to Iterable<String>

In pubspec.yaml, I'm using english_words library to generate wordpairs:
dependencies:
flutter:
sdk: flutter
# Contains a few thousand of the most used English words
# plus some utility functions.
english_words: ^3.1.0
Now the WordPair Class is not a subtype of String and so I can't use the Iterable's lambdas or functions like cast or retype to 'cast' the 'WordPairs' to Strings.
So, I had to write the function called getWords().
See below the Dart file, Model.dart, that contains this implementation.
You'll see the old line commented out where it was returning in the getter the type Iterable.
Would there be a more efficient way to do this?
For example, I didn't want to involve a List Class in the conversion, but I can't find any other way to successfully do this.
Thanks.
---------------- Model.dart
import 'package:english_words/english_words.dart' show WordPair, generateWordPairs;
import 'dart:collection';
/// Model Class
///
class Model {
String get randomWordPair => new WordPair.random().asPascalCase;
// Iterable<WordPair> get wordPairs => generateWordPairs().take(10);
Iterable<String> get wordPairs => getWords();
Iterable<String> getWords(){
Iterable<WordPair> pairs = generateWordPairs().take(10);
ListWords<String> words = new ListWords();
for (var pair in pairs) {
words.add(pair.asString);
}
return words;
}
}
class ListWords<E> extends ListBase<E> {
final List<E> l = [];
set length(int newLength) { l.length = newLength; }
int get length => l.length;
E operator [](int index) => l[index];
void operator []=(int index, E value) { l[index] = value; }
}
In Dart 2 you can use
iterable.cast<NewType>()
but it is prone to lead to inefficiency if the resulting list is accessed often, because it wraps the original iterable into a new one and has to forward every access.
Usually more efficient are
new List<NewType>.of(oldList)
or
new List.from<NewType.from(oldList)
I was not able to derive the difference between .of() and from() from the docs though (https://api.dartlang.org/dev/2.0.0-dev.50.0/dart-core/List/List.from.html, https://api.dartlang.org/dev/2.0.0-dev.50.0/dart-core/List/List.of.html)
At first glance, a loop that is collecting the result of an expression can generally be replaced with an appropriate .map method invocation on an Iterable. See if that will help.

Resources