Conditionally cast of generic view controller fails - ios

Question

Say I have the following:
class ContentSelectableViewController<T: NSManagedObject> : UIViewController { //... }
class PersonSelectionViewController: ContentSelectableViewController<Person> { // ... }
class PlaceSelectionViewController: ContentSelectableViewController<Place> { // ... }
Then in an instance of one of these subclasses, I have some code:
if let navCtrl = self.navigationController {
for viewController in navCtrl.viewControllers.reversed() {
if viewController is ContentSelectableViewController {
log.info("Worked for \(viewController.description)")
}
if let vc = viewController as? ContentSelectableViewController {
// This should be equivalent to the above.
}
}
}
My question is, when I have a stack full of subclasses of this generic baseclass, it doesn't always return true (go into the if statement) when checking if they are of type ContentSelectableViewController and I don't understand why. They inherit from the same baseclass.
EDIT:
I'm guessing it's because of the generic nature of the class. The if statements evaluate to true for the subclass that calls it.

Answer 1

So, it does in fact have something to do with trying to type check a generic class. It would work for the one and not the other because the one making the call implicitly adds its type.
i.e. (Pseudo-Swift)
if viewController is ContentSelectableViewController<Person> { //... }
What I did instead was to define a protocol that ultimately makes these ContentSelectableViewController<T> selectable:
enum ContentSelectionRole: Int {
case none = 0 // no selection going on right now.
case root // i.e. the one wanting content
case branch // an intermediary. think of a folder when looking for a file
case leaf // like a file
}
enum ContentSelectability: Int {
case noSelections = 0
case oneSelection = 1
case multipleSelections = 2
}
protocol ContentSelection {
var selectedObjects: [NSManagedObject] { get set }
var selectionRole: ContentSelectionRole { get set }
var selectionStyle: ContentSelectability { get set }
func popToSelectionRootViewController() -> Bool
func willNavigateBack(from viewController: UIViewController)
}
Making the definition:
class ContentSelectableViewController<T: NSManagedObject> : UIViewController, ContentSelection { //... }
And then, refactored the original post, to get:
#discardableResult func popToSelectionRootViewController() -> Bool {
if let navCtrl = self.navigationController {
for viewController in navCtrl.viewControllers.reversed() {
if let vc = viewController as? ContentSelection {
if vc.selectionRole == .root {
vc.willNavigateBack(from: self)
navCtrl.popToViewController(viewController, animated: true)
return true
}
}
}
}
return false
}
I still don't quite understand the aspect of the language that makes it fail, but this solution works.
Protocol-based Programming seems to be more Swifty anyway...