In an attempt to develop a global AST transformation to add a new method to an Enum class within my app, I've set up this example project using Grails 5.
https://github.com/davebrown1975/grails_enum_experiment
The expected behaviour is that on compilation/building, the AST transform will be applied to the single enum class in the project ('tst.ExampleEnum'). I can see the 'visit' method being called in my Transformer ('tst.EnumTranslationTransformation'), however the sourceunit ast classes passed as a parameter to the visit method never include my Enum class.
Once the app is running however, if I make the simplest change to the Enum class, e.g. pressing space somewhere and saving it to trigger compilation and reloading, then this time I will see output in the console informing me the visit method was called AND the enum class was detected and AST has been applied.
Things I've tried, as per Grails docs, established the transforming class in it's own 'plugin', putting the class into a sub package of org.grails.compiler. Neither of these made a difference and I didn't see the AST being called at ever until I referenced the EnumTranslatorTransformation class from within a new file META-INF/services/org.codehaus.groovy.transform.ASTTransformation
Any thoughts as to what I'm missing here would be greatly appreciated.
The solution I found that ensures the AST is compiled and applied to the Enums at build time was to place the transformation into an inline plugin. What was critical at this point was to ensure that the META-INF/services/org.codehaus.groovy.transform.ASTTransformation file was moved to the plugin and not the main app. Only then would I see the transformation applied after a clean and build of the project.
Upgrading a legacy system of grails. One of the controllers implements Serializable. This is throwing the following error in newer versions of grails:
Invalid duplicate class definition of class com.regional.ScheduleController :
The source contains at least two definitions of the class.
One of the classes is an explicit generated class using the class statement,
the other is a class generated from the script body based on the file name.
Solutions are to change the file name or to change the class name.
The solution mentioned would break (previous) grails convention. Anyone know how to handle this in grails 2.5+?
EDIT
Serializable is not the issue. I tried removing it and got the same error.
I found this explanation from another question:
IN groovy.. class B{} is a class structure and defines a class B.
Scripts are classes too.
Now you may create a B.groovy, with the content "class B{}; def b = new B()".
There would be one class named B, and a script with the very same name.
This is a conflict.
However this does not explain why it runs fine below grails 2.5 and not above it. And I can't find a def conflict like the one mentioned above in that controller.
ANSWER:
One of the imports was what was actually failing- in a way that caused groovy to generate a class definition based on the current file name. When it hit the class definition, there was already an auto generated class name to collide with.
I have a generic method for doing a common operation on many domain class
static Map getNumberOfPropertyByTopicIds(def criteriaClass, List ids) {
criteriaClass.createCriteria(). //Some GORM methods used
}
I wanted autocomplete on various things applied on criteriaClass. But for doing that I need to replace def criteriaClass to InterfaceForDomainClassBehaviour criteriaClass.
But I don't know InterfaceForDomainClassBehaviour is what. Which interface/abstract class implements Domain class behaviour?
There isn't one.
Grails uses "convention over configuration", so unlike other frameworks where you extend a base class, implement one or more interfaces, use annotations, etc., you simply put your artifact classes (domain classes, services, etc.) in the correct directory under grails-app, use the appropriate class naming convention (except for domain classes), and Grails mixes in behavior for you. You can configure things of course, e.g. with the mapping block, etc.
Before Grails 2 adding methods was mostly done using Groovy runtime metaprogramming, and in Grails 2 most of the behavior is added at compile time using ASTs, and runtime metaprogramming is used mostly for dynamic code like findAllByHeightAndWeightAndHairColorAndShoeSize where it would be impractical and/or impossible to compile in every combination.
Over 100 methods are added to domain classes (decompile some - it's pretty amazing to see how much ends up in your classes considering how small the Groovy source is) and dozens are added to controllers. But this is all mixed in, so although there is significant overlap between your domain classes, there's no common base class or interface unless you add them yourself.
Say I defined a private function in a dart file hello.dart:
_hello() {
return "world";
}
I want to test it in another file mytest.dart:
library mytest;
import 'dart:unittest/unittest.dart';
main() {
test('test private functions', () {
expect(_hello(), equals("world"));
}
}
But unfortunately, the test code can't be compiled. But I do need to test that private _hello function. Is there any solution?
While I agree that private methods/classes shouldn't be part of your tests, the meta package does provide an #visibleForTesting attribute, and the analyzer will give you a warning if you attempt to use the member outside of its original library or a test. You can use it like this:
import 'package:meta/meta.dart';
#visibleForTesting
String hello() {
return "world";
}
Your tests will now be able to use it without error or warning, but if someone else tries to use it they'll get a warning.
Again, as to the wisdom of doing this is another question - usually if it's something worth testing, it's something that's worth being public (or it'll get tested through your public interfaces and that's what really matters anyway). At the same time, you might just want to have rigorous tests or test driven principles even for your private methods/classes so - Dart lets you this way.
Edit to add: If you're developing a library and your file with #visibleForTesting will be exported, you are essentially adding public API. Someone can consume that with the analyzer turned off (or just ignore the warning), and if you remove it later you may break them.
Several people believe we shouldn't test private directly: it should be tested through the public interface.
An advantage of following this guidance, is that your test won't depend on your implementation. Said differently: if you want to change your private without changing what you expose to the world, then you won't have to touch your tests.
According to this school of though, if your private is important enough to justify a unit test, then it might make sense to extract it in a new class.
Putting all this together, what you could do here, is:
Create a kind of helper class with this hello method as public. You can then easily unit test it
Let your current class use an instance of this helper class
Test the public methods of your current class which relies on _hello: if this private has a bug, it should be catch by those higher level tests
I don't like either of the above answers. dart's private variable test design is very bad. dart's private visibility is based on library, and each .dart file is a library by default, similar language is rust, but rust can write test code directly in the file, there is no private visibility problem, while dart does not allow this.
Again, I don't think #visibleForTesting is a valid solution,
Because #visibleForTesting can only be used to decorate public declarations, it serves as a mere analysis reminder that developers cannot invoke these declarations in other files,
But from a syntax point of view, developers can't use the _ prefix either, so the form, public, private, becomes confusing. and violates dart's own naming rules.
The argument that one should not test private, or that they should be separated into other classes, is like a justification that is completely unacceptable.
First, private exist because they belong to a business logic/model etc. in a contextual relationship, and it does not make logical sense to separate it into another class.
Second, if you must do this, it will greatly increase the complexity of the code, for example, you move to other classes will lose access to the context variables, or you have to pass a separate reference, or have to create an instance of the class, indeed, then you can finally do some mocks, but you also add a layer of abstraction,
It's hard to imagine that if you were to do this for the whole project, you'd probably double your entire code layers.
For now, If you want your dart package to get more than 90% coverage,
you should not define any private.
It sounds harsh, but that's the real story.
[Alternative] No one seems to have mentioned this yet,
Using part / part of to expose the privates, you can define a test-specific .dart file as the public interface to the library(file) to be tested, and use it to expose all the private declarations that need to be tested. you can name them xxx.fortest.dart
But this is more of a psychological solution, since you are still essentially exposing all private variables/methods
But at least, it's better than splitting class,
Also, if one day dart finally solves this problem, we can simply delete these .fortest.dart files.
A suggestion would be to NOT make methods/classes private but to move code, where you want to hide implementation details, to the lib/src folder.
This folder is considered private.
I found this approach on the fuchsia.dev page in this section under "Testing".
If you want to expose those private methods/classes, that are located in the src folder, to the public, you could export them inside your lib/main file.
I tried to import one of my libraries A (projects are libraries) into another library B and couldn't import code that was in the src folder of library A.
According to this StackOverflow answer it could still be possible to access the src folder from A in library B.
From the dart documentation
As you might expect, the library code lives under the lib directory and is public to other packages. You can create any hierarchy under lib, as needed. By convention, implementation code is placed under lib/src. Code under lib/src is considered private; other packages should never need to import src/.... To make APIs under lib/src public, you can export lib/src files from a file that’s directly under lib.
I've written a small COM Server in Delphi 2010 that acts as a plug-in into a retail application. The retail application looks for a "discover" interface which registers any number of additional interfaces calling TAutoObjectFactory.Create for each one. This is working just fine--all the plug-in interfaces function as designed.
But now I'd like to call a public method of one interface from another interface so I don't have to duplicate code. Seems simple enough, just call ComClassManager.ForEachFactory looking for the ClassID of the interface I need to use. Got that working, too!
But now that I found the class, I'm stumped by a seemingly trivial final step: how to use or cast the class (or class reference?) I've located to actually call one of its methods.
In the "FactoryProc" I've sent to ForEachFactory, I assume the ComClass property of TComObjectFactory is what I'm after, but it's of type TClass, a class reference to the actual class object to which it points (at least I hope I'm understanding this correctly). I'm a little fuzzy on class references and my attempts to cast or otherwise de-reference this property has resulted in access violations or compiler errors.
Any suggestions?
You're right in your comment, ComClassManager deals with classes, not instances. What you need is (your application-local implementation of) running object table (or something similar), so plugin instances can interact with each other.
How to actually implement it depends on what you really need, e.g. call methods on all running instances, or only on instances of specific classes.