I have a set of modules, e.g., itemOne, itemTwo, ... , itemTen, which have similar methods and sub-classes within themselves. I have used "Delegate" and "Enum" to keep track of these methods, and have a systematic way of calling them in a for loop. HOWEVER, I am not sure how to make a collection or array of the modules, with the goal of being able to loop through them.
End goal below, in pseudo code
For Num = One to Ten
With item<Num> % This could be itemOne, or itemTwo, etc. I do NOT know how to do this
% Call function with the help of for loops. I know how to do this
End With
End For
It would help if there is a way to use a array of strings, and execute them as code during runtime. Something like -- Call String2Code("ItemOne").Something.SomeMethod(), where SomeMethod is a subroutine.
It doesn't necessarily have to be a String2Code type of implementation. In general, I am looking for a way to keep track of an array of "delegates to modules". Of course, "Delegate" only works for Sub/Function in VB, and I have been unable to find a technique to handle modules in a similar fashion. If the address pointers of these modules are stored in an array, I should be able to loop through them.
I will be grateful for any advice. Thank you.
In retrospect this might be simpler. You should be making them classes in my opinion not modules...
Please note that I have used One, Two, and Three below to represent an object of your different types.
Dim col as List(Of Object)
col.add(One)
col.add(Two)
col.add(Three)
For i as integer = 0 to col.Count -1
If typeof col(i) is [ModuleType1] Then
CTYPE(col(i), ModuleType1).SubClass.Method()
Else If TypeOf col(i) is ModuleType2 Then
CTYPE(col(i), ModuleType2.SubClass2.Method2()
End If
Next
Optionally, you can just make col an array of Objects.
Dim col() as Object = {One, Two, Three}
Ideally you would avoid using Object and instead all of your modules would use inheritance to group like methods together. They instead of Object you could use the ParentObject which would maintain the like functionality instead of casting all of the time.
Is this clear as mud?
Steve
Related
I would like to populate a listbox with a list of installed printers in VB.net.
This works:
Dim printerList As System.Drawing.Printing.PrinterSettings.StringCollection
printerList = System.Drawing.Printing.PrinterSettings.InstalledPrinters
For Each printerName In printerList
ListBox1.Items.Add(printerName)
Next
This does not work:
ListBox1.Items.AddRange(printerList)
...because of the following type-conversion error:
Public Sub AddRange (value As
System.Windows.Forms.ListBox.ObjectCollection)': Value of type
'System.Drawing.Printing.PrinterSettings.StringCollection' cannot be
converted to 'System.Windows.Forms.ListBox.ObjectCollection'.
Is it possible to directly cast one to the other for use in AddRange() as shown? Or is the loop the only (or most efficient) way?
Well, you're dealing with 2 collections that were created before the more modern generic lists and enumerables, so their use is less fluid.
In this case, the AddRange method accepts either another ObjectCollection instance (not your case), or an array of Objects. If you want to benefit from the latter, you'll need to transform the StringCollection instance to an array of Objects. Here is how this can be done:
ListBox1.Items.AddRange(printerList.Cast(Of Object)().ToArray())
That said, I would stick with your current For Each loop. It is very readable, and doesn't create an intermediate array. But, I doubt either choice will make much difference, so pick your favorite.
I am passing a few optional arguments to a function as a tuple, since all of these have to be passed together or not at all. I would like to be able to iterate over the elements of the tuple numerically, and perform an operation on each item. For example:
Public Function myFunction(Optional t As Tuple(Of Integer, String, SomeType) = Nothing) As Integer
For i = 0 to 2
someCollection(i).someMethod(t(i)) 'Pseudocode for accessing ith item in tuple
Next
End Function
One way to resolve the problem would be to use a list, but then I lose the ability to enforce the number of members (which will always be fixed) and the types of each member. Another way would be to write out the statement three times with t.Item1, t.Item2 etc, but this is ugly.
Is there any way to access the nth item in a tuple?
Note: I would like to accomplish this with a tuple if at all possible, even though I am aware I could create alternate method signatures.
(Sure, I’ll turn this into an answer!)
You can put the items into an array for convenience; maintaining the type isn’t really an issue at that point, since if you’re doing the same thing with all of them they need to have some sort of common base class or interface.
Dim a() As Object = {t.Item1, t.Item2, t.Item3}
Then just iterate over that.
Let's say I got a list called
myFirstList
And then I want to create a copy of that list so I can do some tweaks of my own. So I do this:
mySecondList = myFirstList
mySecondList.doTweaks
But I noticed that the tweaks also affect the myFirstList object! I only want the tweaks to affect the second one...
And afterwards I will want to completely delete mySecondList, so I do mySecondList = Nothing and I'm good, right?
Adam Rackis, I don't like your "Of course it does", because it is not at all obvious.
If you have a string variable that you assign to another string variabe, you do not change them both when making changes to one of them. They do not point to the same physical piece of memory, so why is it obvious that classes do?
Also, the thing is not even consistent. In the following case, you will have all elements in the array pointing at the same object (they all end up with the variable Number set to 10:
SourceObject = New SomeClass
For i = 1 To 10
SourceObject.Number = i
ObjectArray.Add = SourceObject
Next i
BUT, the following will give you 10 different instances:
For i = 1 To 10
SourceObject = New SomeClass
SourceObject.Number = i
ObjectArray.Add = SourceObject
Next i
Apparently the scope of the object makes a difference, so it is not at all obvious what happens.
Here is how you do it:
'copy one object to another via reflection properties
For Each p As System.Reflection.PropertyInfo In originalobject.GetType().GetProperties()
If p.CanRead Then
clone.GetType().GetProperty(p.Name).SetValue(clone, p.GetValue(OriginalObject, Nothing))
End If
Next
in some cases when the clone object got read-only properties you need to check that first.
For Each p As System.Reflection.PropertyInfo In originalobject.GetType().GetProperties()
If p.CanRead AndAlso clone.GetType().GetProperty(p.Name).CanWrite Then
clone.GetType().GetProperty(p.Name).SetValue(clone, p.GetValue(OriginalObject, Nothing))
End If
Next
Since you have not divulged the type of item that you are storing n your list, I assume it's something that's implementing IClonable (Otherwise, if you can, implement IClonable, or figure out a way to clone individual item in the list).
Try something like this
mySecondList = myFirstList.[Select](Function(i) i.Clone()).ToList()
But I noticed that the tweaks also
affect the myFirstList object! I only
want the tweaks to affect the second
one...
Of course it does. Both variables are pointing to the same object in memory. Anything you do to the one, happens to the other.
You're going to need to do either a deep clone, or a shallow one, depending on your requirements. This article should give you a better idea what you need to do
Expanding on Adam Rackies' answer I was able to implement the following code using VB.NET.
My goal was to copy a list of objects that served mainly as data transfer objects (i.e. database data). The first the class dtoNamedClass is defined and ShallowCopy method is added. A new variable named dtoNamedClassCloneVar is created and a LINQ select query is used to copy the object variable dtoNamedClassVar.
I was able to make changes to dtoNamedClassCloneVar without affecting dtoNamedClassVar.
Public Class dtoNamedClass
... Custom dto Property Definitions
Public Function ShallowCopy() As dtoNamedClass
Return DirectCast(Me.MemberwiseClone(), dtoNamedClass)
End Function
End Class
Dim dtoNamedClassVar As List(Of dtoNamedClass) = {get your database data}
Dim dtoNamedClassCloneVar =
(From d In Me.dtoNamedClass
Where {add clause if necessary}
Select d.ShallowCopy()).ToList
Here's an additional approach that some may prefer since System.Reflection can be slow.
You'll need to add the Newtonsoft.Json NuGet package to your solution, then:
Imports Newtonsoft.Json
And given a class type of MyClass, cloning can be as easy as:
Dim original as New MyClass
'populate properties of original...
Dim copy as New MyClass
copy = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(Of MyClass)(JsonConvert.SerializeObject(original))
So the approach is to first use the JSON converter to serialize the original object, and than take that serialized data and deserialize it - specifying the class type - into the class instance copy.
The JSON converters are extremely powerful and flexible; you can do all sorts of custom property mappings and manipulations if you need something the basic approach above doesn't seem to address.
this works for me:
mySecondList = myFirstList.ToList
clone is the object you are attempting to clone to.
dim clone as new YourObjectType
You declare it like that.
I am unsure how to describe what I am looking for, so hopefully the situation will make it somewhat clear.
I have an object with a number of properties (let's say object.one, object.two, object.three). There are about 30 of these properties and they all hold a string ("Pass" or "Fail").
Right now the existing code checks whether the property has value "Pass" or "Fail" and then runs some code that prints stuff out. That is, the same snippet of code is duplicated 30 times, one for each of these properties.
The code looks something like this
If (object.one = ... )
...
End if
If (object.two = ... )
...
End if
If (object.three = ... )
...
End if
I want to use a loop to clean this mess up (each block is huge), but am not sure how to do it. I was thinking perhaps there was a way such that I might be able to construct a string like "object.one" and run some function that will tell the compiler that this is actually an object's property?
That way I could create an array containing the object's name like my array = {"object.one", "object.two", "object.three"} and then do something like, in pseudocode
For each string in my array
If (some_function(string) = ...)
...
End If
Essentially, it would take those massive blocks of duplicated code and reduce it to just one block. Is there such a some_function that I am looking for?
This is in VB.net.
I'm not sure i've understand but you can use reflection and get object properties runtime ?
With reflection you can access public object properties, use PropertyFiled.GetValue() to get one, two, etc. and build an array (i suppose that one, two, etc are object Properties, true?)
Here you can find more information: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.reflection.aspx
Sorry for my bad english, i'm italian.
You seem to be describing serialization, which is the act of converting object state to a format that can be stored/transmitted and deserialization, which is the opposite.
The .NET framework has several different serializers that can work with text - either XML or JSON - the DataContractSerializer for XML and the DataContractJsonSerizlizer for JSON amongst them.
I am attempting to create a generic function that the students in my introductory VB .NET course can use to search a single dimension array of a structure.
My structure and array look like this:
Private Structure Survey
Dim idInteger As Integer
Dim membersInteger As Integer
Dim incomeInteger As Integer
Dim stateString As String
Dim belowPovertyLevelBoolean As Boolean
End Structure
Private incomeSurvey(199) As Survey
My generic function header looks like:
Private Function FindSurveyItem(Of xType As Structure)
(ByVal surveyIDInInt As Integer, ByVal surveyArrayIn() As xType) As Integer
??????
End Function
My call to the function looks like:
If FindSurveyItem(Of Survey)(CInt(idTextBox.Text), incomeSurvey) <> -1 Then
My question is: Is there a way to reference the individual structure fields in the array from inside the function? I was trying to make it generic so that the student could simply pass their array into the function - their structure may be named differently than mine and the field names may be different.
I suspect there are other ways to deal with this situation, but I was trying to keep it to just a simple single-dimension array of a structure. I don't think it is possible to do what I want, but I wondered what others thought.
Is there a way to reference the individual structure fields in the array from inside the function?
Generic instead of an array you need a collection type. Add LINQ Code:
Dim Surveys = From svys In xType
Where svys.idInteger = surveyIDInInt
Select svys
For Each rSurveys In svys
'''' Your Code
Next
This is rough answer fill in the details (I know imagine LINQ without SQL DB!!)
If you have a genric type parameter T you are only able to access members of instances of T that are known to exist at compile time. As every type derives from Object you have only the members of Object availiable - ToString(), GetType(), GetHashCode(), and Equals().
If you want to access other members you have to constrain what T is allowed to be. In your situation a interface would be the way to go. See MSDN for details.
You could also try to use reflection or check the actual type at runtime an perform a cast. The first is hard to impossible to do if you do not know much about the types you will get. And the later requires you to know possible types at compiletime and will not work in your situation, too.
Another way might be to pass a delegate to the search method that performs the actual comparison.
What you're looking for are predicates, if using ,net 3.5
dim arr() as structure
Array.Find(arr, function(item)(item.MyMember = MemberToMatch))
More combersome in earlier versions, see here for more info
The point being, that your function would look very like an implementation of Array.Find (if you didn't want to use the function provided), and the students would need to write their own predicate function.
No, there isn't. You can't know the type at compile time, therefore you cannot access members of that type. You would need change from a structure to a class that must implement IComparable so that you can use CompareTo between the item you pass in and the array you are passing in.
Though it's not entirely clear what you are trying to do within your method so I'm guessing by the name of the method.
You can use reflection to get those fields, but in this case that wouldn't have much meaning. How would you know that the passed type has the field you're looking for? There are other problems with that code as well.
Instead, to do this I would normally create an interface for something like this that had a public ID property, and constrain my input to the function to implement that interface, or as others mentioned use a built-in feature in the clr.
But that may be ahead of where your students are. If you just want an example of a generic function, my suggestion is to show them a type-safe implementation of the old vb imediate if function:
Public Function IIf(Of T)(ByVal Expression As Boolean, ByVal TruePart As T, ByVal FalsePart As T) AS T
If Expression Then Return TruePart Else Return FalsePart
End Function
Note that this is obsolete, too, as in VS2008 and beyond you can use the new If operator instead, which will work better with type inference and won't try to evaluate the expression that isn't returned.