Python Regex
When preparing for this years Advent of Code I am trying to improve my regex skills. A very useful function in the builtin regex module for python is re.sub.
Stuff.
When preparing for this years Advent of Code I am trying to improve my regex skills. A very useful function in the builtin regex module for python is re.sub.
I have been running a lot of clashofcode lately and quite a few of the challenges are about making the shortest code possible.
Here is the story/rant of when I tried to use time in Javascript.
I was working on some code during work today and had a little issue. I had created a internal library for parsing and handling arguments with flags to my C# project.
The idea was to be able to parse arguments like this:
--Person --name Alex --location -x 0 -y 13.4 --height 184
I see the arguments as a tree with nodes and leaves. In the example
above there would be a person and location node, and a name, x, y and
height leaf. Nodes contain any number of children nodes and there are
special types of nodes which have no children called leafs. As you can
see in the example above leafs can have values like int
, double
and bool
.
Here is a very much simplified example of what I was working on and where my issue came to be.
With this code I my plan was to be able to create a Leaf like this:
With a code like this my goal was to be able to handle the arguments like this:
I created two Nodes, one for location and one for person and then there is methods that handle the parsing and converting from string to the respective types and what not. Now the issue is, this does no in any way compile right now.
The problem is the following piece of code shown in the first listing:
The issue here is Type?
(shorthand for Nullable<T>
). This is because
Nullable<T>
only works for value types. This can be seen in how
Nullable<T>
was implemented, some of that code is shown below:
where T : struct
is an instance of what is called generic
constraints
and states that T
must be of type struct
(which all
value types are).
Task for the reader: I strongly recomend pressing F12 on and int
and any other type you in your mind belive “work in the same way” in
visual studio to see that if all of those are indeed structs!
So back to the issue! To be able to use Nullable
So now you are where I was when I realised I had a problem. I however
did not really understand my problem at this point. I had a bunch of
code. I had at some point decided as a sidethought that I wanted to
have optional arguments and that hence default values would make a lot
of sense. I decided Type? defaultValue = null
was the way to go and
when the compiler warned me about not being able to use Nullable just
on any type willy-nilly I added a where T : struct
and continued on.
I was fine with this for a while until I realised I really did need strings in my Leafs in certain situations. So I tried to solve it.
I imagined two classes:
The idea was that I coulde use Type? defaultValue = null
in one and
type defaultValue = null
in the other. But you cannot have two
classes like that. I guess it is because the condition does not count
as a part of the class definition the same way a name of
Next I thought about just:
But that felt bad since it would be quite confusing for users of the library, see example below:
Other leafs have their type clearly marked, but the string version is not which makes the code more difficult to understand. Also this would again require having two almost identical sets of classes which is bad for maintainability.
After some more thinking, some googling around and some thought about
“why can’t I have classes like Name<T>
and Name<T> where T : struct
in
the same namespace”. I figured this is the type of question one might
ask on Stackoverflow because you would kinda feel smart while asking
the question. So I started doing just that, feeling smart, and
prepping for writing my question.
I started with a minimal version of my code. I started a new CLI
project in Visual Studio and stripped out all the non-essential parts
(which amounted to even less than what you have seen here). I did this
untill I had my two Leaf classes and looking at those few lines of
code in my CLI application I saw what has been clear in this post all
along, that the reason I used where T : struct
at all was that I
wanted default values. I realised that my problem was really not how
to have classes with the same name but different generic constraints
but how to get a default value for a generic type. That realisation
lead me to find the solution in 1 minute!
And here default comes to the rescue! Mind you been here for the rescue since C# 2, I just did now know about it!
default(T)
(or just default
in certain cituaions since C#7.1)
returns the default value for the type. 0 for value types and null
for reference types.
So for all this the solution was trivial, I just needed this:
I did end up using default(T)
instead since i does not require C#
7.1. Student-Alex would have gone for default
but now Im a
PROFESSIONAL and that means being a bit more careful with stuff like
that and since I have said “But it works on my computer” before when
I upgraded to C# 7.0 a while back which caused minor issues for Visual
Studio 2015 users. So upgrading to 7.1 to remove 3 chars feelt like a
pretty bad ROI.
A real life solution has many parts to keep track of. The process of boiling down your question really helps you to understand what the problem really is. Once you have understood what the problem is the solution is just a google search away!
Also I guess knowing the ins and outs of your programing language has its benefits!
Ok, lets see if this jekyll thing is anything good!