Using "protected" instead "private" - Action Script 3 - actionscript-3

I'm using ASDocs to make something like a "help" for my code and the problem is PRIVATE methods are omitted on ASDocs.
The thing is, on my project, I don't see any problems in change what is PRIVATE to PROTECTED. If I do that, the docummentation will be generated with everything I need.
So, the big question is: There's a problem have a project using only PROTECTED and PUBLIC methods and properties?

The problem that ASDoc omit private members makes sense. ASDoc used primarily to create documentation for API. Private members are not accessible from outside the class and cannot be inherited. So question are you really need ASDoc for private members?
And answer for your question about using only protected members: it breaks encapsulation, so it will be not good decision.

Related

How to get back MDC "inheritance" with modern logback?

After going back to an older project and getting around to update its dependencies I had to realize that logback does not anymore propagate MDCs to children since version 1.1.5: https://github.com/qos-ch/logback/commit/aa7d584ecdb1638bfc4c7223f4a5ff92d5ee6273
This change makes most of the logs nigh useless.
While I can understand the arguments given in the linked issues, I can not understand why this change could not have been made in a more backwards compatible manner (as is generally usual in java..).
Q: What is the now correct way to achieve the same behaviour other than having to subclass everything from Runnables to Threads?
I see no straightforward way to change this back. Two alternatives that come to mind are:
Way #1: Wrap all Runnables
Introduce an abstract class that will copy MDC from the original Thread to a new Thread and use it instead of Runnable
public abstract class MdcAwareRunnable implements Runnable
{
private Map<String, String> originalMdc;
public MdcAwareRunnable()
{
this.originalMdc = MDC.getCopyOfContextMap();
}
#Override
public void run()
{
MDC.setContextMap(originalMdc);
runImpl();
}
protected abstract void runImpl();
/**
* In case some Runnable comes from external API and we can't change that code we can wrap it anyway.
*/
public static MdcAwareRunnable wrap(Runnable runnable)
{
return new MdcAwareRunnable()
{
#Override
protected void runImpl()
{
runnable.run();
}
};
}
}
If some Runnable comes from an external API that you can't change that code, use wrap helper method.
Drawback: need to analyze and change whole code.
Way #2: Mess with slf4j internals
Resurrect the original LogbackMDCAdapter implementation that uses InheritableThreadLocal from before that commit and put it somewhere in your code under some other name. Then somewhere around startup use reflection to override MDC.mdcAdapter property with and instance of that custom implementation. This is obviously a dirty hack but it saves a lot of troubles comparing to #1.
Note: for performance reasons it makes to inherit your resurrected version from existing LogbackMDCAdapter and just override all the methods with old implementation. See LoggingEvent.java and LogbackMDCAdapter.getPropertyMap internal method for some details.
Way #3: Mess with logback jar (even stranger alternative)
This sounds to me as a quite bad plan but for completness here it is.
Again resurrect the original LogbackMDCAdapter but this time don't rename, compile it and override that .class file inside logback.jar.
Or resurrect the original LogbackMDCAdapter with renaming, remove .class file for org.slf4j.impl.StaticMDCBinder from logback.jar and add your own class that will return resurrected version of LogbackMDCAdapter either to logback.jar or to your code. MDC seems to be bound to that class by name to create an implementation of MDCAdapter to use.
Or you can achieve similar result by using custom ClassLoader that would map org.slf4j.impl.StaticMDCBinder to your class instead of the one inside logback.jar. Note: this is probably impossible to achieve inside a Web-container that will add its own custom ClassLoaders.
Way 4: Misuse TurboFilter
ch.qos.logback.classic.Logger passes the logging event to a filter before passing it along to the appenders.
Way 5: Modify log Encoder / provider
Although this would mean the logging event is not updated, but the log output will be.

How to map the PHP DateTime class to ActionScript / Flex Date class using Zend Framework AMF

Background
Okay I'm one of those guys who NEVER asks questions and who can usually find what I need from existing questions or forums....but alas I have spent the last few days trying to figure this one out and have come up with very little existing information.
I am using Flash Builder 4.6 for PHP Premium to build a Flex application that uses the PHP Zend Frameworks's AMF capabilities to map classes from PHP to Flex and to use them as objects to send back and forth instead of using XML or JSON. Right now I am doing it all on a single local machine for ease.
Issue
I am not having trouble mapping my own custom PHP classes into ActionScript/Flex classes but I cannot for the life of me manage to map a DateTime PHP class into an ActionScript Date class. I have read elsewhere that it automatically maps DateTime objects to Date objects but I have never gotten it to work.
Strangely though, I can get it to work if I replace all instances of, in my case, valueObjects.DateTime (the auto-generated ActionScript class) to Date in the _Super_Foo.as class that has the DateTime property. This basically forces Flex to interpret the data of that property as a Date. However, since all the _Super_XXX.as files are files that autogenerated by Flex, it gets rewritten any time I refresh or edit ANY PHP service that Flex is linking to in Flash Builder.
Remarks
I could of course do this the quick and dirty way by keeping the variable as a string (it's coming from MySQL in a DateTime field) and then just create some functions to convert it to a Date object on the client side but I need a more permanent and stable solution.
Example:
<?php
class Foo {
public $id; // int
public $name; // string
public $date; // DateTime
public $bar; // custom object
}
?>
should go to --->
package {
class Foo {
public var id:int;
public var name:String;
public var date:Date; // native class
public var bar:Bar;
}
}
but I am getting
package {
class Foo {
public var id:int;
public var name:String;
public var date:DateTime; // custom class
public var bar:Bar;
}
}
I have tried things such as the following:
in the gateway.php file
$server->setClassMap("Date", "DateTime");
using the Zend_Date object instead
$foo->date = new Zend_Date($blah);
and after trying to map it as well explicitly
$server->setClassMap("Date", "Zend_Date");
the change I currently have working in the _Super_Foo.as file (which gets written over frequently)
private var _internal_date : valueObjects.DateTime; // custom object
to
private var _internal_date : Date; // native object
I just need it to do this automatically like I have read it should.
Well I have to admit, that I usually use BlazeDS on Java and not Zend, but I have had similar problems in transfering Calendar objects (I wanted to prevent loosing the timezone data). For This BlazeDS supported so-called PropertyProxys, which are components that allow to takeover the serialization/deserialization process for certain types.
I would assume that ZEND would support a similar thing. So another option would actually be to make Zend zupport the full Flex type. I have searched a little and it seems that the entire terminology is different in Zend, but I think this stackoverflow article should explain it a little: Zend AMF custom dispatcher
Chris
In my experience, Zend Framework has taught me that it offers many features but many times they don't work exactly how you'd expect. For example:
Recently I was working with a bug in "digitalus-cms" (A blog-like framework built on top of ZF) that it couldn't post new articles with a hyphen in their title name. I tracked it down to Zend_Form_Element::filterName. It uses a regular expression that matches any character that falls into the category of: [^a-zA-Z0-9_\x7f-\xff] then removes it. This ends up removing hyphens from the names of form elements which wound up being the cause of the bug.
If Zend_Amf or Zend_Date doesn't work the way you want it to, find a workaround such as passing a unix timestamp number around so everything works the way it should. Then afterwards, you can write a class to extend off one of Zend's classes. Zend Framework is meant to be extended upon, that's the way the framework was built so you can fix issues like these on your own to get the framework to behave how you want it to. That's the whole point of wrappers. Go ahead, create some of your own wrapper classes and toss in some methods to interact with ZF so you can fine-tune everything.
As far as finding the cause of your issue, all I can tell you is keep on debugging and isolating code so you know what you are passing flex, and how flex responses to that. After you play around with it enough, I'm sure you'll find the culprit.
AmfPHP automatically maps it. http://www.silexlabs.org/amfphp/

Question on class implementation with interface

I have created the following classes for sharing images. They implement an interface, but I need a way of switching between them with user interaction. I've done it the following way:
As you can see, service 1 and service 2 implement iSharingServices, and inherit from PolimorphSharing.
PolimorphSharing is simply and an abstract class that implements the methods I want public from Service 1 and Service 2. Those methods will then be overridden on the Service 1 and Service 2.
Because I need a way to switch the service in runtime, I've created a gateway class that inherits from PolimorphSharing. I can then call it the following way:
private var sharingService:PolimorphSharing = new SharingServicesGW('svc1').createService();
This all works flawlessly, and I can now switch between services with no problem whatsoever. However, I feel there's something wrong about it, so I would like to ask you guys for some advice on how to better implement this.
Any opinions here would be appreciated. I feel like I'm kind of implementing the factory pattern here the hard way.
UPDATE:
Just adding some more insight to this. Basically the idea here is for my client to be able to upload images with various different public sharing services such as imageshack, imgur etc. I want my client to be able to select the service in which the image is to be published to (hence the "switching between them with user interaction" bit of the question.
The method that does the uploading bit, is requestShareImage(), processResults() simply turns whatever gets returned to a unique format, so my client can read off it always the same way. getObject() is my accessor, and onIOError will handle exceptions with any of the public API's
Thanks all in advance,
SharingServicesGW IS a factory. However, there's no need for it to - and it shouldn't - inherit from PolimorphSharing. Also you're doing it a bit skewed. The client should be using objects of the interface type, not the abstract type.
Your interface should be defining the public API, not your abstract base class. In fact in AS3 interfaces can only define public members, while pseudo abstract classes can enforce implementation of protected members.
-- EDIT --
here's a UML diagram of how I would do it

AS3 How do you access an instance of a class from anywhere?

I currently pass a reference to my model through the constructor to any class that needs it in my simple mvc pattern, this can get annoying at times when it starts to go deeper.
How do Classes such as LoadMax allow you from anywhere to simple import the class, and do something like addChild(LoaderMax.getContent("bg"));? Replicating this should surely be a good way to have my model work, without the complexity of big frameworks?
Statics are your friend
As previous answers have noted, TweenLite/Max etc. makes heavy use of static members to get work done. This is exactly like the Math class, for example, and can be a very convenient design pattern. You have global access to the class, and that can definitely alleviate the issue of getting access to variables through deeply nested classes.
Statics are the enemy
Statics, however, bring certain problems to the table. Most importantly, they tend to reduce flexibility and modularity of classes through the often unnecessary addition of tightly coupled relationships. It's a bit like pouring concrete over your application. It does work, but changing behavior becomes difficult as project features change.
Static members != instance members
Note, very clearly, that a static member "belongs" to the class itself, and not an instance of that class. Static members have no access to instance members. This causes troubles when you want to mix these members up in logic. You tend to have to make everything static (the so-called "static-cling" effect). Static patterns are often argued to be argued to be "anti" object-oriented, for precisely this reason. Once you build a structure on a static pattern you tend to lose many of the principles that makes OOD powerful.
In small does, they're pretty nice
That all being said - TweenLite is a great example of a static pattern that is totally appropriate - its a utility package, one that logic is not dependent on. And that should probably be how you leverage statics, too.
To reduce reliance on statics, or even global vars, it does often mean writing more code, but the flexibility in app structure gained is often quite worth it. #Marty_Wallace has a pretty good solution imo.
Demeter and the Paperboy
Finally, I'll just mention the Law of Demeter, or the Principle of Least Knowledge, and the related Paperboy and the Wallet example, which is often pointed to in discussions of statics:
Each unit should have only limited knowledge about other units: only
units "closely" related to the current
unit.
Each unit should only talk to its friends; don't talk to strangers.
Only talk to your immediate friends.
Hopefully that sheds a little bit of light on a fairly complicated and not-often obvious issue.
This is done using the static namespace, however I discourage the use of this.
package
{
public class Main
{
public static function sayHell():void
{
trace("hello!");
}
}
}
You can now call sayHello() like this from anywhere in the application (assuming you've imported the class).
Main.sayHello();
Another thing you can do (to make the entire class accessible from within the application) is create a static property that refers to the class itself:
package
{
public class Something
{
public static var instance:Something;
public function Something()
{
instance = this;
}
public function someFunction():void
{
trace('hello!');
}
}
}
Which you can now use like so:
Something.instance.someFunction();
The only thing to note here is that you need to create an instance of Something for this to work to call the constructor and define instance.
What I would do
Create a base class for all objects in your application
Create a manager class that takes care of these objects
Create a setter within your base class to define the manager
Here's an example:
Base
package
{
public class Base extends Object
{
private var _manager:Manager;
public function set manager(m:Manager):void
{
_manager = m;
init();
}
protected function init():void
{
manager.someFunction();
}
public function get manager():Manager{ return _manager; }
}
}
Manager
package
{
public class Manager extends Object
{
public function someFunction():void
{
trace('hello!');
}
}
}
Now anything that extends Base will have access to anything held in Manager via the manager getter property. All you need to do is make sure you define the manager, which is easily achieved from within anything that extends Base like so:
var something:SomeExtendingClass = new SomeExtendingClass();
something.manager = manager;
The example you gave is just a static method, but to answer your question about a global instance of a class:
package myPackage
{
public var globalVariable:MyClass = new MyClass();
}
You can access it with:
import myPackage.globalVariable;
trace(globalVariable);
I think you have to rethink in which way you want to name your classes.
You can instantiate whatever class you want, at run-time, but to access a instance by name, you have to make changes in your structure. For example, the getContent() function you mentioned in LoaderMax, all it does is to search in an array for the given loader that matchs the name, among other things. You can read the name variable comment for a description.
A name that you use to identify the loader instance. This name can be fed to the getLoader() or getContent() methods or traced at any time. Each loader's name should be unique. If you don't define one, a unique name will be created automatically, like "loader21".
So in this system, you have to name every single member (loaders in this case) if you want to be able to search them. Because if I call getClassInstance("myinstance"), what is "myinstance" representing? Where should I name it?
That said, if you want to do it for DisplayObjects only, you can use getChildByName. But again, you have to name every DisplayObject (just set the name variable).
Hope this helps.

How do I make my Linq to Sql entity expose an interface?

Using Nerd Dinner as an example:
private NerdDinnerDataContext db = new NerdDinnerDataContext();
public IQueryable<Dinner> FindAllDinners()
{
return db.Dinners;
}
Is it not bad practice to directly expose the entity class Dinner here? I think it is better for the repository to return an IDinner.
So my question is, how can I make the auto-generated entity classes expose my interface?
As far as I know, the only way would be to modify the template from which the code is generated. Another possibility is partial classes. The code generator creates partial classes. You could create another partial class that contains the interface you want. I believe this will work.