Package net.nuke24.tscript34.p0010

Interface IndirectValue

public interface IndirectValue
Represents a value by an encoding identified by the tag. Inspired by P0005's TT interface, but using ints instead of Strings for 'efficiency' (to avoid if-else chains in JDK 1.6 and earlier, which doesn't allow switching on Strings).

  • Method Summary

    Modifier and Type
    Method
    Description
    <T> T
    as(Class<T> repClass)
    Converts this IndirectValue to some other representation.
    int
    getTag()
    Returns an integer corresponding to one of the IndirectValueTags.* constants, indicating how this object should be interpreted.

  • Method Details

    • getTag

      int getTag()
      Returns an integer corresponding to one of the IndirectValueTags.* constants, indicating how this object should be interpreted.

    • as

      <T> T as(Class<T> repClass)
      Converts this IndirectValue to some other representation. What classes are recognized and how they represent the concept is left to the implementation, but there should be conventions for common types: - for references, as(URIReference.class).get() returns the name of the referenced concept - for lists/cons pairs, as(Pair.class) returns a pair representing the first node of a linked list. While IndirectValue itself is simultaneously precise and abstract, the meaning of objects returned by as depends on implementation. e.g. a system that uses IndirectValues may use one to store a rational number, where as(Long.class) returns a 64-bit number that unconventionally encodes both the numerator and denominator; i.e. not the usual meaning of a `Long`! It's probably good practice to avoid overriding classes that have an 'obvious' alternate meaning, and to represent such encodings using the IndirectValue system itself; i.e. using a tag that specifically means 'rational number represented as an integer using funny encoding X', and then as(Long.class) or as(Integer.class) would return that encoding.