context: I'm trying to make a function more generi...

# announcements

[xii]

context: I'm trying to make a function more generic so it takes two types of message, here's code which might make it more clear:

[Shawn]

please thread this

[xii]

ok, sorry!

[xii]

.let { objectMapper.readValue(it, E::class.java) }
                .let { objectMapper.readValue(it.message, T::class.java) }

[xii]

previously E was not generic, but a normal class

[xii]

and had a message property which was always a string

[xii]

(called message), now I want message to be able to be either a String or an object itself

[Shawn]

do you really need the function to be generic?

[Shawn]

can’t you just accept your Message class and treat them the same?

[Shawn]

you only really need generics if the type is important for correctness

[xii]

sorry, what do you mean accept my message class? since objectMapper is expecting message to be a string

[xii]

if it gets an object it breaks

[Shawn]

what is the type of it

[xii]

originally it was a data class Message which looked like this:

data class Message(
        @JsonProperty("Message")
        val message: String
    )

[xii]

now i want message to be either a String or an object

[Shawn]

I think you might be better served with an overload rather than trying to bend generics to work here

[xii]

can you overload a data class?

[Shawn]

have one function that takes Message, another that takes String

[xii]

ahh got you!

[xii]

thank you for your help! that seems more intuitive!