does kotlin have a magic fromString function for use with reflection? I've got a `value: string` and...

# announcements

[groostav]

does kotlin have a magic fromString function for use with reflection? I've got a value: string and a KPropoperty1<*, T>, and I'm certain that the value is a `toString()`'d version of T and that T is a common value type (eg String, Double, or enum class). Is there a handy way for me to convert from my value to an instance of the `KProperty`'s return type? I can write the switch but I sorta feel like somebody should've handled this for me.

I've got both guava and apache commons on my classpath

[groostav]

fun KType.fromString(valueString: String) = when(val typeClassifier = classifier){
    Double::class -> {

    }
    String::class -> {

    }
    is KClass<*> -> {
        if(Enum::class.isSuperclassOf(typeClassifier)){
            
        }
        TODO()
    }
    else -> TODO("$valueString as $typeClassifier")
}

[groostav]

I could flesh that out but its a bunch of work

[Casey Brooks]

There is no strong relationship between an object and what is returned from toString. You could have it return whatever you want, and in many cases toString is intended to return a human-readable String, but not a machine-readable one.

[Casey Brooks]

That said, maybe #C7A1U5PTM is what you’re looking for?

[groostav]

yeah thats a good call, but I am thinking specificaly about java stack types, + string, + enums

[groostav]

all of which have bi-directional functinos built-in

[groostav]

(IE double.parseDouble() is a dual to double.toString()), similarly Enum.valueOf() and enum.toString() --assuming of course you have some side-channel to keep schema (IE the type

[karelpeeters]

You could put your string in some json and use whatever lib to parse that, it'll handle all of the primitives and possibly dates. It's hacky, but what you're doing is hacky in the first place!