Guys, is it possible to create a function for both...

# announcements

[LeoColman]

Guys, is it possible to create a function for both array and collection? They don't even have iterable in common 😞

[gildor]

No, it's not possible

[Suraj Shah]

you can make then depend on the output

fun <T> someFunc() : T {}

[gildor]

You can get iterator from array tho

[Suraj Shah]

oh but they dont have anything in common.

[LeoColman]

I can also go toList(), but I didn't want to create 2 functions xD

[Suraj Shah]

not sure, but maybe you can try something like this:

inline fun <reified T> someFunc()  : YourReturnType {
 // do your checks on T, if array or list 
}

[LeoColman]

I don't think this will work in my case, as I need it to be an extension function, and I don't want it to be in the Any namespace

[gildor]

This is a really bad way to implement it, what should happen if T is not List and not Array? IlligalArgumentException? It's essentially dynamic typing

[gildor]

Don't create 2 functions, just provide 1 function for List if it's not super performance critical (and I mean really critical)

[LeoColman]

I'll create an overload for array that calls the toList

[LeoColman]

It's for a lib, we want to take the hassle of calling toList away from the user

[gildor]

Why not just let user of your function to use toList, or even asLiwt to avoid data copying

[LeoColman]

We wanted to make using these functions as easy as possible, with matchers for many types out-of-the-box

[Suraj Shah]

yes. that would not work if it's not a list or an array.

[diesieben07]

Most people won't be using an array.

[LeoColman]

That's true

[gildor]

Anyway, it depends on case, I would just provide extension for Iterable

[LeoColman]

But Array isn't Iterable

[LeoColman]

Why isn't it, tho?

[diesieben07]

Because Array is a low-level platform-specific primitive

[gildor]

Array is not Iterable, but user of your API easily can convert it to any Iterable depending on case.
Providing an array overload imo make sense only if this API is somehow optimized for array

[gildor]

A lot of stdlib extensions are just not available for array because of the same reason