Why is DictHelper casting all object values to String ?

[jsimons]

Hi,

The DictHelper class at the moment is casting all values added to its
internal dictionary to strings.
Does anyone know of any reason why?

If there isn't one, I would like to submit a patch so that it removes
the casting and allows to store any object types.

The reason for this is so that we can use it in situations like:
$Url.For($Dict.CreateN("action", "myaction").N("controller",
"mycontroller").N("querystring", $Dict.CreateN("t", "param1").N("s",
"param2")))
or
$Url.For($Dict.CreateN("action", "myaction").N("controller",
"mycontroller").N("params", $Dict.CreateN("t", "param1").N("s",
"param2")))

Cheers
John

[James Curran]

Mainly because, originally, you created an entries with
Create("action=myaction","controller=mycontroller");

This led to people doing things like Create("ID="+id.ToString()); so
I added the N() syntax to simplify things. But, since they were both
strings before, so I kept them strings in the patch.

Also, I believe the very original purpose was to create query strings,
which were, by necessity, strings.

--
Truth,
James

On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 8:03 PM, jsimons <johnsi...@yahoo.com.au> wrote:

> The DictHelper class at the moment is casting all values added to its
> internal dictionary to strings.

> The reason for this is so that we can use it in situations like:

[jsimons]

but if that is the reason why is the N and CreateN method signature:
(string key, object value) ?

at the moment a simple test like this breaks:

[Test]
public void MyBrokenTest()
{
IDictionary dict = DictHelper.CreateN("int", 1).N("bool", true);

Assert.AreEqual(1, dict["int"]);
Assert.AreEqual(true, bool);
}

As a consumer of this class I was expecting this test to pass.

I guess we could either:
1. change the methods signature to (string key, string value) -> this
is a breaking change
2. allow objects to be stored in the dictionary by removing the
ToString cast -> this would not break the interface

thoughts?

On Oct 25, 12:12 pm, "James Curran" <james.cur...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Mainly because, originally, you created an entries with
> Create("action=myaction","controller=mycontroller");
>
> This led to people doing things like Create("ID="+id.ToString());  so
> I added the N() syntax to simplify things. But, since they were both
> strings before, so I kept them strings in the patch.
>
> Also, I believe the very original purpose was to create query strings,
> which were, by necessity, strings.
>
> --
> Truth,
>     James
>

[jsimons]

oops made a mistake on the test:

[Test]
public void MyBrokenTest()
{
IDictionary dict = DictHelper.CreateN("int",
1).N("bool", true);

Assert.AreEqual(1, dict["int"]);

Assert.AreEqual(true, dict["bool"]);

[Gildas]

I had problems with this too.

Take the "ajax" prefixed options of the Jquery validation generator as
an example. This is the reason why the options are prefixed. At first,
I wanted a sub dictionary with those options.

[jsimons]

I've submitted a patch to fix this issue:
http://support.castleproject.org/projects/MR/issues/view/MR-ISSUE-501
Can someone please have a look at it.

Cheers
John