Mailing-List: contact commons-dev-help@jakarta.apache.org; run by ezmlm
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: "Jakarta Commons Developers List" <commons-dev@jakarta.apache.org>
Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2003 11:54:47 -0500 (EST)
From: Henri Yandell <bayard@generationjava.com>
To: Jakarta Commons Developers List <commons-dev@jakarta.apache.org>
Subject: [collections] Collections Next Gen
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.33.0304021147160.27959-100000@umbongo.flamefew.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII


I'm aiming to restructure the Collections API a bit. Basically an
annoyance at things like:

SequencedHashMap, when the Hash part of it shouldn't be there. Ditto for
MultiHashMap etc etc.

I've one question I'd like to air-out first though:

ProxyMap has a constructor which takes a Map. It uses this map as the map
it will proxy to. This is against the Collections spec, which says that a
java.util.Map implementation [and other Collections] should treat a
constructor argument of a Map as values to copy across. ie) copy-by-value
rather than copy-by-reference I guess.

I'd like to standardise this as either something we obey, or don't obey.
Personally I've never liked it and not obeyed it, as a putAll or addAll
method easily handles this functionality. Usually the Collections project
has obeyed it however, as it is an unwritten part of the specification we
are obeying. It seems we have three options I think:


1) We strictly obey the specification. A collection-type parameter to a
constructor is a copy-by-value.

2) We strictly obey our own specification, saying that collection-type
parameters mean wrapping.

3) Any extension of ProxyMap uses copy-by-reference as its specification.
So when I pass a HashMap() into a SequencedMap, it uses that HashMap as
its underlying structure.
   Any other extension of a Map uses copy-by-value, so if I pass a HashMap
into a new FastHashMap, it copies the values from the HashMap into the
FastHashMap.


I prefer number 3. My aim is to make the majority of the Collections
classes extensions of ProxyXxx classes. Anyone -1?

Hen


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: commons-dev-unsubscribe@jakarta.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: commons-dev-help@jakarta.apache.org