Extending An Object's API With Delegation In Kotlin

Extending An Object's API With Delegation In Kotlin

12 Dec 2017

Task: Expose extra API methods for an object.

Methods:

1. Derive a new class from the class of that object, implement the extra functionality, make a new object from that new class.

   This method is suitable in cases where the new class has an “is-a” relationship with the actual class. In case you do not have access to the code that controls the actual class, you cannot be sure that it is not final. In that case you cannot use this method.

2. Define a new class that implements the interface of the original class and delegate the object to this new class. This enables us to “copy” all the functionality from the delegated object, saving us from implementing the methods in its interface on our own.

3. Use Extension Functions. This is the best method in case you do not need to store any state for the added methods.

Let us take a look at an example. We want to implement a FrequencyMap<K, Int> built upon the MutableMap<K, V> interface. This frequency map exposes new methods add(element: K, freq: Int), to add a new element with a frequency or increment the frequency of that element by an amount freq if the element already exists, add(vararg pairs: Pair<K, Int>) to do the same thing using multiple pairs of element and their frequencies, and remove(element: K, freq: Int) to reduce the frequency of an element by an amount freq or remove it if the frequency goes below 1.

We cannot use the first method directly because the MutableMap<K, V> interface does not have any default methods (forcing us to implement all the methods in it). The mutableMapOf<K, V> method returns a java.util.LinkedHashMap<K, V> type of object. This means that to use the first method, we need to derive from the java.util.LinkedHashMap<K, V> class.

Let us use the second method to implement the FrequencyMap. We implement it as:

package utils

class FrequencyMap<K, Int>(private val b: MutableMap<K, kotlin.Int>)
    : MutableMap<K, kotlin.Int> by b {
      
    fun add(key: K, freq: kotlin.Int = 1) {
        b.computeIfPresent(key) { _, b -> b + freq }
        b.putIfAbsent(key, freq)
    }

    fun add(vararg pairs: Pair<K, kotlin.Int>) {
        for (pair in pairs) {
            val (key, freq) = pair
            add(key, freq)
        }
    }

    fun removeFreq(key: K, freq: kotlin.Int = 1) {
        if (b.get(key) == null || freq < 1) return
        else if (b.get(key)!! - freq < 1) b.remove(key)
        b.computeIfPresent(key) { _, b -> b - freq }
    }
}

package utils

class FrequencyMap<K, Int>(private val b: MutableMap<K, kotlin.Int>)
    : MutableMap<K, kotlin.Int> by b {
      
    fun add(key: K, freq: kotlin.Int = 1) {
        b.computeIfPresent(key) { _, b -> b + freq }
        b.putIfAbsent(key, freq)
    }

    fun add(vararg pairs: Pair<K, kotlin.Int>) {
        for (pair in pairs) {
            val (key, freq) = pair
            add(key, freq)
        }
    }

    fun removeFreq(key: K, freq: kotlin.Int = 1) {
        if (b.get(key) == null || freq < 1) return
        else if (b.get(key)!! - freq < 1) b.remove(key)
        b.computeIfPresent(key) { _, b -> b - freq }
    }
}

Here our class implements the MutableMap<K, V> interface and takes another object b as an instantiation variable that has implemented that interface and use its methods to avoid having to implement methods of MutableMap<K, V> on our own. This delegation happens using the by keyword in Kotlin. We can then add extra methods to work on that object. We drive the above code in these two ways:

package main

import utils.FrequencyMap

fun main(args: Array<String>) {
    val mutableMapOne = mutableMapOf<Int, Int>()
    val freqMapOne = FrequencyMap<Int, Int>(mutableMapOne)
    freqMapOne.add(1, 3)
    freqMapOne.add(1, 2)
    freqMapOne.add(Pair(2, 2))
    freqMapOne.removeFreq(2, 2)
    println("FrequencyMap generated from MutableMap")
    for (i in freqMapOne) println(i)

    val mutableMapTwo = mutableMapOf<Int, Int>()
    FrequencyMap<Int, Int>(mutableMapTwo).add(3, 4)
    println("Using methods of FrequencyMap directly on MutableMap")
    for (i in mutableMapTwo) println(i)
}

package main

import utils.FrequencyMap

fun main(args: Array<String>) {
    val mutableMapOne = mutableMapOf<Int, Int>()
    val freqMapOne = FrequencyMap<Int, Int>(mutableMapOne)
    freqMapOne.add(1, 3)
    freqMapOne.add(1, 2)
    freqMapOne.add(Pair(2, 2))
    freqMapOne.removeFreq(2, 2)
    println("FrequencyMap generated from MutableMap")
    for (i in freqMapOne) println(i)

    val mutableMapTwo = mutableMapOf<Int, Int>()
    FrequencyMap<Int, Int>(mutableMapTwo).add(3, 4)
    println("Using methods of FrequencyMap directly on MutableMap")
    for (i in mutableMapTwo) println(i)
}

Which prints out:

FrequencyMap generated from MutableMap
1=5
Using methods of FrequencyMap directly on MutableMap
3=4

The type of freqMapOne is FrequencyMap<Int, Int> while the type of mutableMapTwo remains MutableMap<Int, Int>. The second way is preferable because two FrequencyMap<K, V> objects cannot be compared using the equals method inherited from the MutableMap<Int, Int> object. If we use the first way, we have to implement an equals method on our own that compares by value, not by reference. In the second way, the type of object remains the same, allowing us to use its equals.

Delegation can be used to implement multiple inheritance too! For example, if our FrequencyMap is a weird combination of a MutableMap and a Map, we can implement it as:

package utils 

class FrequencyMap<K, Int>(
    private val b: MutableMap<K, kotlin.Int>,
    private val c: Map<K, kotlin.Int>)
    : MutableMap<K, kotlin.Int> by b, Map<K, kotlin.Int> by c {
    // Do something with b and c
}

package utils 

class FrequencyMap<K, Int>(
    private val b: MutableMap<K, kotlin.Int>,
    private val c: Map<K, kotlin.Int>)
    : MutableMap<K, kotlin.Int> by b, Map<K, kotlin.Int> by c {
    // Do something with b and c
}

But now we need to implement all the conflicting methods (present in both MutableMap and Map) in FrequencyMap to avoid conflicts. Also note that only interfaces can be delegated to, so you cannot use this syntax to combine methods from MutableMap interface and the String class. In that case, it is better to use extension functions.