when<T, V> function

V? when<T, V>(T value, Map<T, V Function()> branches)

when defines a conditional expression with multiple branches.

It is similar to the switch statement in Dart. In its simplest form it looks like this:

when(x, {
  1: () => print('x == 1'),
  2: () => print('x == 2'),
}).orElse(() => print('x is neither 1 nor 2'));

when matches its argument against all branches sequantially until a branch condition is satisified.

when can be used either as an expression, or as a statement. If it is used as an expression, the value of the satisfied branch becomes the value of the expression. And if it is used as a statement, the values of the branches are ignored.

If none of the branches matched it will return null. The OrElse can be used for returning a value when it returned null.

If many cases should be handled the same way, the branch condition can be a List:

when(x, {
  [0, 1]: () => print('x == 0 or x == 1'),
}).orElse(() => print('otherwise'));

Unlike the switch statement in dart, we can use arbitary expressions as branch conditions:

when(x, {
  int.parse(s): () => print('s encodes x'),
}).orElse(() => print('s does not encode x'));

Using the isIn and isNotIn methods we can also check if the value is in a List:

when(x, {
  isIn(range(0, to: 10)): () => print('x is in the range'),
  isIn(validNumbers): () => print('x is valid'),
  isNotIn(range(10, to: 20)): () => print('x is outside the range'),
}).orElse(() => print('none of the above'));

It is also possible to check if a value isType or isNotType:

bool hasPrefix(dynamic x) {
  return when(x, {
    isType<String>(): () => x.startsWith('prefix'),
  }).orElse(() => false);
}

Note: There is currently no smartcasting in place so you might not get autocompletion on methods and properties of the given type.

If you need smartcasting you can supply the T and V type arguments.

Implementation

V? when<T, V>(T value, Map<T, V Function()> branches) {
  assert(branches.isNotEmpty);

  for (final key in branches.keys) {
    if ((key == value) || (key is List && key.contains(value)) || (key is _WhenCheck && key(value))) {
      final branch = branches[key];
      if (branch != null) {
        return branch();
      }
    }
  }
  return null;
}