transmittable 0.3.0

Provides a simple means of registering types with string keys and codecs to allow them to be transparently serialized to strings. These types can then be transmitted over http connections with their [...]

#Transmittable

Transmittable provides a simple way of transferring named and typed properties across http connections whilst also giving the benefit of static type checking during development.

##How To Use:

Extend off of Transmittable to make an object transmittable accross a http connection, then explicitly implement an interface for this object, but do not implement any of the interfaces getters/setters which you would like to transmit. It is a requirement that classes extending off Transmittable implement a default constructor, meaning it is not a named constructor and it takes no arguments.

bool _animalTranTypesRegistered = false;
void registerAnimalTranTypes(){
  if(_animalTranTypesRegistered){ return; }
  _animalTranTypesRegistered = true;
  registerTranTypes('Animal', 'a', (){
    registerTranSubtype('cat', Cat, () => new Cat());
  });
}

class Cat extends Transmittable implements ICat{}
abstract class ICat{
  String name;
  int age;
}

void main(){

  registerAnimalTranTypes();
  
  Cat c1 = new Cat()
  ..name = 'felix'
  ..age = 3;
  var tranStr = c1.toTranString(); // turn this cat into a transmittable string
  
  // send down http connection and then deserialise back into the cat object
  
  Cat c2 = new Transmittable.fromTranString(tranStr);
  print(c2 is Cat) // true
  print(c2.name); // felix
  print(c2.age); // 3
}

##Registered Types

Transmittable can handle, null, int, bool, String, DateTime, Duration, RegExp, Symbol, List, Set and Map out of the box without any need for further effort on the users part.

If you would like to add additional types to be transmittable or to be subtype of Transmittable simply register them using the same pattern that is used in the Transmittable library:

bool _tranTranTypesRegistered = false;
void _registerTranTranTypes(){
  if(_tranTranTypesRegistered){ return; }
  _tranTranTypesRegistered = true;
  registerTranTypes('transmittable', '', (){
    registerTranCodec(null, (o)=> '', (s) => null);
    registerTranCodec(_InternalPointer, (_InternalPointer ip) => ip._uniqueValueIndex.toString(), (String s) => new _InternalPointer(int.parse(s)));
    registerTranCodec(num, (num n) => n.toString(), (String s) => num.parse(s));
    registerTranCodec(int, (int i) => i.toString(), (String s) => int.parse(s));
    registerTranCodec(double, (double f) => f.toString(), (String s) => double.parse(s));
    registerTranCodec(String, (String s) => s, (String s) => s);
    registerTranCodec(bool, (bool b) => b ? 't' : 'f', (String s) => s == 't' ? true : false);
    registerTranCodec(List, _processIterableToString, (String s) => _processStringBackToListOrSet(new List(), s));
    registerTranCodec(Set, _processIterableToString, (String s) => _processStringBackToListOrSet(new Set(), s));
    registerTranCodec(Map, _processMapToString, _processStringBackToMap);
    registerTranCodec(RegExp, _processRegExpToString, _processStringBackToRegExp);
    registerTranCodec(Type, (Type t) => _processTypeToString(t),(String s) => _tranCodecsByKey[s]._type);
    registerTranCodec(DateTime, (DateTime d) => d.toString(), (String s) => DateTime.parse(s));
    registerTranCodec(Duration, (Duration dur) => dur.inMilliseconds.toString(), (String s) => new Duration(milliseconds: num.parse(s)));
    registerTranCodec(Symbol, (Symbol sy) => MirrorSystem.getName(sy), (String s) => MirrorSystem.getSymbol(s)); //TODO will this cause problems if multiple libraries have the same identifiers
    registerTranSubtype(Transmittable, () => new Transmittable());
  });
}

Remember this method call must be made on both the client side and the server side. This is usually best achieved by both server and client side libraries referencing a common interface library which contains this method.