I'm trying to implement a sorted linked list in golang. And I'm having a hard time coming up with a generic way to make the linked list work with any type that can by compared with itself. Since its a sorted list, I want the 'go compiler' to ensure that the values being inserted into the linked list can be compared.
For example,
import "linkedlist"
type Person struct {
name string
}
func main() {
l := linkedlist.New()
p := Person{"Jay"}
l.insert(p)
}
In the above example, how do I make the compiler ensure that the value 'p' which has type 'Person' can be compared with another value which also has type 'Person'. I want the compiler to catch the error in those situations where the value being inserted is not an appropriate value.
I can do something like this,
import "linkedlist"
type Element interface {
func IsGreater(v Element{}) bool
}
type Person struct {
name string
age int
}
func (p *Person) IsGreater(p1 interface{}) bool {
if ok, v := p1.(Person); ok && p.age > v.age {
return true
}
return false
}
And then, within the "insert" function of the linked list I can use the IsGreater
function to decide where to place the Element in the linked list.
My question is...
I've already gone through sort.Sort and seen how its done in that package. The way its done there is to create a new type for a slice of the type and then make that new type fulfill the sort interface by implementing Len, Less and Swap.
I can probably do the same thing here in my case as well. But having to create a new slice type and then implement a few functions to satisfy an interface, when I'll only be dealing with 2 values of the same type at a time.. seems a bit overkill to me.
Because Golang do not support generics, So all of containers should use interface{} and type assert, I think no better solution for your requirement.
Library functions for this already exist:
http://golang.org/pkg/container/list/
http://golang.org/pkg/container/ring/
You can compare the lists with reflect.DeepEqual
.
If you want to implement a linked list that uses type checking, make an embedded struct for the list type MyLinkedList struct { *list.List}
and one for the items in the list type Element struct{ *List.Element }
. You can then implement all the methods of list.List
and over-ride as necessary with your type checks.