To be precise, I am trying to flatten a tree and I am stuck on trying to get the values of private attributes in a generic class using a generic function.
I have attached the classes to show how the tree is structured exactly. But it's looks something like this:
/|\
1 | 6
/|\
5 4 9
I am going to paste my attempt at the end. First, let me introduce the classes:
Triple simply stores three values of the same type.
public class Triple<V> {
private final V l, m, r;
public Triple(V l, V m, V r) {
this.l = l;
this.m = m;
this.r = r;
}
public V left() { return l; }
public V middle() { return m; }
public V right() { return r; }
}
Straightforward interface:
public interface Function<P, R> {
R apply(P p);
}
Now, for a tricky class. This one is simply a type that stores one of EitherOr of two types of value, but not both.
public class EitherOr<A,B> {
// Constructs a left-type EitherOr
public static <A> EitherOr left(A a) {
return new EitherOr(a, null);
}
// Constructs a right-type EitherOr
public static <B> EitherOr right(B b) {
return new EitherOr(null, b);
}
private final A a;
private final B b;
private EitherOr(A a, B b) {
this.a = a; this.b = b;
}
public<T> T ifLeft(Function<A,T> f) {
return f.apply(a);
}
public<T> T ifRight(Function<B,T> f) {
return f.apply(b);
}
public boolean isLeft() {
return b == null;
}
}
I know this is getting long, but bear with me. This class implements the tree structure.
public interface Tree<T> {
EitherOr<T, Triple<Tree<T>>> get();
static final class Leaf<T> implements Tree<T> {
public static <T> Leaf<T> leaf (T value) {
return new Leaf<T>(value);
}
private final T t;
public Leaf(T t) { this.t = t; }
@Override
public EitherOr<T, Triple<Tree<T>>> get() {
return EitherOr.left(t);
}
}
static final class Node<T> implements Tree<T> {
public static <T> Tree<T> tree (T left, T middle, T right) {
return new Node<T>(Leaf.leaf(left), Leaf.leaf(middle), Leaf.leaf(right));
}
private final Triple<Tree<T>> branches;
public Node(Tree<T> left, Tree<T> middle, Tree<T> right) {
this.branches = new Triple<Tree<T>>(left, middle, right);
}
@Override
public EitherOr<T, Triple<Tree<T>>> get() {
return EitherOr.right(branches);
}
}
}
Alright. Here is my idea for flattening:
public class MyFlattenTree<T> implements FlattenTree<T> {
public List<T> flattenInOrder(Tree<T> tree) {
List<T> list = new ArrayList<T>();
EitherOr<T, Triple<Tree<T>>> EitherOr;
EitherOr = tree.get();
// it is a leaf
if (EitherOr.isLeft()) {
// This is where the problem lies
// I don't how to get the value using a function f
list.add((T) EitherOr.ifLeft(f));
return list;
}
else {
// basically recursively go through the tree somehow
}
return null;
}
}
As I said, I am stuck with trying to retreive the value in the EitherOr class using the Function interface. I am thinking of implementing the Function interface and write a function for "apply" that just gets the value, but I am not sure how to do that. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
