Alex Vincent wrote:
These two models are very different, and I must ask which I should use,
and when?
The answer to this question will matter a great deal to me, and affect
both the Cheat Sheet and future patches I submit for reviews and checkin
to mozilla.org trunk.
From irc://irc.mozilla.org/developers :
<WeirdAl> nsIVariant... what is that?
<bsmedberg> WeirdAl: it's a variant, silly ;-)
<pkasting> (Note: the real server, not the anonymous mirror)
<bsmedberg> WeirdAl: it can represent any of the core xpidl data
types, basically
<WeirdAl> oh! sweet.
<bsmedberg> WeirdAl: I *think* that there is automatic xpconnect
magic that maps variants to native JS types
<WeirdAl> bsmedberg: I'm trying to figure out when to use nsIArray and
when to use XPIDL-based arrays, and I was wondering how to put primitive types like
booleans, numbers, etc. into nsIArray
<bsmedberg> WeirdAl: we really need nsIVariantArray
<WeirdAl> bsmedberg: please don't ask me to write it
<biesi> we need nsIArray<T>
<bsmedberg> biesi: [iid_is(aIID)] nsITArray
* bsmedberg shudders
<biesi> wouldn't work for primitive types :)
<WeirdAl> bsmedberg: I posted to m.d.t.xpcom on the above question, so
I'm trying to do my homework before writing an article / tutorial / devmo amendment
<bsmedberg> WeirdAl: there aren't good guidelines
<WeirdAl> so it's an either/or situation
<bsmedberg> WeirdAl: in/out arrays have to be nsIMutableArray, of
course
<bsmedberg> but for only in or out, it's kinda a tossup
<bsmedberg> and depends on the types involved, among other things
<WeirdAl> well, in the case of nsIRegExpService, it's an array of
strings
<bsmedberg> WeirdAl: sounds like nsIArray would be quite
cumbersome for that usecase
<Waldo|mac> biesi: where some is "a lot", yes -- I still need to
submit that for addition to the general test-harness
<biesi> you can use [array] also for inout, no?
<bsmedberg> biesi: I don't think that works
<NeilAway> pkasting: how would you check whether a certain
<input> element is focused
<WeirdAl> bsmedberg: so the general sense I'm getting is that for
arrays of a single primitive type, in or out (not inout), use XPIDL-based arrays. For
anything else, use nsIArray or nsIMutableArray.
<WeirdAl> does that generally sound right?
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