Folks,
I'm trying to write a custom CForms datatype. I'd have some general
considerations about how hard this is, considering the need to patch
cocoon.xconf to extend the forms type system, which makes me want to go
growing vineyards in the hillsides (do we really need all this Avalon
stuff just to configure a set of factories?), but I'll leave that for
another thread.
Anyway, my problem at the moment is that I started by copying
StringType and StringTypeBuilder and trying to modify them for my
needs. I also copied them to a package belonging to my application and
outside of o.a.c.forms.datatype.typeimpl. This datatype is peculiar to
my app and it makes no sense as part of Cocoon.
Unfortunately, this breaks StringTypeBuilder (which is now called, say,
MyTypeBuilder) because it does things like:
type.setArrayType(arrayType);
type.setBuilder(this);
those methods are inherited from AbstractDatatype, where they are
declared as "protected". Thus, I was painfully reminded that protected
members in Java are visible not only to subclasses, but to all other
classes in the same package as well! As long as StringTypeBuilder is in
the same package as AbstractDatatype, all is well, but as soon as I
copy it to com.example.mypackage.MyTypeBuilder, it doesn't compile
anymore.
Now, there's a quick workaround to that: I could just override the
methods in MyType and delegate to super. Somehow I think this is not
very elegant.
I'd like to make them public, but this bugs me a little, as it means
increasing the "surface complexity" of AbstractDatatype. However, I
cannot think of a better solution. Do you?
Ugo
--
Ugo Cei
Tech Blog: http://agylen.com/
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