added vector mutators

This commit is contained in:
Maor Itzkovitch
2015-08-15 14:48:47 +03:00
parent b062af4c8c
commit 7bfed4b29a
6 changed files with 130 additions and 26 deletions

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@@ -177,3 +177,48 @@ There currently is no support for parsing text (Schema's and JSON) directly
from Java or C#, though you could use the C++ parser through native call
interfaces available to each language. Please see the
C++ documentation for more on text parsing.
### Mutating FlatBuffers
As you saw above, typically once you have created a FlatBuffer, it is
read-only from that moment on. There are however cases where you have just
received a FlatBuffer, and you'd like to modify something about it before
sending it on to another recipient. With the above functionality, you'd have
to generate an entirely new FlatBuffer, while tracking what you modify in your
own data structures. This is inconvenient.
For this reason FlatBuffers can also be mutated in-place. While this is great
for making small fixes to an existing buffer, you generally want to create
buffers from scratch whenever possible, since it is much more efficient and
the API is much more general purpose.
To get non-const accessors, invoke `flatc` with `--gen-mutable`.
You now can:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~{.java}
Monster monster = Monster.getRootAsMonster(bb);
monster.mutateHp(10); // Set table field.
monster.pos().mutateZ(4); // Set struct field.
monster.mutateInventory(0, 1); // Set vector element.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We use the somewhat verbose term `mutate` instead of `set` to indicate that
this is a special use case, not to be confused with the default way of
constructing FlatBuffer data.
After the above mutations, you can send on the FlatBuffer to a new recipient
without any further work!
Note that any `mutate` functions on tables return a boolean, which is false
if the field we're trying to set isn't present in the buffer. Fields are not
present if they weren't set, or even if they happen to be equal to the
default value. For example, in the creation code above we set the `mana` field
to `150`, which is the default value, so it was never stored in the buffer.
Trying to call mutateMana() on such data will return false, and the value won't
actually be modified!
One way to solve this is to call `forceDefaults()` on a
`FlatBufferBuilder` to force all fields you set to actually be written. This
of course increases the size of the buffer somewhat, but this may be
acceptable for a mutable buffer.