actionscript-3: refactor interface inheritance to get rid of ambiguous reference error
- by maxmc
hi!
imagine there are two interfaces arranged via composite pattern, one of them has a dispose method among other methods:
interface IComponent extends ILeaf {
...
function dispose() : void;
}
interface ILeaf {
...
}
some implementations have some more things in common (say an id) so there are two more interfaces:
interface ICommonLeaf extends ILeaf {
function get id() : String;
}
interface ICommonComponent extends ICommonLeaf, IComponent {
}
so far so good. but there is another interface which also has a dispose method:
interface ISomething {
...
function dispose() : void;
}
and ISomething is inherited by ICommonLeaf:
interface ICommonLeaf extends ILeaf, ISomething {
function get id() : String;
}
As soon as the dispose method is invoked on an instance which implements the ICommonComponent interface, the compiler fails with an ambiguous reference error because ISomething has a method called dispose and ILeaf also has a dispose method, both living in different interfaces (IComponent, ISomething) within the inheritace tree of ICommonComponent.
I wonder how to deal with the situation if
the IComponent, the ILeaf and the ISomething can't change.
the composite structure must also work for for the ICommonLeaf & ICommonComponent
implementations and the ICommonLeaf & ICommonComponent must conform to the ISomething type.
this might be an actionscript-3 specific issue. i haven't tested how other languages (for instance java) handle stuff like this.
