Getting a base type from interface when using generics

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I have a function that I cannot change, the function looks like foo(interface{}). Among some other types, this function can take a type []byte but cannot take [16]byte. I want to write a little adapter based on generics that add support for UUIDs instead of writing foo(uuid[:]), but I don't want to get hung up on specific implementations. For example, instead of

import (
    gofrsuuid "github.com/gofrs/uuid"
    googleuuid "github.com/google/uuid"
)

type AcceptedCertainTypes interface {
    int | gofrsuuid.UUID | googleuuid.UUID // | etc...
}

I want to have

type AcceptedTypes interface {
    int | ~[16]byte
}

But I have no idea how to do this. When we use certain types, it is easy to turn them into the right ones.

func rewrittenFoo[T AcceptedCertainTypes](val T) {
    var t interface{} = *new(T)
    switch t.(type) {
    case gofrsuuid.UUID:
        k := val.(gofrsuuid.UUID)
        foo(k[:])
    case googleuuid.UUID:
        k := val.(googleuuid.UUID)
        foo(k[:])
    }
}

But how to convert interface{} that contains gofrsuuid.UUID to that base type [16]byte?

go type-conversion interface generics types
1 Answers

You can't have an exhaustive type switch on a union's approximate term like ~[16]byte, because the type set by definition is unbound. You have to use reflection to extract the array type and eventually reslice it.

Only one approximate term

If the approximate term ~[16]byte is the only one in the union, you can type-switch and handle it in the default block. This is based on the compile-time type safety of type parameters, so that default block will not run with any unexpected type:

func rewrittenFoo[T int | ~[16]byte](val T) {
    switch t := any(val).(type) {
    // handle all non-approximate type cases first
    case int:
        foo(t) // t is int

    // this will be all other types in T's type set that are not int
    // so effectively ~[16]byte
    default:
        v := reflect.ValueOf(t).Convert(reflect.TypeOf([16]byte{})).Interface().([16]byte)
        foo(v[:])
    }
}

Playground: https://go.dev/play/p/_uxmWGyEW5N

Many different approximate terms

If you have many tilde terms in a union, you can't rely on default case. If the underlying types are all different, you may be able to switch on reflect.Kind:

func rewrittenFoo[T int | ~float64 | ~[16]byte](val T) {
    // handle all non-approximate type cases first
    switch t := any(val).(type) {
    case int:
        foo(t)
    }

    switch reflect.TypeOf(val).Kind() {
    case reflect.Float:
        // ...

    case reflect.Array:
        // ...
    }
}

Many similar approximate terms

Type parameters won't help much, just use any and exhaustively type-switch an all possible types. You can group types that you know have the same underlying type and use Value#Convert as shown above — or type-specific methods like Value#Int() or Value#String() —, to handle them similarly.

user_41088030
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