I hate it when I am too clever for my own good...

[irneb]

You could of course go the fully OO route and make your own "number" class. I.e. the way you'd have done it prior to generics. Then add some implied conversion overloads so you don't need to manually type-cast your int/double/decimal/etc. You could then even accommodate other more complicated data types (e.g. to generate moving averages on a candle-stick-chart with 3 values per item: open, avg, close). BTW, for the data sample I'd go with either a double linked list (LinkedList with max length) or a circular array, not an Array List as you've done in your sample code (that's implemented as a flat array so a remove from index 0 means it shifts all samples down by 1, if you reverse the order then each insert would shift all items up by 1). Seeing as mostly you'd calculate by iterating over each item in the "list" and you'd not want to move all the samples in the array each time you get a new one the linked list should suffice for this purpose. The circular array I'd only use if I know the size sample will not change after initially creating the object and if I need to reference specific items by index. You could use a Queue type for this, as well. I "think" it's implemented as a linked list anyway. Here's what I'm thinking:

public class MyNumber {
	private object \_value;
	public object Value {
		get { return \_value; }
		set {
			if ((value is int) || (value is double) || (value is decimal))
				\_value = value;
			else throw new InvalidCastException();
		}
	}
	
	public MyNumber(object val) {
		Value = val;
	}
	
	public static implicit operator MyNumber(int val) { return new MyNumber(val); }
	
	public static implicit operator int(MyNumber val) { return (int)val.\_value; }
	
	public static implicit operator MyNumber(double val) { return new MyNumber(val); }
	
	public static implicit operator double(MyNumber val) { return (double)val.\_value; }
	
	public static implicit operator MyNumber(decimal val) { return new MyNumber(val); }
	
	public static implicit operator decimal(MyNumber val) { return (decimal)val.\_value; }
}

public class MovingAverage {
	private LinkedList \_samples = new LinkedList();
	private decimal total = 0;
	public int SampleSize { get; private set; }
	public decimal Value {
		get {
			if (SampleSize < 0) return (\_samples.Count > 0) ? total / \_samples.Count : 0;
			return (\_samples.Count >= SampleSize) ? tota

[Gary Wheeler]

'Griff, I don't know if anyone else has said this, but: source control is your friend. Check-in early, check-in often.

Software Zen: delete this;

[OriginalGriff]

:laugh: I don't like to check in "partial" or non-working code. That's why I have hourly incremental backups on my PC - so I can only lose 60 minutes work (in theory - practice shows that it's normally quicker to regenerate than restore for an hour or so ago)

Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)

[Gary Wheeler]

Everyone has their own workflow that's best for them. That said, a lot of my team members make copies of working files, rather than use source control as a tool. I work with one guy who tends to keep everything checked out, and only checks in prior to doing a build for distribution. It drives me nuts, because he'll have days or even weeks worth of work that exists only on his machine (our source control data base gets backed up daily). I'm tempted to power off his machine and substitute a bad hard drive to teach him a lesson :( . My approach, at least in our development branches, is to work incrementally and check-in each successful increment. Most of the time I make the feature I'm working on disabled/invisible/inactive in release builds, until I think it's ready. This makes backtracking, which I do a lot more than I'd like to admit, simpler. Diff's are handy too when I've led myself down the proverbial garden path :sigh:.

Software Zen: delete this;

[OriginalGriff]

Gary Wheeler wrote:

Everyone has their own workflow that's best for them.

Very true. It's a fine balance, I think: I don't like a checked in version that won't run, or throws continual NotImplementedExceptions, and I try to avoid thinking of version control as a backup system! :laugh: Instead I have my NAS and automatic incremental backups that I don't even see, much less think about. I can understand both you and your team member's position: he doesn't want to issue code that he isn't sure is final in case it gets used and has to become final by default. But you want it backed up so weeks can't be lost... Perhaps a "proper" backup system for your PCs to work alongside the SVN/GIT route would be useful? I know damn well I wouldn't want to have to rebuild my current PC without good backups - it would take me days to get the software all back on and configured! :-D

Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)

[Gary Wheeler]

We do have a backup system available; it requires some individual initiative to use it. Some do, some don't. Based on prior experience, our herd of cats doesn't work well with an automated backup mechanism.

OriginalGriff wrote:

SVN/GIT

If only. We're still using SourceSafe, believe it or not. One of my 'spare time' projects (yeah, right) is to get our source control moved to something else this year. Current candidates are MS Team Foundation and SourceGear Vault. My uninformed impression is that Git wouldn't work for us, based on its apparent complexity.

Software Zen: delete this;

[James Curran]

There a issue on Connect to add IArithmetic interface to the value types, but it seems to be going nowhere. https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/94264/arithmetic-types-like-int-double-decimal-should-implement-iarithmetic-t (NOTE: for some reason, going to that link gives an error -- Other issues are displaying OK)

Truth, James

[Richard Deeming]

You can use the System.Linq.Expressions namespace to create generic operators quite easily. For example, see Marc Gravell's Generic Operators[^] from the MiscUtil library[^].

public static class GenericOperator<T>
{
private static Func<T, T, TResult> CreateCore<TResult>(Func<Expression, Expression, BinaryExpression> body)
{
try
{
Type typeT = typeof(T);
var left = Expression.Parameter(typeT, "left");
var right = Expression.Parameter(typeT, "right");

        if (typeT.IsEnum)
        {
            Type enumType = Enum.GetUnderlyingType(typeT);
            var x = Expression.Convert(left, enumType);
            var y = Expression.Convert(right, enumType);

            Expression op = body(x, y);
            if (op.Type == enumType) op = Expression.Convert(op, typeT);

            return Expression.Lambda<Func<T, T, TResult>>(op, left, right).Compile();
        }

        return Expression.Lambda<Func<T, T, TResult>>(body(left, right), left, right).Compile();
    }
    catch (InvalidOperationException ex)
    {
        string message = ex.Message;
        return delegate { throw new InvalidOperationException(message); };
    }
    catch (ArgumentException ex)
    {
        string message = ex.Message;
        return delegate { throw new InvalidOperationException(message); };
    }
}

private static Lazy<Func<T, T, TResult>> Create<TResult>(Func<Expression, Expression, BinaryExpression> body)
{
    return new Lazy<Func<T, T, TResult>>(() => CreateCore<TResult>(body), true);
}

private static readonly Lazy<Func<T, T, T>> \_add = Create<T>(Expression.Add);

public static Func<T, T, T> Add
{
    get { return \_add.Value; }
}

...

}

---

"These people looked deep within my

[Simon ORiordan from UK]

Overloaded operators? Can we do those? In C#? :doh:

[Simon ORiordan from UK]

Rebuild PC? Oh. Right. Mine's a company XP machine. The fun should all kick off in about a month.:~

[OriginalGriff]

Yep! But not in generics...the generic parameter (as far as the compiler is concerned) derives directly from object unless it is constrained so you can't use methods other than those that apply to object. And you can't constrain to basic types...There's an interesting interview covering this here: http://www.artima.com/intv/generics.html[^]

Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)

[OriginalGriff]

I meant when the HDD goes south, as it will one day. But upgrade the PC / OS and you get a long job as well...:~

Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. --- George Santayana (December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) Those who fail to clear history are doomed to explain it. --- OriginalGriff (February 24, 1959 – ∞)

[RafagaX]

You know, sometimes going backwards it's the only way to go forward. ;P

CEO at: - Rafaga Systems - Para Facturas - Modern Components for the moment...

[Moreno Airoldi]

I had exactly the same issue a few years ago when I built a ring buffer class to calculate a moving average. Indeed, it would be nice to be able to have something like an INumeric interface or a way to filter generics which can support arithmetic! In the end I just used doubles, which was more than OK for my specific needs and allowed me to use the same class with ints and such. :)

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice, but not in practice. - Anonymous A computer is a stupid machine with the ability to do incredibly smart things, while computer programmers are smart people with the ability to do incredibly stupid things. They are, in short, a perfect match. - B. Bryson