How to write asInstanceOfOpt[T] where T <: Any

Question

There's a handy implementation of asInstanceOfOpt, a safe version of asInstanceOf, given in the answer to How to write "asInstanceOfOption" in Scala. It appears that, Scala 2.9.1, this solution now only works with AnyRef:

class WithAsInstanceOfOpt(obj: AnyRef) {
  def asInstanceOfOpt[B](implicit m: Manifest[B]): Option[B] =
    if (Manifest.singleType(obj) <:< m)
      Some(obj.asInstanceOf[B])
    else
      None
}

Can this be rewritten to support Any?

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:55

You could use shapeless's Typeable from Miles Sabin:

Type casting using type parameter

It handles primitives and boxing:

scala> import shapeless._; import syntax.typeable._
import shapeless._
import syntax.typeable._

scala> 1.cast[Int]
res1: Option[Int] = Some(1)

scala> 1.cast[String]
res2: Option[String] = None

scala> "hello".cast[String]
res4: Option[String] = Some(hello)

scala> "foo".cast[Int]
res5: Option[Int] = None

You can see the source here to see how it's written:

https://github.com/milessabin/shapeless/blob/master/core/src/main/scala/shapeless/typeable.scala

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 31 '11 at 20:33

If you look in the Scala API the function singleType takes a parameter of type AnyRef. I don't really know the background for this decision, but it seems you need to work around it. Instead of using the method singleType I'd suggest using the classType method which basically can make a manifest for any class. It'll take a bit more code, but it could look something like this:

class WithAsInstanceOfOpt(obj : Any) {
  def asInstanceOfOpt[B : Manifest] : Option[B] =   // [B : Manifest] is shorthand for [B](implicit m : Manifest[B])
    if (Manifest.classType(manifest, obj.getClass) <:< manifest)
      Some(obj.asInstanceOf[B])
    else None
}

The above code does not work because of boxing. `1.asInstanceOfOpt[Int]` returns `None`, while `1.asInstanceOfOpt[java.lang.Integer]` returns `Some(1)` with type `Option[Integer]`. One needs to map the types manually (I'm gonna post a solution). — Blaisorblade, Sep 02 '12 at 19:11

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 02 '12 at 19:23

Here's working code for 2.9.x. It will give deprecation warnings for 2.10.x, but using ClassTag instead of Manifest and runtimeClass instead of erasure will fix them.

//Precondition: classS must have been produced through primitiveToBoxed, because v will be boxed.
def ifInstanceOfBody[T, S](v: T, classS: Class[_]): Option[S] = {
  if (v == null || !classS.isInstance(v))
    None
  else
    Some(v.asInstanceOf[S])
}
object ClassUtil {
  import java.{lang => jl}

  private val primitiveToBoxedMap = Map[Class[_], Class[_]](
    classOf[Byte] -> classOf[jl.Byte],
    classOf[Short] -> classOf[jl.Short],
    classOf[Char] -> classOf[jl.Character],
    classOf[Int] -> classOf[jl.Integer],
    classOf[Long] -> classOf[jl.Long],
    classOf[Float] -> classOf[jl.Float],
    classOf[Double] -> classOf[jl.Double],
    classOf[Boolean] -> classOf[jl.Boolean],
    classOf[Unit] -> classOf[jl.Void]
  )
  def primitiveToBoxed(classS: Class[_]) =
    primitiveToBoxedMap.getOrElse(classS, classS)
}
class IfInstanceOfAble[T](v: T) {
  def asInstanceOfOpt[S](implicit cS: Manifest[S]): Option[S] =
    ifInstanceOfBody[T, S](v, ClassUtil.primitiveToBoxed(cS.erasure))
}
implicit def pimpInstanceOf[T](t: T) = new IfInstanceOfAble(t)

Testing results:

scala> 1.asInstanceOfOpt[Int]
res9: Option[Int] = Some(1)

scala> "".asInstanceOfOpt[String]
res10: Option[String] = Some()

scala> "foo".asInstanceOfOpt[String]
res11: Option[String] = Some(foo)

scala> 1.asInstanceOfOpt[String]
res12: Option[String] = None

scala> "".asInstanceOfOpt[Int]
res13: Option[Int] = None

The code is slightly more verbose than needed here, mostly because I took it from an existing codebase of mine where I reuse ifInstanceOfBody elsewhere. Inlining into asInstanceOfOpt would fix that and shorten the code somewhat, but most of it is for primitiveToBoxedMap, and trust me that I could not find something like that available in the Scala standard library.

How to write asInstanceOfOpt[T] where T <: Any

3 Answers3

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