Saturday, November 15, 2014

Closures in C#, just like in JavaScript

How would I rewrite this JavaScript routine in C# using closure?

function makeConverter(toUnit, factor, offset) {
    offset = offset || 0;

    var converter = function (input) {
        return ((offset + input) * factor).toFixed(2) + " " + toUnit;
    };

    return converter;
}

var milesToKm = makeConverter('km', 1.60936);
var poundsToKg = makeConverter('kg', 0.45460);
var farenheitToCelsius = makeConverter('degrees C', 0.5556, -32);

log(milesToKm(10));
log(poundsToKg(2.5));
log(farenheitToCelsius(98));

You can do the same thing in C#:
public static Func<double, string> makeConverter(string toUnit, double factor, double offset = 0.0)
{
    return (input) => string.Format("{0:0.##} {1}", (offset + input) * factor, toUnit);
}

public static void Main()
{
    var milesToKm = makeConverter("km", 1.60936);
    var poundsToKg = makeConverter("kg", 0.45460);
    var farenheitToCelsius = makeConverter("degrees C", 0.5556, -32);

    Console.WriteLine("{0}", milesToKm(10));
    Console.WriteLine("{0}", poundsToKg(2.5));
    Console.WriteLine("{0}", farenheitToCelsius(98));
}
You can further reduce it down to a single method:
public static void Main()
{
    Func<string, double, double, Func<double, string>> makeConverter =
        (toUnit, factor, offset) => (input) => string.Format("{0:0.##} {1}", (offset + input) * factor, toUnit);

    var milesToKm = makeConverter("km", 1.60936, 0.0);
    var poundsToKg = makeConverter("kg", 0.45460, 0.0);
    var farenheitToCelsius = makeConverter("degrees C", 0.5556, -32);

    Console.WriteLine("{0}", milesToKm(10));
    Console.WriteLine("{0}", poundsToKg(2.5));
    Console.WriteLine("{0}", farenheitToCelsius(98));
}
You can even use old-style can use C# 2 syntax (yes, C# has had closure since 2005)
public delegate string del_t(double input);

public static del_t makeConverter(string toUnit, double factor, double offset = 0.0)
{
    return delegate(double input) 
    {
        return string.Format("{0:0.##} {1}", (offset + input) * factor, toUnit );
    };
}

public static void Main()
{
    var milesToKm = makeConverter("km", 1.60936);
    var poundsToKg = makeConverter("kg", 0.45460);
    var farenheitToCelsius = makeConverter("degrees C", 0.5556, -32);

    Console.WriteLine("{0}", milesToKm(10) );
    Console.WriteLine("{0}", poundsToKg(2.5) );
    Console.WriteLine("{0}", farenheitToCelsius(98));
}
For comparison, if you didn't use closure, the traditional class-based way of solving this problem in C# would be:
public static void Main()
{
    var milesToKm = new Converter("km", 1.60936);
    var poundsToKg = new Converter("kg", 0.45460);
    var farenheitToCelsius = new Converter("degrees C", 0.5556, -32);

    Console.WriteLine("{0}", milesToKm.Convert(10) );
    Console.WriteLine("{0}", poundsToKg.Convert(2.5) );
    Console.WriteLine("{0}", farenheitToCelsius.Convert(98) );
}

class Converter
{
    string m_toUnit;
    double m_factor;
    double m_offset;

    public Converter(string toUnit, double factor, double offset = 0)
    {
        m_toUnit = toUnit;
        m_factor = factor;
        m_offset = offset;
    }

    public string Convert(double input)
    {
        return string.Format("{0:0.##} {1}", (m_offset + input) * m_factor, m_toUnit );
    }
}

1 comment:

ASK CARZ said...
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