I'm trying to implement a sorted linked list in golang. And I'm having a hard time coming up with a generic way to make the linked list work with any type that can by compared with itself. Since its a sorted list, I want the 'go compiler' to ensure that the values being inserted into the linked list can be compared.
For example,
import "linkedlist"
type Person struct {
name string
}
func main() {
l := linkedlist.New()
p := Person{"Jay"}
l.insert(p)
}
In the above example, how do I make the compiler ensure that the value 'p' which has type 'Person' can be compared with another value which also has type 'Person'. I want the compiler to catch the error in those situations where the value being inserted is not an appropriate value.
I can do something like this,
import "linkedlist"
type Element interface {
func IsGreater(v Element{}) bool
}
type Person struct {
name string
age int
}
func (p *Person) IsGreater(p1 interface{}) bool {
if ok, v := p1.(Person); ok && p.age > v.age {
return true
}
return false
}
And then, within the "insert" function of the linked list I can use the IsGreater function to decide where to place the Element in the linked list.
My question is...
- Is there a better way to do this? Something that is a lot better than the solution above.
I've already gone through sort.Sort and seen how its done in that package. The way its done there is to create a new type for a slice of the type and then make that new type fulfill the sort interface by implementing Len, Less and Swap.
I can probably do the same thing here in my case as well. But having to create a new slice type and then implement a few functions to satisfy an interface, when I'll only be dealing with 2 values of the same type at a time.. seems a bit overkill to me.
