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Leonard Brünings commented on GROOVY-8431: ------------------------------------------ While not supporting this feature, I'd suggest to use a {{ToStringHelper}} similar to guava instead of some parameters like String toDebugString(int indentationLevel, String indentationString = '\t') this way we can be flexible, while having a standard api/way to output structured content. The {{DebugStringBuilder}} would be an interface with a default implementation, a developer/tool could choose to supply a different implementation for their needs. The GroovyObject would add a default {{toDebugString()}} method that in turn calls the overridable {{toDebugString(DebugStringBuilder builder)}} > toDebugString method as a core concept > -------------------------------------- > > Key: GROOVY-8431 > URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/GROOVY-8431 > Project: Groovy > Issue Type: Proposal > Components: GEP, groovy-jdk > Affects Versions: 3.x, 2.5.x > Reporter: mgroovy > Priority: Major > Labels: features > > * Groovy should introduce a toDebugString method as a core concept, to > separate debug to-string-conversion semantics from heavily oversubscribed > standard Java Object#toString. > * The power of this feature as a core concept lies in support to create > ## Easy to use, human readable debug output of any object > ## Creating debug output of objects owned by other objects (i.e. hierarchical > debug output) > * Adding this feature should be relatively simple, the challenge is to decide > what features/parameters toDebugString should have, because this will be hard > to change once the feature has been introduced. > * The default implementation could > ## Call the Java default Object#toString method > ## Automatically create a reflection based output (performance will probably > be bad for this, so it might be better to enable this behavior through an > annotation) > ## Returns something along the line of getClass().simpleName + '@' + > System.identityHashcode(this) (though Object#toString is probably more useful) > ## Fall back to the class' toString method (although in most cases it's most > likely not what the user wants/expects) > * An extension would be for an overloaded toDebugString to take an > indentationLevel and indentationString parameter: > {code}String toDebugString(int indentationLevel, String indentationString = > '\t'){code} > ** Implementations would be expected to indent the resulting String > accordingly, which is very helpful for > ### Complex objects which require a multi-line output to make sense of them > in a debug log > ### Outputting inner objects (e.g. a collection) owned by an object > ** Groovy default implementation could be, to indent the result of calling > toDebugString(), by scanning for newline sequences in the returned string > * Questions: > ## Is there a better name than the (relatively long) "toDebugString" ? > *** toDebugString was suggested, since it is easy to discover, and its > purpose should immediately clear > ## Should the return type of toDebugString be GString instead of String ? > *** This would allow for Groovy to process the objects embedded in the > GString differently > *** Having an additional GString toDebugGString() method might be an > alternative > ## Should there be additional parameters such as a terseness/verboseness > parameter, which indicates how compact or verbose the generated debug string > should be (implementations would be free to ignore this, of course) ? -- This message was sent by Atlassian JIRA (v7.6.3#76005)