How do I get the datatype for an App setting?

[garyjmilne]

I'm working on an app where it would be useful to know the "Type" of a particular setting. I've tried object.getClass() and instanceof but the first one seems to be blocked and the second one does not recognize "bool" as datatype.

I was just about to ask this when I found the answer. Thought it could not hurt to post the answer again.

app.updateSetting("myBooleanValue", [value:false, type:"bool"]) 
log.info("myBooleanValue is: ${myBooleanValue}")
settings.myBooleanValue.properties.each{ 
    log.info ("${it}")
}

produces output: (log reads bottom to top)

class=class java.lang.Boolean
myBooleanValue is: false

[sburke781]

I expect (and this is me recalling uni lectures from about 20+ years ago...) the second one would fail if the setting is a raw data type, or whatever the correct term is. e.g. strings are an object with a class definition, whereas I'm pretty sure a bool is the raw data type, but Boolean is a class / object. Not sure if that helps at all.

[garyjmilne]

@garyjmilne

settings.myBooleanValue.properties.each{ 
    log.info ("${it}")
}

Unfortunately this is still an open question. Using the above method on different datatypes represents by color, boolean, enum and text controls on a page.

String reports as: [class:class java.lang.String, bytes:[37, 116, 105, 109, 101, 37], empty:false]
enum reports as: [class:class java.lang.String, bytes:[56, 48], empty:false]
Boolean reports as: [class:class java.lang.Boolean]
Color reports as: [class:class java.lang.String, bytes:[35, 49, 54, 49, 55, 49, 55], empty:false]

Another dead end apparently.

[bertabcd1234]

Can you share the use case you have for this? It's possible to get the underlying object type (what you'reseeing in logs above), but I don't know of a way for the setting itself. (EDIT: Actually there is; see Bruce's post below.) There could be another approach to meet your goals if you share more that might give someone an idea.

[garyjmilne]

I’m writing an app where I need to restore a group of settings, like a profile. Each group of settings has multiple colors, booleans enums and text values in them.

To work around the issue I keep a set of maps, one would contain all the color settings and then I know to use type;color when I use app.updateSettings.

It works OK but keeping internal lists is kludgy vs making a function call.

Thanks.

[bravenel]

Use this method:

String getSettingType(String settingName)

[bertabcd1234]

I was going to suggest using instanceOf and checking the underlying data type yourself somehow (e.g., with an if or switch) since there are only a finite number of data types a setting can be, but the above approach is probably easier and something I didn't know existed.

I do see you have at least one device in your screenshot. I want to say that there is no way to transfer the value of a selected device from one setting to another (e.g., for your capability.battery input above), but thinking about webCoRE, it looks like does this from the parent to child apps/pistons (across apps at that!), so there is probably something for that, too—but I'm not able to say how, if this even is a need for you. If the list of types you provided is exhaustive, I suppose not. The others shouldn't be an issue.

[garyjmilne]

Thank you. Now works as expected.

[Jost]

@sburke781

I'm pretty sure a bool is the raw data type

Groovy handels everything as real objects.