deepequal-gen

A tool for auto-generating DeepEqual functions

Overview

This tool is based on the Kubernetes® deepcopy-gen tool found here: https://github.com/kubernetes/gengo/tree/master/examples/deepcopy-gen

Given a list of input directories, it will generate DeepEqual methods that efficiently perform a full deep equal operation of each type. If these methods already exist (i.e., are predefined by the developer), they are used instead of generating new ones.

The DeepEqual methods generated by this tool are presented as alternatives to the reflect.DeepEqual which performs slower and requires that arrays/slices be sorted in the same order to report equality.

The methods generated by this tool can override the default array/slice comparison approach to allow two slices with different element orders to report equality without first needing to sort the slices being compared. This functionality is disabled by default. To enable this optional behaviour the type must be annotated with the 'deepequal:unordered-array' tag. For example, annotating the following type with this tag will generate a DeepEqual method that will return true regardless of the element order of the slices being compared as long as they both contain the equivalent elements.

// deepequal-gen:unordered-array=true
type MyList []string

The methods generated by this tool can also override the default struct comparison approach to provide custom behaviour. For applications that have a need to express certain fields as optional and want to ignore the result of comparing those specific fields if the left hand operand is a nil pointer then the 'deepequal-gen:ignore-nil-fields' tag can be applied to the struct definition. For example, given the following struct it may be desirable to consider to instances as equal regardless of the value of the dereferenced 'age' field.

// +k8s:deepequal-gen:ignore-nil-fields=true
type MyStruct struct {
    Name string `json:"name"`
    Address string `json:"address"`
    Age *int `json:"age,omitempty"`
}

a := MyStruct{Name: "John", Address: "Somewhere"}
ageB := 30
b := MyStruct{Name: "John", Address: "Somewhere", Age: &ageB}
ageC := 31
c := MyStruct{Name: "John", Address: "Somewhere", Age: &ageC}

a.DeepEqual(&b) == true
b.DeepEqual(&c) == false

All generation is governed by comment tags in the source. Any package may request DeepEqual generation by including a comment in the file-comments of a doc.go file, of the form: deepequal-gen=package

DeepEqual functions can be generated for individual types, rather than the entire package by specifying a comment on the type definition of the form: deepequal-gen=true

When generating for a whole package, individual types may opt out of DeepEqual generation by specifying a comment on the type definition of the form: deepequal-gen=false

Warning: This module should be considered experimental. It was developed and tested with a specific set of usecases in mind. It should not be considered a complete implementation that will handle all possible type implementations. If you plan on using this module you should implement a comprehensive set of unit tests in your application to ensure that the behaviour that your application requires is implemented as expected.

Project License

The license for this project is the Apache 2.0 license. Text of the Apache 2.0 license and other applicable license notices can be found in the LICENSE file in the top level directory. Each source file should include a license notice that designates the licensing terms for the respective file.

Legal Notices

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