Exposed KVCollectionValue

[kingsznhone]

When doing some data extraction, the operation like

List<KVObject> collection = ((KVCollectionValue)app.Data["config"]["launch"]).children;

was not allowed due to the Internal Access Modifiers.

In some situation, KVCollectionValue is much handy than abstract KVValue

[yaakov-h]

Publicly exposing the inner List ties us to that particular implementation forever, and allows consumers to bypass any validation on the members (currently that is just nullability).

What is your actual use-case?

[kingsznhone]

I'm analyzing appinfo.vdf. With SteamAppInfoParser
There are many games with multiple start options.
When I'm trying to get index of each start option.
I Must use Indexer like var options = AppData["config"]["launch"] that return a KVValue (actually KVCollectionValue)
This KVValue Contains multiple children with diffirient name (int index number).

The index number was not always increment by 1.
I don't know how many items insides options.
So I can't keep using indexer like options["index"]

The only way is to iterate the options.children to exract infomations that I'm intrerested in.
I can't do that without exposed iterable properties.

This situation is similar when analyzing libraryfolders.vdf

[yaakov-h]

Casting it to IEnumerable<KVObject> should let you enumerate the children, giving you access to both the names and values.

[kingsznhone]

Casting it to IEnumerable<KVObject> should let you enumerate the children, giving you access to both the names and values.

Thanks. That helps.
But I'll keep my opion on Publicly exposing.
This kind of explicit conversion seems too obscured than List<T> to me.
this might be a programming philosophy that I can't understand.

What if adding ToList() method on Class KVValue with inner Type judgment.

If there is a collection value, return a list, otherwise throw exception.

[xPaw]

See #21

[kingsznhone]

See #21

yea, casting IEnumerable<T> makes APIs more complicated.

There is another confused method public override int ToInt32(IFormatProvider provider)

Although I can call value.ToInt32(null).
But I think adding a value.ToInt32() method is much more convenient and clear.
Handy to consumers, without digging into source code.

[yaakov-h]

You should be able to simply cast the value to int if you don't have a particular culture to use etc.:

https://github.com/SteamDatabase/ValveKeyValue/blob/master/ValveKeyValue/ValveKeyValue.Test/KVObjectCastTestCase.cs#L103

[yaakov-h]

Closing in favour of #30 to provide a more wholistic API redesign.