Method compareData

src/main/java/wycc/util/AbstractItem.java:250–294

Compare the data object associated with a given syntactic item. An important question here is what kinds of data are actually permitted. At this stage, it's not completely clear. However, at least: Boolean , BigInteger , String and byte[] . For simpl

(Object leftData, Object rightData)

	 * @return
	 */
	private int compareData(Object leftData, Object rightData) {
		if(leftData == null || rightData == null) {
			if(leftData == rightData) {
				return 0;
			} else if(leftData == null) {
				return -1;
			} else {
				return 1;
			}
		}
		// At this point, we have two non-null data items. Therefore, we need to
		// determine whether they refer to the same kind of item or to different
		// kinds. In the latter case, we need to determine the relative ordering
		// of kinds.
		int leftKind = getDataKind(leftData);
		int rightKind = getDataKind(rightData);
		if(leftKind != rightKind) {
			return leftKind - rightKind;
		} else {
			switch(leftKind) {
			case 0: // Boolean
				return ((Boolean)leftData).compareTo((Boolean)rightData);
			case 1: // BigInteger
				return ((BigInteger)leftData).compareTo((BigInteger)rightData);
			case 2: // String
				return ((String)leftData).compareTo((String)rightData);
			default:
				// byte[]
				byte[] leftBytes = (byte[]) leftData;
				byte[] rightBytes = (byte[]) rightData;
				if(leftBytes.length != rightBytes.length) {
					return leftBytes.length - rightBytes.length;
				} else {
					for(int i=0;i!=leftBytes.length;++i) {
						int c = Byte.compare(leftBytes[i], rightBytes[i]);
						if(c != 0) {
							return c;
						}
					}
					//
					return 0;
				}
			}
		}
	}

	private int getDataKind(Object o) {
		if (o instanceof Boolean) {