dart gRPC: what the meaning of the function?

Question

I'm new in flutter(dart) gRPC. I'm learing the tutorial given by https://grpc.io/docs/languages/dart/basics/. But I got confused about the dart syntax in this function.

Future<Feature> getFeature(grpc.ServiceCall call, Point request) async {
  return featuresDb.firstWhere((f) => f.location == request,
      orElse: () => Feature()..location = request);
}

Actually, I don't understand what argument f means and why there is an orElse. I have found => means arrow function and it can be simply understood as return sentence, but I can't say I figure it out toally. Any explanation would be appreciated.

loganrussell48 loganrussell48 · Accepted Answer · 2020-09-11T14:31:52

firstWhere method takes a Predicate. A Predicate is just a function that takes in an object, and returns true or false. So basically it's saying "give me the first object from this list where the function I'm giving you returns true. The orElse is an optional, named parameter that says, if you've gotten to the end of the list and not a single object returned true when passed through the function I just supplied, then execute this function as a last resort and return whatever value it produces. You can think of a Predicate like a filter. It takes an object and returns true if it should pass through the filter, or false if it should not pass through the filter. firstWhere basically goes through each element checking to see if it passes through the filter, and the first time something does, it returns that element. If nothing makes it through the filter, it uses the orElse producer function to generate some value to return, since nothing made it through on it's own.

(f) => f.location == request is a function that returns true or false based on it's argument - it's a Predicate

() => Feature()..location = request is a Producer. A function that has no argument, but produces a value. In this case, a value that is equal to a new Feature with a location value equal to request. An assignment evaluates to the value that was assigned. The cascade .. ensures that the Feature will be returned, instead of the Point object, request.

So basically you can think of it like this: list.giveMeTheFirstObjectWhere(thisFunctionReturnsTrue, orElse: giveMeTheValueThisFunctionProvidesIfNoneOfTheElementsReturnedTrueUsingTheOtherFunction)

So the purpose of this code seems to be, checking if a Feature already exists, and if it does, it returns the first such Feature. If it doesn't exist, it creates a new Feature and returns it (however, this newly created one isn't automatically added to the list/db)

dart gRPC: what the meaning of the function?

1 Answers