Project 1: Implement new type cache and JSON converters

[warriordog]

Implement new Type Cache and JSON converters based on the result of research in #77.

Additional work merged from #78: Design and build new TypeInfo cache. Ideally, we can make the entire conversion process fully generic like JsonPropertyInfo. That opens up the possibility of using Static Virtual Interface Members to avoid some reflection.

Additional work merged from #51: AS types should be compared with exact case. An older version of this code was incorrectly case-ignorant, and some vestiges of that still remain. Everything should be fixed to be case-sensitive, with tests to verify this behavior.

More info: https://github.com/warriordog/ActivityPubSharp/issues/74#issuecomment-1660685784

[warriordog]

Blocked by the linked research stories.

[warriordog]

No longer blocked - working this along with #78

[warriordog]

Idea:

• New ASBaseConstructor (NOT converter) which constructs a lone ASBase type from input JSON. This will contain most of the logic from the existing ASTypeConverter. Research: will this let us remove the manual conversion??
• New TypeMapConverter which builds a type graph based on the input. This is 100% based on the input and takes no heuristics from the declared type. Uses ASBaseConstructor
• New ASBaseConverter which converts a TypeMap from the input (using TypeMapConverter) then extracts the requested type from it.
  • If the requested type isn't present, then attempt to expand the graph by manually callingASBaseConstructor`.
• ASTypeConverter assumes that anything deriving from ASType has no properties. As such, it can work like this:
  1. Convert the input into a TypeMap
  2. Construct instance of type with the type map as parameter

Problem: collections (resolved by #82)

[warriordog]

Idea 2 (attempting to remove manual conversion):

• Convert custom serialization stuff to static virtual interfaces
• Remove property-level custom serialization
• Global ASTypeConverter:
  • Serialization: pass through serialize TypeMap
  • Deserialization:
    1. Convert input to TypeMap
    2. Pass it to constructor of target type
• Global TypeMapConverter:
  • Implement generic-extends-abstract stub type to encapsulate static callbacks
    • Keep a cache of these with a lookup based on type
  • Serialization:
    1. Create JsonNode to hold output
    2. Attempt TrySerializeIntoValue. If multiple types have this, then bail.
    3. Serialize each type into the JsonNode created above
    4. Write merged node
  • Deserialization:
    1. Construct empty TypeMap
    2. Read types from input JSON
    3. If no types were read, then infer from shape: (smol hack)
       • string -> ASLink
       • object -> ASObject
       • anything else -> JsonException
    4. Convert each type (from the SAME input JSON):
    5. Attempt TryDeserialize
    6. Attempt NarrowJsonType
    7. Deserialize final type
    8. Attach to map
• :heavy_check_mark: No re-entry

[warriordog]

TODO: see above "change needed" comment

[warriordog]

Exploring custom contract resolver as possible help

[warriordog]

Easier solution - I think we can just remove the TypeMap from the entity and then add a no-args constructor overload.

Update: this should work! We need to replace ASLinkEntity.HasOnlyHRef, since it depends on ASTypeEntity. but that's the only broken case.

[warriordog]

Done