D's insufficient name mangling

[Thomas Kuehne]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Apart from implementation issues like #211, #375 and #466,
D's current name mangling achieves the primary target:
> Make it possible for linkers to distinguish between different
> versions of overloaded functions.

However it fails to address the consistency issue:
> Make it possible for linkers to check that objects and
> functions are declared in exactly the same way in all modules.

The problem is that it isn't reversible,
causing all kinds of problems for runtime reflections.


issue 1: missing "static" information
#
# class C{
#    void foo(){}
#    static void bar(){}
# }
#
_D8mangling1C3fooFZv
_D8mangling1C3barFZv


issue 2: missing "struct"/"union" information
#
# union  Cat { int i; }
# struct Cow { int i; }
#
# Cat foo() { assert(0); }
# Cow bar() { assert(0); }

_init_8mangling3Cat
_init_8mangling3Cow
_D8mangling3fooFZS8mangling3Cat
_D8mangling3barFZS8mangling3Cow


issue 3: missing "const" information
#
# int X = 0;
# const int Y = 0;
#
_D8mangling1Xi
_D8mangling1Yi


issue 4: missing protection attributes

While the ELF object format used by Linux supports differentiation
of "private" and "public" (though see issue #463), 
"package" and "protected" can't be differentiated.

issue 5: missing "final" information
#
# class C{
#    final void foo() {}
#    void bar() {}
# }
#
_D8mangling1C3fooFZv
_D8mangling1C3barFZv


Especially the "static" and "struct"/"enum" issues pose a problem for
runtime reflection due to their effects on calling conventions.

Thomas


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----

iD8DBQFFUndcLK5blCcjpWoRArDfAJ48mM7rnA5kMOTQ2hNa/fAcK2wrNwCbB4C8
8oy2C9UVZeb0Hl4vaeKoKdI=
=SqZb
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----