Template-based Preprocessing

[Bruno Medeiros]

Don Clugston wrote:
> Garett Bass wrote:
>> Don Clugston wrote:
>>> I've previously suggested the 'identifier' keyword for string pasting.
>>> Stringizing is already possible, you can find the code for 
>>> symbolnameof!() in dsource/ddl/meta, together with qualifiednameof!() 
>>> which is significantly more powerful than anything in C++.
>>
>> Thanks, Don!  I now recall your suggestion from a thread I prompted 
>> about a year ago.  I've updated my example to use your suggested 
>> 'identifier' keyword, as this obviates the need for my suggested 
>> 'token' keyword:
>>
>>    template Serializable(T, char[] I) {
>>        T identifier(I);
>>           string identifier("serialize_" ~ I)() {
>>            return toString(identifier(I));
>>        }
>>    }
>>
>>    class Foo {
>>        mixin Serializable!(int, "i");
>>    }
>>
>> Foo should expand to the equivalent of:
>>
>>    class Foo {
>>        int i;
>>
>>        string serialize_i() {
>>            return toString(i);
>>        }
>>    }
>>
>> Do you have any idea what's involved in implementing the 'identifier' 
>> keyword as described here?
> 
> I don't know. It's clearly easy to get through the syntactic pass. But 
> does it cause problems during name lookup?
> 
> More importantly, would it encourage bad coding styles? IMHO, it needs 
> some convincing use cases -- or, if Walter gets more experimental 
> post-1.0, this would be an extremely cool thing to try out. (It would 
> kill one of the last metaprogramming things C++ still has compared to D).

Indeed I was about to ask that too, what would be the use of such a 
feature? I have to say I'm a bit skeptical, it feels way hackish.

I've read Kirk's reply about Python/C API, but it is only required there 
  because Python interfacing requires manipulation of object code 
implementation-level semantics (the function names), as could require 
any other interfacing with a C library .
But what about any actual "conceptual"/"design" use?

-- 
Bruno Medeiros - MSc in CS/E student
http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?BrunoMedeiros#D