Unification and extension of compile-time reflection

[Lars Ivar Igesund]

Nick Sabalausky wrote:

> "Bill Baxter" <wbaxter at gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:mailman.54.1227583827.22690.digitalmars-d at puremagic.com...
> On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 11:48 AM, Ary Borenszweig <ary at esperanto.org.ar>
> wrote:
>>> I liked the way you wrote this. :-)
>>>
>>> I think neither __traits nor a property is good enough for compile-time
>>> reflection. I think just one property is enough.
>>>
>>> For example in Java you do:
>>>
>>> someInstance.getClass()
>>>
>>> and then you enter "the reflection world", which uses the same language
>>> as
>>> Java, but it's at a different level.
>>>
>>> So:
>>>
>>> var.reflect
>>>
>>> or something like that would be awesome. Then you can do:
>>>
>>> - something.reflect.methods
>>> - something.reflect.isVirtual
>>> - something.reflect.isAbstract
>>> - something.reflect() // same as something.reflect.compileTimeValue
>>> - something.reflect.fields
>>> - etc.
>>>
>>> So you just don't allow "reflect" (or whatever) as a field name (if you
>>> define it, it's an error, much like "sizeof"), but once you enter
>>> "reflect"
>>> the compiler can add as many name as it wants, nobody can override
>>> these. "reflect" is smart so that for an expression, it return a
>>> specific (compile-time) type; for classes, another (compile-time) type;
>>> for variables, another (compile-time) type; etc.
>>
>>Or you could just call it traits.
>>
>>something.traits.methods
>>something.traits.max
>>something.traits.sizeof
>>(1+34.).traits.typeof
>>
>>I do like the general idea of unifying this stuff.  Can you make an
>>alias or variable of this .traits/.reflect type?  Can it return a
>>metaclass type of some sort so that an alias would be possible?  I.e.
>>alias t = something.traits;
>>
> 
> That would make it much easier to port over Java code that uses
> reflection. And even aside from that, I think it's a very nice and clean
> solution.

vote++

-- 
Lars Ivar Igesund
blog at http://larsivi.net
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