reflection based on my experience so far on compile-time meta-programming in D as a novice user: the problems

[Paul Backus]

On Monday, 14 September 2020 at 09:14:42 UTC, Sebastiaan Koppe 
wrote:
> On Monday, 14 September 2020 at 08:01:47 UTC, FeepingCreature 
> wrote:
>> There is an easy way to convert between a token and a string: 
>> "token". Seriously, stringof should be renamed to 
>> stringof__debugOnlyReallyYouDontNeedThisForMetaprogrammingTrustMe. It's like catnip to C people. I don't know if the docs have a big fat warning saying "DO NOT USE THIS FOR METAPROGRAMMING EXCEPT FOR DEBUGGING AND ERROR MESSAGES, TRUST ME" but they probably should. Just use the name of the token metavariable!
>
> I have been trying, but there is one I can't get...
>
> ---
>
> import std;
>
> string generate(T)() {
>     return "%s bla;".format(T.stringof);
> }
>
> void main() {
>     mixin(generate!int);
>     bla = 5;
> }

Don't overthink it:

string generate(string typeName)() {
     return "%s bla;".format(typeName);
}

void main() {
     mixin(generate!"int");
     bla = 5;
}