Function name as text

[Bill Baxter]

Don Clugston wrote:
> Craig Black wrote:
>> "Bill Baxter" <dnewsgroup at billbaxter.com> wrote in message 
>> news:fj769h$7ou$1 at digitalmars.com...
>>> Craig Black wrote:
>>>> I have been considering porting some C++ code to D.  One of the 
>>>> classes I would have to port is an event queue class where each 
>>>> event on the queue has a delegate and a text string that points to 
>>>> the function name that the delegate refers to.  The function name is 
>>>> used to visualize the event queue for run-time debugging purposes.  
>>>> It is important to capture both the class name and the function name 
>>>> as text.
>>>>
>>>> In C++ I had a macro called DISPATCH that used the stringize 
>>>> operator # to capture the name of the function.  The good (and bad) 
>>>> thing about C++ in this case is that when specifying a pointer to a 
>>>> member, you must fully qualify the function name, so you would have 
>>>> something like this.
>>>>
>>>> class Foo {
>>>> public:
>>>>   void bar() {}
>>>> };
>>>>
>>>> Foo *foo = new Foo;
>>>> Event event = DISPATCH(foo, &Foo::bar);
>>>>
>>>> Using the stringize operator, the DISPATCH macro could capture the 
>>>> text string "Foo::bar" as well as the member function pointer.  Here 
>>>> is the equivalent code in D..
>>>>
>>>> Foo foo = new Foo;
>>>> Event event = dispatch(&foo.bar);
>>>>
>>>> Which is much more elegant, except that I can't figure out a way to 
>>>> capture the name of the function and it's class.  I tried fiddling 
>>>> with the stringof operator but that doesn't seem to work.
>>>>
>>>> Any ideas?
>>> There probably isn't a way to do it right now without using a string 
>>> mixin, which uglies things up on the calling side:
>>>
>>>      Event event = mixin(dispatch("&foo.bar"));
>>>
>>> Macros are supposed to give us a way to clean that up.  But for now 
>>> you're probably better off just passing the name separately like 
>>> dispatch(&foo.bar, "foo");
>>>
>>> --bb
>>
>> I guess that's not so bad.  It would be.
>>
>> Foo *foo = new Foo;
>> Event event = dispatch(&foo.bar, "Foo.bar");
>>
>> That is probably easier on the eyes than the mixin syntax.  It stilll 
>> would be cool if the compiler could somehow build the name automatically.
> 
> Or you could use an alias template parameter, to give the syntax:
> 
> Event event = dispatch!(foo.bar);
> 

Really?  Can you take the stringof an alias parameter and get back 
"foo.bar" ?  If so then nifty!

--bb