Function name as text

[Craig Black]

"Jarrett Billingsley" <kb3ctd2 at yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:fj79a1$d2l$1 at digitalmars.com...
> "Bill Baxter" <dnewsgroup at billbaxter.com> wrote in message 
> news:fj76f5$7ou$2 at digitalmars.com...
>> Craig Black wrote:
>>> OK I think it's possible with mixins but the syntax is ugly.  It would 
>>> be
>>>
>>> Event event = mixin(dispatch("&foo.bar"));
>>>
>>> Which leads me to an idea that has probably been proposed before.  It 
>>> would be nice if I could shorten this to simply
>>>
>>> Event event = dispatch(&foo.bar);
>>>
>>> There may be reasons why this syntax would be difficult to achieve, but 
>>> I think it would be worthwhile if we could.
>>>
>>> Thoughts?
>>
>> My understanding is that that is exactly what macros are going to do. 
>> Define dispatch as a macro, then its arguments get passed as strings.  I 
>> think the main issue is just working out the grammar and all the various 
>> compiler bits to make it work.
>>
>> --bb
>
> Ooooh.
>
> macro dispatch(&x.y)
> {
>    Event(y.stringof, &x.y)
> }
>
> Or something like that.  Then
>
> Event e = dispatch(&foo.bar);
>
> turns into
>
> Event e = Event("Foo.bar", &foo.bar);
>
> Heck, you could remove the requirement for the ugly ampersand.
>
> macro dispatch(x.y)
> {
>    Event(y.stringof, &x.y)
> }

It would be very cool if macros worked like this.  I think it would actually 
have to be

macro dispatch(&x.y)
{
   Event(typeof(x).stringof ~ "." ~ y.stringof, &x.y)
}