I assumed that, since GenNode is composed of copyable and
assignable types, the standard implementation will do.
But I overlooked the run time type check on the opaque
payload type within lib::Variant. When a type mismatch
is detected, the default implementation has already
assigned and thus altered the IDs.
So we need to roll our own implementation, and to add
insult to injury, we can't use the copy-and-swap idiom either.
...to avoid warnings when deriving a publicly visible type
from that interface. Newer GCC and CLang versions emit
warnings when details from an anonymous implementation
namespace will leak into type signatures visible outside
the translation unit. In this case here, it's the VTable.
over time, we got quite a jungle with all those
shome-me-the-type-of helper functions.
Reduced and unified all those into
- typeString : a human readable, slightly simplified full type
- typeSymbol : a single word identifier, extracted lexically from the type
note: this changeset causes a lot of tests to break,
since we're using unmangeled type-IDs pretty much everywhere now.
Beore fixing those, I'll have to implement a better simplification
scheme for the "human readable" type names....
our minimal compiler requirement is gcc-4.9 since the
transition to Debian/Jessie as reference system.
gcc-4.9 is known to treat SFINAE on private fields properly
contrary to the Visitor, accepting a Predicate is const,
and -- of course -- the Predicate invocation returns bool.
This can be used to implement comparison operators or
search functions on Variant based data structures.
Note: not fixing all relevant warnings.
Especially, the "-Woverloaded-virtual" of Clang defeats the whole purpose
of generated generic interfaces. For example, our Variant type is instantiated
with a list of types the variant can hold. Through metaprogramming, this
instantiation generates also an embedded Visitor interface, which has
virtual 'handle(TY)' functions for all the types in question
The client now may implement, or even partially implement this Visitor,
to retrieve specific data out of given Variant instance with unknown conent.
To complain that some other virtual overload is now shaddowed is besides the point,
so we might consider to disable this warning altogether
especially I've now decided how to handle const-ness:
We're open to all forms of const-ness, the actual usage decides.
const GenNode will only expose a const& to the data values
still TODO is the object builder notation for diff::Record
to carry out that rather obvious step, I was bound to consider
all the implications of choosing a given layout and handling pattern
for our external structure representation.
Finally, I settled upon the following decisions
- the value space represented within the DataCap is flat, not further structured
- the distinction between "attribute" and "nested object" is merely conceptual
and will be enforced solely by the diff detection / representation protocol
- basically, a nested subtree may appear as an attribute; the difference
between attributes and children lies solely in the way of access and referral:
by-name vs. positional
- it is pointless to save space for the representation of the discriminator ID
- but we can omit any further explicit type tag, because
- we do *not* support programming by switch-on-type, and thus
- we do *not* support full introspection, only a passive type-safety check
- this is *not* a limitation, since we acknowledge that GenNode is a *Monad*
- and the partial function needed within any flatMap implementation
maps naturally onto our Variant-Visitor; thus
- the DataCap can basically just *be* a Variant
- and GenNode has just to supply the neccessary shaffolding
to turn that into a full fledged Monad implementation, including
direct construction by wrapping a value and flatMap with tree walk
still passes compilation, but not actually tested.
The visitor-style accees needs to be implemented, and the
whole virtual copy support mechanism extracted into a separate
header and covered by unit test
now the solution with the copy policy class is in place,
I prefer to return to the more verbose yet clearer notion
of distinct constructors for each case on the outer and
the inner capsule likewise.
The idea with the separate builder class would be significant
only if this class would also provide the copy support. This
turns out to be difficult, due to the access restrictions
and the necessary passing of type parameters.
turns out to be quite a tough challenge....
since obviously we want to support usage of types with
partially disabled copy/assignment operations within Variant.
As long as the corresponding operations on the container aren't
invoked, we expect those types to be usable just fine.
The problem arises at the interaction with type erasure;
to support corret copy / assignement in such a situation, we need
virtual copy / assignment operators. And, since these are to be installed
into a VTable, the templated functions will be instantiated allways,
which might cause invocation of inhibited copy / assignement functions
and thus compilation failure, in spite of never actually invoking such
an illegal operation.
The drafted solution is to mix in a specifically configured copy support policy,
which at least raises a runtime error, instead of invoking the incriminating operation(s)
finally got all those copy / assgnment flavours straight.
Still unsolved: unable to instantiate the Variant template
for a type with private assignment operator (like e.g. Time )
The problem is our virtual assignement operator, which forces
instantiation of the implementation (for the VTable), even if
the actual assignment is never invoked.
this was an immature first desgin attempt; we need a lightweight
Variant (typesafe union) implementation, so now is the time for
a second attempt. The existing Variant is used only once, and this
usage as such is in a questionable context, likely to be reworked
when we actually start coding up the builder. So I'll just move
it away and mark it @deprecated for the time being.
- upgrade the configuration to a current version
- provide a frontpage with cross-links to other documentation
- define a set of modules; relevant classes and files can be
added to these, to create a exploration path for new readers
- fix a lot of errors in documentation comments
- use a custom configuration for the documentation pages
- tweak the navigation, the sections and further arrangements
these simple utils (length of typelist, maximum size
containment test) are mostly not used in conjunction
with the more elaborate typelist manipulatino utils.
Moreover, we lacked a dedicated unit test
