LUMIERA.clone/src/lib/meta/duck-detector.hpp
Ichthyostega b8cf274de6 Refactoring: extract new duck detectors
due to switching from ADL extension points to member functions,
we now need to detect a "state core" type in a different fashion.
The specific twist is that we can not spell out the full signature
in all cases, since the result type will be formed as a consequence
of this type detection. Thus there are now additional detectors to
probe for the presence of a specific function name only, and the
distinction between members and member functions has been sharpened.
2017-12-05 06:05:33 +01:00

332 lines
18 KiB
C++

/*
DUCK-DETECTOR.hpp - helpers for statically detecting properties of a type
Copyright (C) Lumiera.org
2010, Hermann Vosseler <Ichthyostega@web.de>
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of
the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
*/
/** @file duck-detector.hpp
** Metaprogramming helpers to check for specific properties of a type in question.
** Building upon the "SFINAE" principle, it is possible to create \em metafunction templates,
** which answer some questions about a given type at compile time. A lot of generic predicates of
** this kind can be found in the `<type_traits>` library (standard since C++11). At times though,
** you want to ask more specific questions, like e.g. "does this type provide an operation quack() "?
** Because, if we can get a `bool` answer to such a question _at compile time,_ we can use
** `std::enable_if` to pick a special implementation based on the test result. Together, these
** techniques allow to adopt a duck-typed programming style, where an arbitrary object is allowed
** to enter a given API function, provided this object supports some specific operations.
**
** While C++ certainly isn't a dynamic language and does not provide any kind of run time introspection,
** doing such check-and branch at compile time allows to combine flexibility as known from dynamic
** languages with static type safety, which is compelling. We can generate similar implementation
** for types not further related by inheritance. Building on this, we're able to emulate some
** of the features enabled by type classes (or "concepts").
**
** # how the implementation works
**
** Most of these trait templates rely on a creative use of function overloading. The C++ standard
** requires the compiler _silently to drop_ any candidate of overload resolution which has gotten
** an invalid function signature as a result of instantiating a template (type). This rule allows
** us to set up kind of a "honey pot" for the compiler: we present two overloaded candidate functions
** with a different return type; by investigating the resulting return type we're able to figure
** out the overload actually picked by the compiler.
**
** This header provides some pre-configured tests, available as macros. Each of them contains
** a template based on the described setup, containing a _probe type expression_ at some point.
** The key is to build this probe expression in a way that it is valid if and only if the
** type in question exhibits a specific property.
**
** - if the type should contain a nested type or typedef with a specific name, we simply use
** this nested type in the signature of the overloaded function
** - if the type should contain a _member_ with a specific name, we initialise a member pointer
** within a probe template with this member (if there isn't such a member, the probe template
** initialisation fails and the other function overload gets picked)
** - as an extension to this approach, we can even declare a member function pointer with a
** specific function signature and then try to assign the named member. This allows even
** to determine if a member function of a type in question has the desired signature.
**
** All these detection building blocks are written such as to provide a bool member `::value`,
** which is in accordance to the conventions of C++11 metaprogramming. I.e. you can immediately
** use them within `std::enable_if`
**
** # some pitfalls to consider
**
** @warning The generated metafunctions all yield the `false` value by default.
** Effectively this means that an error in the test expression might go unnoticed;
** you'd be better off explicitly checking the detection result by an unit test.
**
** There are several *typical problems* to care about
** - none of these tests can detect any private members
** - the name-only detectors will fail if the name is ambiguous
** - a member can be both a variable or a function of that name
** - function signatures need to match precisely, including const modifiers
** - the generated metafunction (template) uses a type parameter 'TY', which could
** shadow or conflict with an type parameter in the enclosing scope
** - some of the detectors _require a complete type_ to work properly. They create a
** pointer-to-member or invoke `sizeof()`. In regular code, doing such on an incomplete
** type would provoke a _compilation failure_ -- however, here this code gets evaluated
** in a SFINAE context, which means, it will fail silently and thus produce a wrong
** detection result. This can be quite *insidious* when relying on the proper detection
** to pick the right implementation/specialisation; especially when instantiating
** _mutually dependent_ templates, the distinction between "complete" and "incomplete"
** can be rather arbitrary while in the process of instantiation.
** - the member and function checks rely on member pointers, which generally refer to
** the explicit static type. These checks won't see any inherited members / functions.
** - obviously, all those checks are never able to detect anything depending on runtime
** types or RTTI
**
** @see util-foreach.hpp usage example
** @see iter-tree-explorer.hpp (example: is_StateCore<SRC>)
** @see duck-detector-test.cpp
** @see duck-detector-extension-test.cpp
**
*/
#ifndef LIB_META_DUCK_DETECTOR_H
#define LIB_META_DUCK_DETECTOR_H
#include "lib/meta/util.hpp"
/** Detector for a nested type.
* Defines a metafunction (template), allowing to detect
* if a type TY in question has a nested type or typedef
* with the given name. To answer this question, instantiate
* resulting HasNested_XXX template with the type in question
* and check the static bool value field.
* @warning none of these checks can not detect private members
*/
#define META_DETECT_NESTED(_TYPE_) \
template<typename TY> \
class HasNested_##_TYPE_ \
{ \
\
template<class X> \
static Yes_t check(typename X::_TYPE_ *); \
template<class> \
static No_t check(...); \
\
public: \
static const bool value = (sizeof(Yes_t)==sizeof(check<TY>(0))); \
};
/** Detector for a nested member (field or function).
* Defines a metafunction (template), allowing to detect
* the presence of a member with the given name within
* a type in question.
* @note this check will likely fail if the name is ambiguous.
* @warning none of these checks can not detect private members
*/
#define META_DETECT_MEMBER(_NAME_) \
template<typename TY> \
class HasMember_##_NAME_ \
{ \
template<typename X, \
typename SEL = decltype(&X::_NAME_)> \
struct Probe \
{ }; \
\
template<class X> \
static Yes_t check(Probe<X> * ); \
template<class> \
static No_t check(...); \
\
public: \
static const bool value = (sizeof(Yes_t)==sizeof(check<TY>(0))); \
};
/** Detector for a specific member function.
* Defines a metafunction (template), allowing to detect
* the presence of a member function with the specific
* signature, as defined by the parameters.
* @note this check is not sensible to overloads,
* due to the explicitly given argument types
*/
#define META_DETECT_FUNCTION(_RET_TYPE_,_FUN_NAME_,_ARGS_) \
template<typename TY> \
class HasFunSig_##_FUN_NAME_ \
{ \
template<typename X, _RET_TYPE_ (X::*)_ARGS_> \
struct Probe \
{ }; \
\
template<class X> \
static Yes_t check(Probe<X, &X::_FUN_NAME_> * ); \
template<class> \
static No_t check(...); \
\
public: \
static const bool value = (sizeof(Yes_t)==sizeof(check<TY>(0))); \
};
/** Detector for a member function with the given name.
* Defines a metafunction (template), allowing to detect
* the presence of a member function with a specific name,
* but without imposing any additional constraints on arguments
* and return type. Yet a non-function member will not trigger this detector.
* @note this check will fail if there are overloads or similar ambiguity
*/
#define META_DETECT_FUNCTION_NAME(_FUN_NAME_) \
template<typename TY> \
class HasFunName_##_FUN_NAME_ \
{ \
template<typename SEL> \
struct Probe; \
template<class C, typename RET, typename...ARGS> \
struct Probe<RET (C::*) (ARGS...)> \
{ \
using Match = void; \
}; \
template<class C, typename RET, typename...ARGS> \
struct Probe<RET (C::*) (ARGS...) const> \
{ \
using Match = void; \
}; \
\
template<class X> \
static Yes_t check(typename Probe<decltype(&X::_FUN_NAME_)>::Match * ); \
template<class> \
static No_t check(...); \
\
public: \
static const bool value = (sizeof(Yes_t)==sizeof(check<TY>(0))); \
};
/** Detector for an argument-less member function with the given name.
* Defines a metafunction (template), allowing to detect a member function
* taking no arguments, and with arbitrary return type.
* @remarks the presence of overloads is irrelevant, since we explicitly
* from an invocation to that function (within `decltype`)
*/
#define META_DETECT_FUNCTION_ARGLESS(_FUN_) \
template<typename TY> \
class HasArglessFun_##_FUN_ \
{ \
template<typename X, \
typename SEL = decltype(std::declval<X>()._FUN_())>\
struct Probe \
{ }; \
\
template<class X> \
static Yes_t check(Probe<X> * ); \
template<class> \
static No_t check(...); \
\
public: \
static const bool value = (sizeof(Yes_t)==sizeof(check<TY>(0))); \
};
/** Detector for support of a free-function extension point.
* Defines a metafunction (template), allowing to probe if the type
* in question supports a specific extension point function. Typically
* such functions are injected by some type in a way to be picked up by ADL.
* The detection test works by forming an expression to invoke the extension point,
* passing the type given as template parameter as function argument. If this expression
* type checks, the extension point is assumed to be supported.
* @warning beware of implicit type conversions
*/
#define META_DETECT_EXTENSION_POINT(_FUN_) \
template<typename TY> \
class HasExtensionPoint_##_FUN_ \
{ \
template<typename X, \
typename SEL = decltype( _FUN_(std::declval<X>()))>\
struct Probe \
{ }; \
\
template<class X> \
static Yes_t check(Probe<X> * ); \
template<class> \
static No_t check(...); \
\
public: \
static const bool value = (sizeof(Yes_t)==sizeof(check<TY>(0))); \
};
/** Detector for a dereferentiation operator. Works like member detection */
#define META_DETECT_OPERATOR_DEREF() \
template<typename TY> \
class HasOperator_deref \
{ \
template<typename X, int i = sizeof(&X::operator*)> \
struct Probe \
{ }; \
\
template<class X> \
static Yes_t check(Probe<X> * ); \
template<class> \
static No_t check(...); \
\
public: \
static const bool value = (sizeof(Yes_t)==sizeof(check<TY>(0))); \
};
/** Detector for a prefix increment operator.
* @note there is a twist: because of the prefix and postfix version of increment,
* detection through member-check will fail when both are present (ambiguity).
* OTOH, when using function signature detection, the return type must match.
* The latter fails in the common situation, when the increment operator was
* mixed in through some base class. As a pragmatic solution, we do both kinds
* of tests; so either remove one of the operators (typically postfix), or
* add an forwarding override in the class to be checked */
#define META_DETECT_OPERATOR_INC() \
template<typename TY> \
class HasOperator_inc \
{ \
template<typename X, X& (X::*)(void)> \
struct Probe_1 \
{ }; \
template<typename X, int i = sizeof(&X::operator++)> \
struct Probe_2 \
{ }; \
\
template<class X> \
static Yes_t check1(Probe_1<X, &X::operator++> * ); \
template<class> \
static No_t check1(...); \
template<class X> \
static Yes_t check2(Probe_2<X> * ); \
template<class> \
static No_t check2(...); \
\
public: \
static const bool value = (sizeof(Yes_t)==sizeof(check1<TY>(0)) \
||sizeof(Yes_t)==sizeof(check2<TY>(0))); \
};
#endif