On Fri, 06 Apr 2012 10:56:19 -0400, Piotr Szturmaj <bncr...@jadamspam.pl> wrote:

Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
On Fri, 06 Apr 2012 10:11:32 -0400, Manu <turkey...@gmail.com> wrote:

On 6 April 2012 16:56, Steven Schveighoffer <schvei...@yahoo.com> wrote:

On Fri, 06 Apr 2012 09:53:59 -0400, Timon Gehr <timon.g...@gmx.ch>
wrote:

I think this proposal should be merged with Johannes' one.


It is very similar. I think the main distinction is that I focused on
the
fact that the compiler already has a mechanism to check and run CTFE
functions.


Except you're using a function, which I don't follow. How does that work?
Where do you actually store the attribute data?
Just attaching any arbitrary thing, in particular, a struct (as in
Johannes
proposal) is far more useful. It also seems much simpler conceptually to
me. It's nice when things are intuitive...

You can store a struct, just return it from an attribute function.

e.g.:

@attribute Author author(string name) { return Author(name);}

Compare it to:

struct Author { string name; }

@Author("John Doe") int x;

so now I must define a type for every attribute? I'd rather just define a function.

What if I have 20 string attributes, I must define a new attribute type for each one? This seems like unneeded bloat.

BTW, if I wasn't trying to demonstrate that you could store structs, I would have written:

@attrubte string author(string name) { return name;}

and save the extra bloat associated with declaring another type. Maybe we could even get this someday:

@attribute author(string name) => name;

I just don't see the need to declare a type that can wrap a string.

You could even add this rule:

if @attribute is placed on a struct, its constructor becomes an @attribute qualified function with the name of the struct as the attribute name.

Why should we be restricted to only structs? Or any type for that matter?

When using __traits(getAttributes, ...) you ask for conrete (struct) type and you get it. In case of function you ask for serializable but you get a bool.

It's an example. you can choose any type you want! I actually just want the name of the author, I don't care whether that's a struct, or a string.


The benefit to using CTFE functions is that the compiler already knows
how to deal with them at compile-time. i.e. less work to make the
compiler implement this.

Compiler can easily deal with structs too:

I concede this is probably a non-issue.

I also firmly believe that determining what is allowed as attributes
should be opt-in. Just allowing any struct/class/function/etc. would
lead to bizarre declarations.

C# has requirement that attributes are classes that derive from base Attribute class. But without that limitation you can do things like:

@Uuid("...")
interface MyIntf { }

without explicitly declaring Uuid as attribute. However, I don't see any usage for primitive types:

@5
@"s"
@false

I don't understand what you are saying here.

I think that allowing values of structs, classes and _eventually_ enums should be enough.

Any CTFE computed value should suffice.

-Steve

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