Re: Abstract classes vs interfaces, casting from void*
On Saturday, 10 August 2019 at 08:20:46 UTC, John Colvin wrote:
On Friday, 9 August 2019 at 13:39:53 UTC, Simen Kjærås wrote:
Thanks for the extra detail.
Is there a solid reason to ever use an interface over an
abstract class? (Other than multiple inheritance).
I'm such a noob at anything related to OO.
The way I look at it: an interface is a guarantee. By saying
interface A { void foo()}
class B: A {}
class C: A {}
void bar(A a) {}
you guarantee that every class that implements interface A has a
function foo and
and bar can be called with anything that implements interface A.
This is completely unrelated to inheritance.
An abstract class is an implementation, most likely a base class.
By saying
abstract class A {void foo()}
class B: A {}
class C: B {}
void bar(A a) {}
you express that you want bar to be called with any subclass of A.
e.g. a bitmap button inherits from button which inherits from
abstract class widget and implements the signal/slot interfaces.
Another pattern is design by introspection.
An interface defines what something _is_,
by introspection defines what something _CanDo_.
That's to say: I don't care if foo is actually (or inherits from)
an InputRange as long as it behaves like it.
Re: Abstract classes vs interfaces, casting from void*
On Sunday, 11 August 2019 at 20:32:14 UTC, John Colvin wrote: As I see this, everything you wrote is correct. :) But you compared abstractness with interface usage, initially. So... I would say, interfaces are more like the abstract method case without any function body. But then, you will have to use "override" all across the inherited classes. Ok. So that means the difference is pretty subtle, give or take a few extra keywords. Which leaves multiple inheritance as the only significant difference? From my perspective it looks like there are two massively overlapping features with some quite arbitrary feeling restrictions and differences. E.g. why can I not inherit from multiple 100% abstract empty classes? Wouldn't that be the same as inheriting from multiple interfaces? The overlap is there, but it is not so massive, I would say. If you inherit from abstract classes, then you do not plan to keep them empty. So, the overlap you are speaking about is exactly as large as the amount of "100% abstract empty classes". And for these, the approach to keep the interface as a separate interface seems more convenient, as Adam said. In the end, by forcing an explicit override, some semantic is also implied.
Re: Abstract classes vs interfaces, casting from void*
On Sunday, August 11, 2019 2:32:14 PM MDT John Colvin via Digitalmars-d- learn wrote: > On Sunday, 11 August 2019 at 20:15:34 UTC, Alex wrote: > > As I see this, everything you wrote is correct. :) > > > > But you compared abstractness with interface usage, initially. > > So... I would say, interfaces are more like the abstract method > > case without any function body. But then, you will have to use > > "override" all across the inherited classes. > > Ok. So that means the difference is pretty subtle, give or take a > few extra keywords. > > Which leaves multiple inheritance as the only significant > difference? > > From my perspective it looks like there are two massively > overlapping features with some quite arbitrary feeling > restrictions and differences. E.g. why can I not inherit from > multiple 100% abstract empty classes? Wouldn't that be the same > as inheriting from multiple interfaces? Well, as things stand, _no_ class is 100% abstract, because they all derive from Object, and Object has virtual functions on it with implementations, whereas an interface _is_ 100% abstract. Maybe once we have ProtoObject, it could be argued for allowing 100% abstract classes to be treated as interfaces, but right now, that wouldn't be possible, and even with ProtoObject, it arguably wouldn't be worth the extra complication, since if you really intend to have a 100% abstract class, that's what interfaces are for. There's also the weird complications that come with D's COM support, since that uses interfaces but gets treated differently from how classes are normally treated, and I don't know how that affects the implementation of interfaces. If we'd had ProtoObject from the get-go, I wonder if it would have just been better to implement COM interfaces as being derived from a specific class that's derived from ProtoObject instead of mucking up interfaces the way that we currently hove, but I don't know. I haven't ever actually used D's COM support, so I don't fully understand it. For the most, D's interfaces and abstract classes follow what you get in Java and C# (though the weirdness with COM is unique to D as is the ability to have final functions with an implementation). Basically, it seems like what we got with interfaces and abstract classes was copied from Java and then tweaked. I suspect that the separation between interfaces and abstract classes in Java comes from the fact that Object has functions on it, and that same logic carried over to D. In practice, what I would expect to typically happen is that if you're defining a set of functions that a class needs to have but not providing any implementations, then you'd use an interface, whereas if you intend to provide an implementation for any part of it but not all of it, you'd use an abstract class. I wouldn't expect abstract classes with no functions (outside of those from Object) or variables being declared on them to be used much. Maybe someone would have a use case where it would make sense to have a common base class with no implementations, but I can't think of any reason why that would be useful other than preventing classes from being derived from any class from a different class hierarchy, which isn't usually something that's worth preventing. Regardless, the whole weirdness that you're running into with void* is not something that much code would care about, because very little code is going to do something like cast a reference to void*, and the code that does do that is @system and expected to deal with it correctly. In general, casting to void* and then casting to anything other than the original type is probably asking for trouble. If I understand correctly, with void*, you're basically doing a reinterpet cast, and that's not usually the type of cast you want when dealing with class references. If I had code where whether casting to an interface or abstract class mattered, I'd want to redesign it so that that didn't matter. - Jonathan M Davis
Re: Abstract classes vs interfaces, casting from void*
On Sunday, 11 August 2019 at 20:32:14 UTC, John Colvin wrote: E.g. why can I not inherit from multiple 100% abstract empty classes? Wouldn't that be the same as inheriting from multiple interfaces? There's kinda no such thing as 100% empty abstract classes, since they all have the implicit parent of Object with its associated pieces. D's interfaces have no implicit parent. But if that were to change, then yeah, it should work - that's basically what C++ does in lieu of interfaces. (I personally prefer separate interfaces anyway, as it makes the intention clear and thus can help with better error messages and documentation, but it would work.)
Re: Abstract classes vs interfaces, casting from void*
On Sunday, 11 August 2019 at 20:15:34 UTC, Alex wrote:
On Sunday, 11 August 2019 at 16:05:20 UTC, John Colvin wrote:
I'm trying to narrow down exactly what patterns work with each
and how they overlap.
What I was trying to get at with the abstract method thing is
that
abstract class C
{
void foo();
}
is an abstract class with a non-abstract method, whose
implementation is going to come from somewhere else (not a
common pattern in D).
class C
{
abstract void foo();
}
is an abstract class with an abstract method foo, which means
you have to override it in a inheriting class to get a
non-abstract class.
As I see this, everything you wrote is correct. :)
But you compared abstractness with interface usage, initially.
So... I would say, interfaces are more like the abstract method
case without any function body. But then, you will have to use
"override" all across the inherited classes.
Ok. So that means the difference is pretty subtle, give or take a
few extra keywords.
Which leaves multiple inheritance as the only significant
difference?
From my perspective it looks like there are two massively
overlapping features with some quite arbitrary feeling
restrictions and differences. E.g. why can I not inherit from
multiple 100% abstract empty classes? Wouldn't that be the same
as inheriting from multiple interfaces?
Re: Abstract classes vs interfaces, casting from void*
On Sunday, 11 August 2019 at 16:05:20 UTC, John Colvin wrote:
I'm trying to narrow down exactly what patterns work with each
and how they overlap.
What I was trying to get at with the abstract method thing is
that
abstract class C
{
void foo();
}
is an abstract class with a non-abstract method, whose
implementation is going to come from somewhere else (not a
common pattern in D).
class C
{
abstract void foo();
}
is an abstract class with an abstract method foo, which means
you have to override it in a inheriting class to get a
non-abstract class.
As I see this, everything you wrote is correct. :)
But you compared abstractness with interface usage, initially.
So... I would say, interfaces are more like the abstract method
case without any function body. But then, you will have to use
"override" all across the inherited classes.
Re: Abstract classes vs interfaces, casting from void*
On Sunday, 11 August 2019 at 15:16:03 UTC, Alex wrote:
On Sunday, 11 August 2019 at 13:09:43 UTC, John Colvin wrote:
Ok. What would go wrong (in D) if I just replaced every
interface with an abstract class?
I think there's some confusion here, because B.foo is not
abstract. abstract on a class is not inherited by its methods.
https://dlang.org/spec/attribute.html#abstract
Now, I'm confused, as you asked about abstract classes. So,
yes, you can define the abstractness of classes differently.
And what is your point?
I'm trying to narrow down exactly what patterns work with each
and how they overlap.
What I was trying to get at with the abstract method thing is that
abstract class C
{
void foo();
}
is an abstract class with a non-abstract method, whose
implementation is going to come from somewhere else (not a common
pattern in D).
class C
{
abstract void foo();
}
is an abstract class with an abstract method foo, which means you
have to override it in a inheriting class to get a non-abstract
class.
Re: Abstract classes vs interfaces, casting from void*
On Sunday, 11 August 2019 at 13:09:43 UTC, John Colvin wrote: Ok. What would go wrong (in D) if I just replaced every interface with an abstract class? I think there's some confusion here, because B.foo is not abstract. abstract on a class is not inherited by its methods. https://dlang.org/spec/attribute.html#abstract Now, I'm confused, as you asked about abstract classes. So, yes, you can define the abstractness of classes differently. And what is your point?
Re: Abstract classes vs interfaces, casting from void*
On Saturday, 10 August 2019 at 17:28:32 UTC, Alex wrote:
´´´
void main(){}
interface A { void fun(); }
abstract class B{ void fun(); }
class C : A{ void fun(){} }
class D : B{ /*override*/ void fun(){} }
´´´
case 1:
interface A and class C implementing interface A:
You don't need to "override" anything. You are forced to
provide an implementation of the function inside the class.
case 2:
abstract class B and class D inheriting from it:
You can but not have to provide an implementation of a function
inside the abstract class.
If I don't and do not provide any implementation inside D I get
a linker error. Don't how this case behaves on your system.
If you provide an implementation inside the abstract class, you
don't have to provide any in the derived one.
In any case, if you want to provide an implementation inside
the derived class you have to literally "override", as in D
implicit overrides are not allowed.
I think there's some confusion here, because B.foo is not
abstract. abstract on a class is not inherited by its methods.
https://dlang.org/spec/attribute.html#abstract
Re: Abstract classes vs interfaces, casting from void*
On Saturday, 10 August 2019 at 17:46:37 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:
On 10.08.19 16:29, John Colvin wrote:
Ok. What would go wrong (in D) if I just replaced every
interface with an abstract class?
interface A{}
interface B{}
class C: A,B{ }
Yes, I know, I guess it wasn't clear unless you read my previous
question, I said "apart from multiple inheritance".
Re: Abstract classes vs interfaces, casting from void*
On 10.08.19 16:29, John Colvin wrote:
Ok. What would go wrong (in D) if I just replaced every interface with
an abstract class?
interface A{}
interface B{}
class C: A,B{ }
Re: Abstract classes vs interfaces, casting from void*
On Saturday, 10 August 2019 at 14:29:03 UTC, John Colvin wrote:
On Saturday, 10 August 2019 at 10:11:15 UTC, Alex wrote:
On Saturday, 10 August 2019 at 08:20:46 UTC, John Colvin wrote:
On Friday, 9 August 2019 at 13:39:53 UTC, Simen Kjærås wrote:
Thanks for the extra detail.
Is there a solid reason to ever use an interface over an
abstract class? (Other than multiple inheritance).
I'm such a noob at anything related to OO.
The general question is tricky, as different languages differ
in details what is forced and what is allowed for abstract
classes and interfaces.
But roughly speaking, my opinion is: if you can/want to
provide some default behavior than you are about to write an
abstract class.
If you are about to provide information/restriction of
behavior, then this is more like an interface.
Ok. What would go wrong (in D) if I just replaced every
interface with an abstract class?
´´´
void main(){}
interface A { void fun(); }
abstract class B{ void fun(); }
class C : A{ void fun(){} }
class D : B{ /*override*/ void fun(){} }
´´´
case 1:
interface A and class C implementing interface A:
You don't need to "override" anything. You are forced to provide
an implementation of the function inside the class.
case 2:
abstract class B and class D inheriting from it:
You can but not have to provide an implementation of a function
inside the abstract class.
If I don't and do not provide any implementation inside D I get a
linker error. Don't how this case behaves on your system.
If you provide an implementation inside the abstract class, you
don't have to provide any in the derived one.
In any case, if you want to provide an implementation inside the
derived class you have to literally "override", as in D implicit
overrides are not allowed.
Re: Abstract classes vs interfaces, casting from void*
On Saturday, 10 August 2019 at 10:11:15 UTC, Alex wrote: On Saturday, 10 August 2019 at 08:20:46 UTC, John Colvin wrote: On Friday, 9 August 2019 at 13:39:53 UTC, Simen Kjærås wrote: Thanks for the extra detail. Is there a solid reason to ever use an interface over an abstract class? (Other than multiple inheritance). I'm such a noob at anything related to OO. The general question is tricky, as different languages differ in details what is forced and what is allowed for abstract classes and interfaces. But roughly speaking, my opinion is: if you can/want to provide some default behavior than you are about to write an abstract class. If you are about to provide information/restriction of behavior, then this is more like an interface. Ok. What would go wrong (in D) if I just replaced every interface with an abstract class?
Re: Abstract classes vs interfaces, casting from void*
On Saturday, 10 August 2019 at 10:02:02 UTC, Antonio Corbi wrote: On Saturday, 10 August 2019 at 08:20:46 UTC, John Colvin wrote: On Friday, 9 August 2019 at 13:39:53 UTC, Simen Kjærås wrote: Thanks for the extra detail. Is there a solid reason to ever use an interface over an abstract class? (Other than multiple inheritance). I'm such a noob at anything related to OO. Hi John. One reason could be data. Abstract classes can hold data, interfaces can't. Antonio That's a reason to use an abstract class, not a reason to use an interface.
Re: Abstract classes vs interfaces, casting from void*
On Saturday, 10 August 2019 at 08:20:46 UTC, John Colvin wrote: On Friday, 9 August 2019 at 13:39:53 UTC, Simen Kjærås wrote: Thanks for the extra detail. Is there a solid reason to ever use an interface over an abstract class? (Other than multiple inheritance). I'm such a noob at anything related to OO. The general question is tricky, as different languages differ in details what is forced and what is allowed for abstract classes and interfaces. But roughly speaking, my opinion is: if you can/want to provide some default behavior than you are about to write an abstract class. If you are about to provide information/restriction of behavior, then this is more like an interface.
Re: Abstract classes vs interfaces, casting from void*
On Saturday, 10 August 2019 at 08:20:46 UTC, John Colvin wrote: On Friday, 9 August 2019 at 13:39:53 UTC, Simen Kjærås wrote: Thanks for the extra detail. Is there a solid reason to ever use an interface over an abstract class? (Other than multiple inheritance). I'm such a noob at anything related to OO. Hi John. One reason could be data. Abstract classes can hold data, interfaces can't. Antonio
Re: Abstract classes vs interfaces, casting from void*
On Friday, 9 August 2019 at 13:39:53 UTC, Simen Kjærås wrote: Thanks for the extra detail. Is there a solid reason to ever use an interface over an abstract class? (Other than multiple inheritance). I'm such a noob at anything related to OO.
Re: Abstract classes vs interfaces, casting from void*
On Friday, 9 August 2019 at 13:39:53 UTC, Simen Kjærås wrote:
We're getting into somewhat advanced topics now. This is
described in the Application Binary Interface page of the
documentation[0]. In short: classes and interfaces both use a
vtable[1] that holds pointers to each of their methods. When we
cast a class instance to an interface, the pointer is adjusted,
such that the interface's vtable is the first member. Casting
via `void*` bypasses this adjustment.
Using `__traits(classInstanceSize)`, we can see that `C` has a
size of 12 bytes, while `D` only is 8 bytes (24 and 16 on
64-bit). This corresponds to the extra interface vtable as
described above.
When we first cast to `void*`, no adjustment happens, because
we're not casting to an interface. When we later cast the
`void*` to an interface, again no adjustment happens - in this
case because the compiler doesn't know what we're casting from.
If we use `__traits(allMembers, C)`, we can figure out which
methods it actually has, and implement those with some extra
debug facilities (printf):
class C : I
{
override void foo() { writeln("hi"); }
override string toString() { writeln("toString");
return ""; }
override hash_t toHash() { debug printf("toHash");
return 0; }
override int opCmp(Object o) { writeln("opCmp"); return
0; }
override bool opEquals(Object o) { writeln("opEquals");
return false; }
}
If we substitute the above in your program, we see that the
`toString` method is the one being called. This is simply
because it's at the same location in the vtable as `foo` is in
`I`'s vtable.
When casting from a class to a superclass, no pointer
adjustment is needed, as the vtable location is the same for
both.
We can look closer at the vtable, and see that for a new
subclass, additional entries are simply appended at the end:
class C {
void foo() {}
}
class D : C {
void bar() {}
}
unittest {
import std.stdio;
C c = new C();
D d = new D();
writeln("Pointer to foo(): ", ().funcptr);
writeln("Pointer to bar(): ", ().funcptr);
writeln("Pointer to foo() in C's vtable: ", c.__vptr[5]);
writeln("Pointer to foo() in D's vtable: ", d.__vptr[5]);
writeln("Pointer to bar() in D's vtable: ", d.__vptr[6]);
}
As we see, `foo()` has the position in the vtable for both `c`
and `d`, while `D`'s new `bar()` method is added as the next
entry.
--
Simen
[0]: https://dlang.org/spec/abi.html
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_method_table
Thanks for the extra detail.
Is there a solid reason to ever use an interface over an abstract
class? (Other than multiple inheritance).
I'm such a noob at anything related to OO.
Re: Abstract classes vs interfaces, casting from void*
On Friday, 9 August 2019 at 12:26:59 UTC, John Colvin wrote:
import std.stdio;
interface I
{
void foo();
}
class C : I
{
override void foo() { writeln("hi"); }
}
abstract class AC
{
void foo();
}
class D : AC
{
override void foo() { writeln("hi"); }
}
void main()
{
auto c = new C();
writeln(0);
(cast(I)cast(void*)c).foo();
writeln(1);
(cast(C)cast(void*)c).foo();
writeln(2);
(cast(I)cast(C)cast(void*)c).foo();
auto d = new D();
writeln(3);
(cast(AC)cast(void*)d).foo();
writeln(4);
(cast(D)cast(void*)d).foo();
writeln(5);
(cast(AC)cast(D)cast(void*)d).foo();
}
This produces the output:
0
1
hi
2
hi
3
hi
4
hi
5
hi
Why is there no "hi" between 0 and 1?
We're getting into somewhat advanced topics now. This is
described in the Application Binary Interface page of the
documentation[0]. In short: classes and interfaces both use a
vtable[1] that holds pointers to each of their methods. When we
cast a class instance to an interface, the pointer is adjusted,
such that the interface's vtable is the first member. Casting via
`void*` bypasses this adjustment.
Using `__traits(classInstanceSize)`, we can see that `C` has a
size of 12 bytes, while `D` only is 8 bytes (24 and 16 on
64-bit). This corresponds to the extra interface vtable as
described above.
When we first cast to `void*`, no adjustment happens, because
we're not casting to an interface. When we later cast the `void*`
to an interface, again no adjustment happens - in this case
because the compiler doesn't know what we're casting from.
If we use `__traits(allMembers, C)`, we can figure out which
methods it actually has, and implement those with some extra
debug facilities (printf):
class C : I
{
override void foo() { writeln("hi"); }
override string toString() { writeln("toString");
return ""; }
override hash_t toHash() { debug printf("toHash");
return 0; }
override int opCmp(Object o) { writeln("opCmp"); return
0; }
override bool opEquals(Object o) { writeln("opEquals");
return false; }
}
If we substitute the above in your program, we see that the
`toString` method is the one being called. This is simply because
it's at the same location in the vtable as `foo` is in `I`'s
vtable.
When casting from a class to a superclass, no pointer adjustment
is needed, as the vtable location is the same for both.
We can look closer at the vtable, and see that for a new
subclass, additional entries are simply appended at the end:
class C {
void foo() {}
}
class D : C {
void bar() {}
}
unittest {
import std.stdio;
C c = new C();
D d = new D();
writeln("Pointer to foo(): ", ().funcptr);
writeln("Pointer to bar(): ", ().funcptr);
writeln("Pointer to foo() in C's vtable: ", c.__vptr[5]);
writeln("Pointer to foo() in D's vtable: ", d.__vptr[5]);
writeln("Pointer to bar() in D's vtable: ", d.__vptr[6]);
}
As we see, `foo()` has the position in the vtable for both `c`
and `d`, while `D`'s new `bar()` method is added as the next
entry.
--
Simen
[0]: https://dlang.org/spec/abi.html
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_method_table
Re: Abstract classes vs interfaces, casting from void*
On Friday, 9 August 2019 at 13:19:14 UTC, kinke wrote: On Friday, 9 August 2019 at 12:26:59 UTC, John Colvin wrote: Why is there no "hi" between 0 and 1? Because you are treating the unadjusted object pointer as interface pointer and then call the only virtual function of that interface, in the 2nd vtbl slot (after the TypeInfo ptr). Casting a class ref to an interface offsets the pointer, so that the interface ref points to the interface vptr for that object instance. This is missing in that line, and so you are invoking the first virtual function of class C, which is some base function in `Object`. Ok, makes sense, thanks.
Re: Abstract classes vs interfaces, casting from void*
On Friday, 9 August 2019 at 12:26:59 UTC, John Colvin wrote: Why is there no "hi" between 0 and 1? Because you are treating the unadjusted object pointer as interface pointer and then call the only virtual function of that interface, in the 2nd vtbl slot (after the TypeInfo ptr). Casting a class ref to an interface offsets the pointer, so that the interface ref points to the interface vptr for that object instance. This is missing in that line, and so you are invoking the first virtual function of class C, which is some base function in `Object`.
