Getting custom summaries for the common CG types certainly seems reasonable. 
We'd have to get approval from the appropriate teams at Apple, but I can't see 
any objections.

Jordan


> On Dec 30, 2015, at 9:55, Joe Groff via swift-evolution 
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> I believe 'summary' is obsolete, and you're supposed to use 
> Custom[Debug]StringConvertible to customize your type's reporting now.
> 
> -Joe
> 
>> On Dec 29, 2015, at 10:38 PM, Austin Zheng via swift-evolution 
>> <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> I'd like to gauge reaction for a proposal I was considering: adding to the 
>> standard library's Mirror type a 'summary' property, and the option to 
>> initialize a Mirror with a custom summary. If no custom summary is provided, 
>> the summary would default to the string produced by calling 
>> String(reflecting: subject) on the subject at the time of mirror creation.
>> 
>> Some context: right now, there are two APIs for mirrors in the standard 
>> library: CustomReflectable, which is publicly exposed and relies on the 
>> conforming type creating a Mirror object, and _Reflectable, which relies on 
>> the conforming type having a companion type conforming to _MirrorType. A 
>> short-term goal is to migrate the standard library's types off the 
>> _Reflectable API and have them use the CustomReflectable API, and changing 
>> dump() accordingly.
>> 
>> The extant implementation of dump() uses a property on _MirrorType called 
>> "summary". (This is where e.g. "4 elements" comes from when you dump() an 
>> array.) "summary" is absent from Mirror or any types related to 
>> CustomReflectable. I asked Joe Groff about this and the rationale was that 
>> it was deemed too similar to debugDescription (or String(reflecting: foo)) 
>> to be worth carrying over.
>> 
>> I would like to suggest that there might be a purpose for "summary":
>> 
>> - Types with children, especially container types like arrays, often print 
>> out a description of their children as part of their debugDescription or 
>> description, redundant when using an API like dump() which provides a 
>> structural representation of the children of the subject. In such cases a 
>> lighter-weight description (like "3 elements") might be more appropriate to 
>> represent to the user.
>> 
>> - Certain types like CGRect don't conform to CustomStringConvertible, 
>> CustomDebugStringConvertible, Streamable, etc. Having a custom summary for 
>> these types customized by the corresponding Mirror would allow for a 
>> 'pretty' representation during reflection in lieu of the ugly one generated 
>> by the runtime without making more substantial changes to the API which 
>> might break third-party code (such as conforming CGRect to any of the 
>> aforementioned protocols).
>> 
>> I know that Mirror (and reflection as a whole) are being considered for 
>> major design changes, so this would be a minor transient change to make the 
>> API easier to work with in the meantime.
>> 
>> Please let me know whether or not you think this proposed change is 
>> meaningful and worthwhile, or if you have any questions.
>> 
>> Best,
>> Austin
>>  _______________________________________________
>> swift-evolution mailing list
>> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
>> https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution 
>> <https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution>
> 
>  _______________________________________________
> swift-evolution mailing list
> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
> https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution 
> <https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution>
_______________________________________________
swift-evolution mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution

Reply via email to