• Sean Kelly (26/26) Jul 19 2004 So I finally did some digging into how typeid works, and solved my probl...
• Derek Parnell (69/101) Jul 19 2004 I found this stuff out too. In general, the typeid() of all classes is t...

Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca> writes:

So I finally did some digging into how typeid works, and solved my problems with
implementing scanf just fine.  In hindsight it seems pretty obvious, but that's
what I get for waiting this long to look into it.

Basically, typeid returns instances of TypeInfo objects and Phobos defines a set
of TypeInfo classes for each primitive type.  The problem I had was that Phobos
includes a pointer TypeInfo class which compares equal to any other pointer
TypeInfo class.  However, the compiler generates a unique instance for each
type, and this instance is returned for every typeid call on that type.  I think
it might be useful to point this out in the documentation and I'd like to
request that this implementation detail become a requirement.  As an example:

int main()
{
if( typeid( char* ) == typeid( int* ) )
printf( "same 1\n" );
if( typeid( char* ) is typeid( int* ) )
printf( "same 2\n" );
if( typeid( char* ) is typeid( char* ) )
printf( "same 3\n" );
return 0;
}

prints:

same 1
same 3

This is actually quite nice because I can both determine if something is a
pointer type and determine what it's pointing to.


Sean

Derek Parnell <derek psych.ward> writes:

On Tue, 20 Jul 2004 01:48:07 +0000 (UTC), Sean Kelly wrote:

 So I finally did some digging into how typeid works, and solved my problems
with
 implementing scanf just fine.  In hindsight it seems pretty obvious, but that's
 what I get for waiting this long to look into it.
 
 Basically, typeid returns instances of TypeInfo objects and Phobos defines a
set
 of TypeInfo classes for each primitive type.  The problem I had was that Phobos
 includes a pointer TypeInfo class which compares equal to any other pointer
 TypeInfo class.  However, the compiler generates a unique instance for each
 type, and this instance is returned for every typeid call on that type.  I
think
 it might be useful to point this out in the documentation and I'd like to
 request that this implementation detail become a requirement.  As an example:
 
 int main()
 {
 if( typeid( char* ) == typeid( int* ) )
 printf( "same 1\n" );
 if( typeid( char* ) is typeid( int* ) )
 printf( "same 2\n" );
 if( typeid( char* ) is typeid( char* ) )
 printf( "same 3\n" );
 return 0;
 }
 
 prints:
 
 same 1
 same 3
 
 This is actually quite nice because I can both determine if something is a
 pointer type and determine what it's pointing to.
 
 Sean

I found this stuff out too. In general, the typeid() of all classes is the
same, the typeid() of all structs is the same and the typeid() of al
pointers is the same. The curious thing is that the typeid() of any pointer
is the same as the typeid() of any struct. Thus you can't really tell if
you have a pointer to something or a struct.

<code>
class aClass{ int a;}
class bClass{ int b;}

struct aStruct{ int a;}
struct bStruct{ int b;}

void main()
{

    if( typeid( aClass ) == typeid( bClass ) )
        printf( "class = class\n" );
    if( typeid( aClass ) == typeid( aStruct ) )
        printf( "class = struct\n" );
    if( typeid( aClass ) == typeid( int* ) )
        printf( "class = pointer\n" );
    if( typeid( aClass ) == typeid( int[] ) )
        printf( "class = array\n" );
    if( typeid( aClass ) == typeid( int ) )
        printf( "class = native\n" );


    if( typeid( aStruct ) == typeid( Object ) )
        printf( "struct = class\n" );
    if( typeid( aStruct ) == typeid( bStruct ) )
        printf( "struct = struct\n" );
    if( typeid( aStruct ) == typeid( int* ) )
        printf( "struct = pointer\n" );
    if( typeid( aStruct ) == typeid( int[] ) )
        printf( "struct = array\n" );
    if( typeid( aStruct ) == typeid( int ) )
        printf( "struct = native\n" );


    if( typeid( int* ) == typeid( Object ) )
        printf( "pointer = class\n" );
    if( typeid( int* ) == typeid( aStruct ) )
        printf( "pointer = struct\n" );
    if( typeid( int* ) == typeid( char* ) )
        printf( "pointer = pointer\n" );
    if( typeid( int*) == typeid( int[] ) )
        printf( "pointer = array\n" );
    if( typeid( int* ) == typeid( int ) )
        printf( "pointer = native\n" );


    if( typeid( int[] ) == typeid( Object ) )
        printf( "array = class\n" );
    if( typeid( int[] ) == typeid( aStruct ) )
        printf( "array = struct\n" );
    if( typeid( int[] ) == typeid( int* ) )
        printf( "array = pointer\n" );
    if( typeid( int[]) == typeid( char[] ) )
        printf( "array = array\n" );
    if( typeid( int[] ) == typeid( int ) )
        printf( "array = native\n" );

    if( typeid( int ) == typeid( Object ) )
        printf( "native = class\n" );
    if( typeid( int ) == typeid( aStruct ) )
        printf( "native = struct\n" );
    if( typeid( int ) == typeid( int* ) )
        printf( "native = pointer\n" );
    if( typeid( int) == typeid( int[] ) )
        printf( "native = array\n" );
    if( typeid( int ) == typeid( char ) )
        printf( "native = native\n" );
}
</endcode>

-- 
Derek
Melbourne, Australia
20/Jul/04 1:33:21 PM