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digitalmars.D - Function-pointer valued enums

reply "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh quickfur.ath.cx> writes:
Today, I was writing a program for generating Voronoi diagrams with
different metrics over various topologies, and wanted an easy way to
specify which metric/topology to use.  Traditionally, I'd do something
like this:

	enum Metric { euclidean, manhattan, ... }

	auto genVoronoi(Metric metric, ...) {
		...
		final switch (metric) {
			case Metric.euclidean:
				dist = x*x + y*y;
				break;

			case Metric.manhattan:
				dist = abs(x) + abs(y);
				break;
			...
		}
		...
	}

	void main() {
		...
		Metric metric = /* from user input */;
		genVoronoi(metric, ...);
	}

But that's a lot of boilerplate to translate the user's choice of metric
from string into enum, then switch over the enum to various branches of
code.

So I decided to factor out the switch into main(), and pass a function
pointer implementing the metric into genVoronoi().  But that still
entailed enumerating every metric in an enum, then translating the enum
into a bijective set of function pointers.

So I thought, what if I based the enum on the function pointer itself?
And so:

	float euclideanMetric(float x, float y) { ... }
	float manhattanMetric(float x, float y) { ... }
	...
	alias MetricImpl = float function(float, float);

	enum Metric : MetricImpl {
		euclidean = &euclideanMetric,
		manhattan = &manhattanMetric,
		...
	}

	auto genVoronoi(MetricImpl metric, ...) {
		...
		dist = metric(x, y);
		...
	}

	void main() {
		...
		string metricStr = /* from user input */;

		// std.conv.to knows how to convert the string name
		// directly into a function pointer!
		Metric m = metricStr.to!Metric;

		genVoronoi(m, ...);
	}

Amazingly, it works!  Did you know that in D, enums can be
function-pointer-valued?  :-D

Now all I have to do to add a new metric is to write the function, then
add the function pointer to the enum, and it automagically learns how to
parse the new option!

One last thing remained: if the user didn't know what metrics were
available, I'd like to supply a list.  Being a lazy D metaprogrammer,
I'm certainly not gonna manually type out the list and then have to
maintain it every time I change the list of metrics.  So compile-time
introspection comes to the rescue:

	enum ident(alias Memb) = __traits(identifier, Memb);

	void showHelp() {
		...
		alias T = Metric;
		...
		alias membs = EnumMembers!T;
		immutable string[membs.length] membNames = [
			staticMap!(ident, membs)
		];
		stderr.writefln("Available metrics: %-(%s, %)", membNames);
		...
	}

And with that, the act of adding a new function pointer to Metric
automatically adds it to the displayed list of available metrics with no
extra effort from me.

D is the only language I know of that can automate things to this level
of awesomeness.  D rocks!  No, D boulders!! :-D  (Thanks, Adam ;-))


T

-- 
The early bird gets the worm. Moral: ewww...
Jan 22 2021
next sibling parent reply tsbockman <thomas.bockman gmail.com> writes:
On Saturday, 23 January 2021 at 00:21:25 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 Amazingly, it works!  Did you know that in D, enums can be 
 function-pointer-valued?  :-D


Cool! Hopefully this doesn't have any weird pitfalls; I'm 
guessing it hasn't been tested much?
Jan 22 2021
parent reply mw <mingwu gmail.com> writes:
On Saturday, 23 January 2021 at 06:13:03 UTC, tsbockman wrote:

 On Saturday, 23 January 2021 at 00:21:25 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 Amazingly, it works!  Did you know that in D, enums can be 
 function-pointer-valued?  :-D


 Cool! Hopefully this doesn't have any weird pitfalls; I'm 
 guessing it hasn't been tested much?



How about non-static member functions?
Jan 23 2021
parent Steven Schveighoffer <schveiguy gmail.com> writes:
On 1/23/21 1:15 PM, mw wrote:

 On Saturday, 23 January 2021 at 06:13:03 UTC, tsbockman wrote:

 On Saturday, 23 January 2021 at 00:21:25 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 Amazingly, it works!  Did you know that in D, enums can be 
 function-pointer-valued?  :-D


 Cool! Hopefully this doesn't have any weird pitfalls; I'm guessing it 
 hasn't been tested much?


 
 
 How about non-static member functions?


&T.membername works. It's just, to call it you need to pair it with a T 
instance (which is possible).

-Steve
Jan 23 2021
prev sibling next sibling parent Araq <rumpf_a web.de> writes:
On Saturday, 23 January 2021 at 00:21:25 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 D is the only language I know of that can automate things to 
 this level
 of awesomeness.


So learn a programming language with an AST based macro system. 
There are a couple of these around these days and some of them 
(Rust, Nim, Elixir ...) can generate a 'switch' statement at 
compile-time...
Jan 22 2021
prev sibling parent Steven Schveighoffer <schveiguy gmail.com> writes:
On 1/22/21 7:21 PM, H. S. Teoh wrote:


 Amazingly, it works!  Did you know that in D, enums can be
 function-pointer-valued?  :-D
 
 Now all I have to do to add a new metric is to write the function, then
 add the function pointer to the enum, and it automagically learns how to
 parse the new option!
 
 One last thing remained: if the user didn't know what metrics were
 available, I'd like to supply a list.  Being a lazy D metaprogrammer,
 I'm certainly not gonna manually type out the list and then have to
 maintain it every time I change the list of metrics.  So compile-time
 introspection comes to the rescue:
 
 	enum ident(alias Memb) = __traits(identifier, Memb);
 
 	void showHelp() {
 		...
 		alias T = Metric;
 		...
 		alias membs = EnumMembers!T;
 		immutable string[membs.length] membNames = [
 			staticMap!(ident, membs)
 		];
 		stderr.writefln("Available metrics: %-(%s, %)", membNames);
 		...
 	}
 
 And with that, the act of adding a new function pointer to Metric
 automatically adds it to the displayed list of available metrics with no
 extra effort from me.


Cool idea! I like the fact that only "approved" functions are available 
(though you can cast to add your own).

I think that any type that can implicitly be used as an integer can be 
used as an switch type (apparently including pointers).

And then there's strings, which generate a specialized translation into 
an integer (and this requires compiler help, because the strings are 
sorted by length first). Then the switch is run on that integer.

Potentially, one could instrument ANY type with compiler help to be 
usable in switch with something like opSwitchSort (run at CTFE to 
generate the case orderings), and opSwitchTranslate (run when you switch 
on a value).

-Steve
Jan 23 2021