Proto for Boost mailing list page: [proto] _unpack transform (was: proto-11 progress report)

Subject: [proto] _unpack transform (was: proto-11 progress report)
From: Eric Niebler (eric_at_[hidden])
Date: 2012-07-10 17:18:29

I just committed to the proto-11 codebase a new transform called
_unpack. You use it like this:

  _unpack<f0(Tfx, f1(_)...)>

Where Tfx represents any transform (primitive or otherwise) f0 is any
callable or object type, and f1(_) is an object or callable transform.
The "..." denotes pseudo-pack expansion (although it's really an C-style
vararg ellipsis). The semantics are to replace "f1(_)..." with
"f1(_child<0>), f1(_child<1>), etc.".

With this, the _default transform is trivially implemented like this:

struct _default
  : proto::or_<
        proto::when<proto::terminal<_>, proto::_value>
      , proto::otherwise<
            proto::_unpack<eval(proto::tag_of<_>(), _default(_)...)>
        >
    >
{};

...where eval is:

struct eval
{
    template<typename E0, typename E1>
    auto operator()(proto::tag::plus, E0 && e0, E1 && e1) const
    BOOST_PROTO_AUTO_RETURN(
        static_cast<E0 &&>(e0) + static_cast<E1 &&>(e1)
    )

    template<typename E0, typename E1>
    auto operator()(proto::tag::multiplies, E0 && e0, E1 && e1) const
    BOOST_PROTO_AUTO_RETURN(
        static_cast<E0 &&>(e0) * static_cast<E1 &&>(e1)
    )

    // Other overloads...
};

The _unpack transform is pretty general, allowing a lot of variation
within the pack expansion pattern. There can be any number of Tfx
transforms, and the wildcard can be arbitrarily nested. So these are all ok:

  // just call f0 with all the children
  _unpack<f0(_...)>

  // some more transforms first
  _unpack<f0(Tfx0, Tfx1, Tfx2, f1(_)...)>

  // and nest the wildcard deeply, too
  _unpack<f0(Tfx0, Tfx1, Tfx2, f1(f2(f3(_)))...)>

I'm still playing around with it, but it seems quite powerful. Thoughts?
Would there be interest in having this for Proto-current? Should I
rename it to _expand, since I'm modelling C++11 pack expansion?

-- 
Eric Niebler
BoostPro Computing
http://www.boostpro.com