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Subject: Re: [boost] [TypeTraits] propose new callable-type call traits
From: Hui Li (hui.li_at_[hidden])
Date: 2014-01-11 18:55:18


On Jan 11, 2014, at 2:55 PM, TONGARI J <tongari95_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> 2014/1/12 Hui Li <hui.li_at_[hidden]>
>
>> I've implemented a few traits classes (code attached below) that, for a
>> given callable-type T, and a set of Args..., detects whether the function
>> call T::operator()(Args...) would be
>> (1) valid,
>> (2) ambiguous, or
>> (3) none is viable.
>> where T is allowed to have arbitrary overloaded operator()'s.
>>
>> This could be useful for programmers who want to
>> (1) make the function call only when it's valid,
>> (2) generate customized error/warning messages when it's ambiguous, or
>> handle/redirect it without getting an ambiguous compiler error, and
>> (3) redirect non-viable calls to some default behavior, which can be
>> different than how it's handled when the call is ambiguous.
>>
>> If people are interested, I suppose this could be a useful addition to
>> TypeTraits.
>> I would appreciate any feedback!
>>
>> For clarity, the implementation and demonstration attached below is
>> written in c++11. It can be easily ported to c++98/03 compilers by using
>> TypeTratis to replace the std type traits, BOOST_TYPEOF_KEYWORD to replace
>> decltype, and Boost.Preprocessor to generate code for arbitrary arity.
>>
>
> It's interesting that you use ambiguity to distinguish the types.
> Anyway, your code doesn't support function(pointer) which is also Callable,
> and... are you sure your approach can be ported back to C++03 where there's
> no SFINAE on expression?

SFINAE on expression is not important in my approach. Since the has_compatible_callback merely uses has_valid_call, and my has_valid_call does the same thing as your has_call (besides the return type), i'm quite certain we can use your has_call for it's implementation and should be able to port to whatever compiler that works with your has_call.

>
> FWIW, I have my has_call implementation:
> https://github.com/jamboree/boost.has_call
> which works for both C++11/03.

Very interesting, I will look into it, and see if i can switch to your has_call so that mine works on gcc4.3 (which I'm guessing is one of the compilers that don't support SFINAE on expression?)

> I have real world usage of has_call (or has_valid_call in yours), but I
> don't have the need of has_ambiguous_call so far.

I have real world use for has_compatible_call, because has_call was insufficient in detecting ambiguous callback overloads provided by user defined classes (out of my control since I'm writing a library), in which case I want to generate a compiler error rather than using some default handler.

For example,

// in my real world application, there are other make_the_call overloads that make it more interesting than in this demonstration

template < typename E, typename T > // T is some user-defined class outside the library
typename std::enable_if<
    has_valid_call<T(E)>::value or has_ambiguous_call<T(E)>::value
>::type
make_the_call(const E& e, T& t)
{
        t(e); // if the call is ambiguous, the user must, and will, get a compiler error here
               // if we had used just has_valid_call in the enable_if, it would turn an erroneous ambiguity into a no-call
               // which would be very very wrong
}

// default no-op behavior
template < typename E, typename T >
typename std::enable_if<
    has_no_viable_call<T(E)>::value
>::type
make_the_call(const E& e, T& t)
{
    // do nothing
}

>
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