Proto for Boost mailing list page: Re: [proto] grammars, domains and subdomains

Subject: Re: [proto] grammars, domains and subdomains
From: Eric Niebler (eric_at_[hidden])
Date: 2010-12-08 10:47:12

On 12/8/2010 5:30 AM, Thomas Heller wrote:
> Eric Niebler wrote:
>> On 12/7/2010 2:37 PM, Thomas Heller wrote:
>>> So, How to handle that correctly?
>>
>> Yup, that's a problem. I don't have an answer for you at the moment,
>> sorry.
> 
> I think i solved the problem. The testcase for this solution is attached.
> Let me restate what I wanted to accomplish:
<snip>

Thomas,

A million thanks for following through. The holidays and my day job are
taking their toll, and I just don't have the time to dig into this right
now. It's on my radar, though. I'm glad you have a work-around, but it
really shouldn't require such Herculean efforts to do this. There are 2
bugs in Proto:

1) Proto operator overloads are too fragile in the presence of
subdomains. Your line (5) should just work. It seems like a problem that
Proto is conflating grammars with subdomain relationships the way it is,
but I really need to sit down and think it through.

One possible solution is an implicit modification of the grammar used to
check expressions when the children are in different domains. For
instance, in the expression "A+B", the grammar used to check the
expression currently is: common_domain<A, B>::type::proto_grammar.
Instead, it should be:

   or_<
       typename common_domain<A, B>::type::proto_grammar
     , if_<
           is_subdomain_of<
               typename common_domain<A, B>::type
             , domain_of< _ >
           >()
       >
   >

That is, any expression in a subdomain of the common domain is by
definition a valid expression in the common domain. is_subdomain_of
doesn't exist yet, but it's trivial to implement. However ...

2) Using domain_of<_> in proto::if_ doesn't work because grammar
checking is currently done after stripping expressions of all their
domain-specific wrappers. That loses information about what domain an
expression is in. Fixing this requires some intensive surgery on how
Proto does pattern matching, but I foresee no inherent obstacles.

It'd be a big help if you could file these two bugs.

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