On 2011-08-21 15:20, Robert Jacques wrote:
On Sun, 21 Aug 2011 06:55:52 -0400, Jacob Carlborg <d...@me.com> wrote:What are the chances of D getting proper runtime reflection? Something like this: class Foo { private int a; private void bar (int i) { a = i; } } auto foo = new Foo; Object o = foo; o.setInstanceVariable("a", 3); assert(foo.a == 3); This would be useful as well: o.send("bar", 5); assert(foo.a == 5); assert(foo.a == o.getInstanceVariable("a")); Currently I have most use of the first example. These example should work regardless if the fields/methods are private, protected or public. As far as I know this wouldn't require any changes to the language, only the compiler and runtime would need to be modified. To me, it doesn't look that complicated to implement, the runtime just needs to store an associative arrays that maps names of instance variables and methods to their addresses. This could probably be stored in the ClassInfo. Something like this: Foo.classinfo.setInstanceVariable(foo, "a", 3); And this could be shorted to: o.setInstanceVariable("a", 3); "setInstanceVariable" could just forward the call to the class info.I've basically done this entirely in library code: see https://jshare.johnshopkins.edu/rjacque2/public_html/variant.mht
The whole point was to have direct support in the language/runtime so these library solution were not needed. Does your solution work when the static type is Object and the runtime type is a subclass?
-- /Jacob Carlborg
