I've prepared a dmd pull request to add a new __trait:
getProtection.
It is meant to be used along with getMember() to add to
the reflection capabilities, letting us use the existing
protection qualifiers as strings.
From the test:
==
class Test {
public int a;
private int b;
export string c;
protected int d;
package void e() {}
}
void main() {
Test t;
static assert(__traits(getProtection, __traits(getMember, t,
"a")) == "public");
static assert(__traits(getProtection, __traits(getMember, t,
"b")) == "private");
static assert(__traits(getProtection, __traits(getMember, t,
"c")) == "export");
static assert(__traits(getProtection, __traits(getMember, t,
"d")) == "protected");
static assert(__traits(getProtection, __traits(getMember, t,
"e")) == "package");
}
==
This will help D automatically generate things like
external interfaces that use the protections.
For instance, I plan to use it in my web.d to only
make functions marked "export" available via the
web interface. Currently, you have to use a naming
convention to hide functions - a leading underscore -
even on private members. This is ok, but not great.
But with the protection trait, we can mark it with
a much more natural "private", or any of the other
specifiers D has.
I'm sure other uses will come up too.
