Joel de Guzman wrote:
I'll try to come up with a complete interface proposal that will encompass all use cases. It will be lightweight (no need for extra infrastructure) and efficient. I believe it can be done.
Ok, here's what I have for draft of the Case concept. I believe this is most crucial in the design of the switch_ as I proposed in a recent post. Comments, feedback, suggestions welcome. Case Concept: Specialization of unary Polymorphic Function Object that, in addition to the requirements defined in Polymorphic Function Object, encodes a list of labels in its type necessary for switch dispatch. Notation: c, c0, c1, ... cN Case objects C A Case type I An MPL Integral Constant type i An MPL Integral Constant object N, First, Last Integral constants N0, N1, ...NN A list of integral constants f A unary function case_c, case_range_c, case_, default Case factories Valid Expressions: Expression Semantics ---------- -------------------------------------------------------- C::labels An MPL Sequence of Integral Constants c(i) Function application case_<I>(f) Returns a Case object with supplied MPL Sequence of Integral Constants. forwarding to the encapsulated function object f. case_c<N>(f) Returns a Case object with a single label N forwarding to the encapsulated function object f. Equivalent to: case_<mpl::vector_c<int, N> >(f) case_c< N0, N1, ...NN>(f) Returns a Case object with a list of labels forwarding to the encapsulated function object f. Equivalent to: case_<mpl::vector_c< int, N0, N1, ...NN> >(f) case_range_c< First, Last>(f) Returns a Case object with a range of labels forwarding to the encapsulated function object f. Equivalent to: case_<mpl::range_c< int, First, Last> >(f) default_(f) Returns a Case object with an empty labels list. forwarding to the encapsulated function object f. c0, c1, ... cN Returns a fusion sequence of Case objects Notes: * While c0, c1, ... cN returns a fusion sequence, it does not have to use Fusion. It can be a very simple cons list of references to the actual arguments similar to the zero overhead Proto expression tree. It must be compatible with Fusion though, but that can be abstracted away. * case_c and case_range_c are simple shortcuts. The type of integral constant is int. The actual type can be casted to the actual switch parameter. I think this is safe, but a variation is to have case_c and case_range_c expect the actual type (like mpl::vector_c and mpl::range_c.). E.g.: case_c<int, N>. * case_<I>(f) is equivalent to the original Steven interface. Regards, -- Joel de Guzman http://www.boost-consulting.com http://spirit.sf.net