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digitalmars.D - pragmas for expressions?

reply mgen <bmeck stedwards.edu> writes:
I have been hacking into the front end as of late and noticed that pragmas
cannot be introduced as parts of expressions and instead must be used as a
separated statements. My main concern here is sometimes I wish to set up a
value that could be returned and used by the code at compile time; for example:

pragma(msg,"you do not have a version set up... please select unix, linux,
windows, or mac by entering the name and pressing enter");
char[] response = pragma(readln);

which could ease the use of things especially build scripts having odd errors
that could be corrected at compile time instead of having an entire rerun of
the script.

All in all I was wondering what people thought of using pragmas inside of
expressions?
Oct 22 2008
next sibling parent reply Gregor Richards <Richards codu.org> writes:
mgen wrote:

 I have been hacking into the front end as of late and noticed that pragmas
cannot be introduced as parts of expressions and instead must be used as a
separated statements. My main concern here is sometimes I wish to set up a
value that could be returned and used by the code at compile time; for example:
 
 pragma(msg,"you do not have a version set up... please select unix, linux,
windows, or mac by entering the name and pressing enter");
 char[] response = pragma(readln);
 
 which could ease the use of things especially build scripts having odd errors
that could be corrected at compile time instead of having an entire rerun of
the script.
 
 All in all I was wondering what people thought of using pragmas inside of
expressions?


Pragmas in expressions: Could be useful, but I'd have to see a good use 
case.

The use case you provided: Disgusting, offensive, makes me want to find 
you and break your fingers. Compilation is a NON-INTERACTIVE PROCESS. 
Repeat that to yourself.

  - Gregor Richards
Oct 22 2008
next sibling parent Ary Borenszweig <ary esperanto.org.ar> writes:
Gregor Richards wrote:

 mgen wrote:

 I have been hacking into the front end as of late and noticed that 
 pragmas cannot be introduced as parts of expressions and instead must 
 be used as a separated statements. My main concern here is sometimes I 
 wish to set up a value that could be returned and used by the code at 
 compile time; for example:

 pragma(msg,"you do not have a version set up... please select unix, 
 linux, windows, or mac by entering the name and pressing enter");
 char[] response = pragma(readln);

 which could ease the use of things especially build scripts having odd 
 errors that could be corrected at compile time instead of having an 
 entire rerun of the script.

 All in all I was wondering what people thought of using pragmas inside 
 of expressions?


 
 Pragmas in expressions: Could be useful, but I'd have to see a good use 
 case.
 
 The use case you provided: Disgusting, offensive, makes me want to find 
 you and break your fingers. Compilation is a NON-INTERACTIVE PROCESS. 
 Repeat that to yourself.
 
  - Gregor Richards


I think it can be very amusing. Some example messages:
  - lol, I think you forgot a semicolon there. This is the time number 
2345 you do this, you keep surprising me! Do you want me to add that for 
you?
  - Hmm... it seems this is taking too much. Would you like to play 
Tetris meanwhile? Maybe remove some random pieces of code to speed up 
things?
Oct 22 2008
prev sibling parent reply mgen <bmeck stedwards.edu> writes:
 The use case you provided: Disgusting, offensive, makes me want to find 
 you and break your fingers. Compilation is a NON-INTERACTIVE PROCESS. 
 Repeat that to yourself.
 
   - Gregor Richards


Compilation may be non-interactive in your mind but I see it as being similair
to build scripting when you do CTFE or some kind of computation. Having the
option to do interesting things such as check and correct things instead of
completely rebuilding does not seem like something that should just be thrown
away because of your ideals that compilation is done without any interaction.
Other uses could be a pragma for JiT eval of complex functions to return the
structures of a parser without resulting to struct hacks which are a horrible
idea. I see this as a logical step to integrate tools into compilation instead
of having 2 separated programs.
Oct 22 2008
parent BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to mgen,


 The use case you provided: Disgusting, offensive, makes me want to
 find you and break your fingers. Compilation is a NON-INTERACTIVE
 PROCESS. Repeat that to yourself.
 
 - Gregor Richards
 


 Compilation may be non-interactive in your mind but I see it as being
 similair to build scripting when you do CTFE or some kind of
 computation. Having the option to do interesting things such as check
 and correct things instead of completely rebuilding does not seem like
 something that should just be thrown away because of your ideals that
 compilation is done without any interaction. Other uses could be a
 pragma for JiT eval of complex functions to return the structures of a
 parser without resulting to struct hacks which are a horrible idea. I
 see this as a logical step to integrate tools into compilation instead
 of having 2 separated programs.
 




I'm not saying your wrong (or right) but there is a HUGE amount of tradition 
you want to go against. 

A much more approachable idea would be to have the compiler spit out sed 
commands that would fix compile errors. 

Right now it would be possible to have code print out messages about how 
to set features.


 pragma(is(typeof(some_const_flag)), "some_const_flag must be set");


switch to static if and static assert and you might be able to get more than 
one at a time.
Oct 23 2008
prev sibling parent Robert Fraser <fraserofthenight gmail.com> writes:
mgen wrote:

 I have been hacking into the front end as of late and noticed that pragmas
cannot be introduced as parts of expressions and instead must be used as a
separated statements. My main concern here is sometimes I wish to set up a
value that could be returned and used by the code at compile time; for example:
 
 pragma(msg,"you do not have a version set up... please select unix, linux,
windows, or mac by entering the name and pressing enter");
 char[] response = pragma(readln);
 
 which could ease the use of things especially build scripts having odd errors
that could be corrected at compile time instead of having an entire rerun of
the script.
 
 All in all I was wondering what people thought of using pragmas inside of
expressions?


The general statement of pragmas for expressions is interesting, 
especially as far as compiler intrinsics are concerned.

For your specific use case, use an import expression. With some pipe 
trickery in your build scripting, it might be possible to _actually_ 
make that compilation interactive using import expressions ;-P
Oct 23 2008