[fpc-pascal] FPC's generics implementation

[Jani Mátyás]

Hi,

Thank you for the answers!

> > The FPC wiki states that the ppu file stores all the tokens for the
> generic classes. Browsing the source of compiler/symdef.pas (r31298) also
> gave me this impression. Does it mean that a recompilation occurs for every
> specialization?
>
> Not for every specialization. If a specialization for the same generic
> with the same types already exists that one will be used. This also works
> across units.
>
Great, then my third question is not important.

> There have been some ideas (again, regarding the wiki) to store the parse
> tree instead of the source code (or tokens) in the ppu. I guess that would
> made the specializations quicker. What were the reasons against it?
>
> Ease of implementation/maintainability.
> For the node tree approach the tree would need to be walked and all
> accesses to variables of the generic parameter types would need to be
> adjusted. This would need adjustments if new node types are added or node
> types are extended. However for the token stream approach all this is
> handled by existing parser code, so once the parser supports something it's
> immediately supported by generics as well (corner cases of respecting
> generic types aside).
>
 I see your point, thanks.

Best,
Mátyás
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