[fpc-devel] Templates / Generics Syntax

[Peter Vreman]

> Peter Vreman wrote:
>> Expiriment, feed g++ code with errors in the statements. With macro's
>> those errors won't be show until the macro is used. But with templates
>> this is diffent:
>
> Smart indeed :)
>
>> This is more important than the syntactical sugar. The rules where to
>> declare generics and how/when they are parsed must be known. The syntax
>> can be added in the end.
>
> Yes I understand, that's why I wanted to "invent" some syntax that's
> useful but easier to implement than full-blown semi-macro stuff, I added:
>
> "Implementation of TGenericCollection can be compiled as if (T:
> TCollectionItem) were used."
>
> This should mean the current parser for the implementation is good enough.
>
> "Would this solve the circular dependency ? It seems so to me, because
> one knows at least as much as in current implementation of these
> classes, but I'm no compiler engineer."
>
> And this should mean no 'weird' things can happen with
> interface-implementation semi-cycles.
>
> Are more rules needed than these ?

The interface-implementation things will still be there. At instanciation
time the symbols are searched and not during the declaration of the
generic type.