C++0X Enhancement: Rational Metaprogramming

In a recent article Bjarne Stroustrup presented the evolution of C++ toward the 0X standard, and asked the C++ community for ideas regarding C++ enhancements. This is a proposal to add to C++ support for rational metaprogramming.

A number of sources, notably Alexandrescu in Modern C+++ Design (Addison-Wesley, 2001), and Czarnecki and Eisenecker in Generative Programming (Addison-Wesley, 2000), have used the C++ template facility for creating elaborate program constructs that are evaluated at compile time. These constructs are valuable, but are difficult to write, read, understand, debug, and reason about. The power of metaprogramming could be made accessible to a wider audience by allowing the compile-time execution of some C++ constructs to support the existing metaprogramming paradigm (nothing more) using a rational syntax.

The rational metaprogramming facility could include support for integer and type variables, functions, conditionals, and loops. The existing C syntax for writing imperative code should probably be retained. A separate keyword (for example compile_time) would mark a function as one returning a compile-time constant or type. The generation of compilable code should probably be left to the existing template mechanism. One problem with this proposal is deciding what C/C++ facilities to include in the metaprogramming language. Would perhaps arrays be useful? How about lists, or a way to create graphs?

A different approach would be to allow metaprogramming to be performed using the complete C++ language (apart from rational metaprogramming). To make programs more readable metaprogram code and data could be introduced with a special keyword (for example compile_time), or be placed in different compilation units. The first phase of the compilation would compile the metaprogram code. During the second phase of the compilation the compiler would process C++ code containing calls to metaprogram functions returning a type (probably type_info) or a constant, by dynamically loading and calling the function compiled during the first phase.

For the second approach to work the RTTI system should be augmented with methods to construct new types out of type_info elements (for example pointer_to(type_info)), and to analyze existing types identified by a type_info into their constituent elements. Alternatively, types could be manipulated as strings. The existing type_info.name() method specification should be tightened to allow metaprogrammers know exactly how types are represented in string form, and a type_info(String) constructor should allow types to be constructed out of strings.

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