HaxeFoundation / HaxeFoundation/haxe

Accessing argument metadata from tclass_field

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Haxe
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Description

Currently there doesn't seem to be a way to access argument metadata on an extern function.

extern class Foo {
    extern function bar(@:cpp.Marshal(c_string) s:String):Void;
}

In the above case there is no way to access the @:cpp.Marshal metadata from a tclass_field. In non extern functions you can inspect the cf_expr TFunction but for externs there is no expression.

I think I've found the place in typeloadFields which types functions but I'm not sure what a good approach is, append the arguments meta to cf_meta and key it by argument name somehow? Add a new cf_argument_meta field?

End goal of this to to have the compiler generate glue code for converting to and from common haxe and c++ types by annotating arguments, it would greatly simplify things being able to look at all extern classes up front as opposed to accumulating a list of all found functions while iterating over the ast.

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Research direction

Start in typeloadFields, where extern functions are typed, and inspect how tclass_field stores cf_meta, cf_expr, and TFunction data for non-extern functions. Compare the available representations and define a way for argument metadata such as @:cpp.Marshal to remain accessible from extern fields; done means compiler code can inspect that metadata while processing extern classes.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
cpp
Domain
compilers
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
38/100

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