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How to set up LLVM-style RTTI for your class hierarchy
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LLVM avoids using C++'s built in RTTI. Instead, it pervasively uses its
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own hand-rolled form of RTTI which is much more efficient and flexible,
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although it requires a bit more work from you as a class author.
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A description of how to use LLVM-style RTTI from a client's perspective is
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given in the `Programmer's Manual <ProgrammersManual.html#isa>`_. This
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document, in contrast, discusses the steps you need to take as a class
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hierarchy author to make LLVM-style RTTI available to your clients.
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Before diving in, make sure that you are familiar with the Object Oriented
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Programming concept of "`is-a`_".
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.. _is-a: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is-a
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This section describes how to set up the most basic form of LLVM-style RTTI
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(which is sufficient for 99.9% of the cases). We will set up LLVM-style
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RTTI for this class hierarchy:
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virtual double computeArea() = 0;
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class Square : public Shape {
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Square(double S) : SideLength(S) {}
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double computeArea() override;
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class Circle : public Shape {
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Circle(double R) : Radius(R) {}
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double computeArea() override;
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The most basic working setup for LLVM-style RTTI requires the following
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#. In the header where you declare ``Shape``, you will want to ``#include
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"llvm/Support/Casting.h"``, which declares LLVM's RTTI templates. That
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way your clients don't even have to think about it.
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#include "llvm/Support/Casting.h"
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#. In the base class, introduce an enum which discriminates all of the
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different concrete classes in the hierarchy, and stash the enum value
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somewhere in the base class.
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Here is the code after introducing this change:
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+ /// Discriminator for LLVM-style RTTI (dyn_cast<> et al.)
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+ const ShapeKind Kind;
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+ ShapeKind getKind() const { return Kind; }
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virtual double computeArea() = 0;
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You will usually want to keep the ``Kind`` member encapsulated and
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private, but let the enum ``ShapeKind`` be public along with providing a
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``getKind()`` method. This is convenient for clients so that they can do
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a ``switch`` over the enum.
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A common naming convention is that these enums are "kind"s, to avoid
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ambiguity with the words "type" or "class" which have overloaded meanings
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in many contexts within LLVM. Sometimes there will be a natural name for
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it, like "opcode". Don't bikeshed over this; when in doubt use ``Kind``.
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You might wonder why the ``Kind`` enum doesn't have an entry for
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``Shape``. The reason for this is that since ``Shape`` is abstract
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(``computeArea() = 0;``), you will never actually have non-derived
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instances of exactly that class (only subclasses). See `Concrete Bases
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and Deeper Hierarchies`_ for information on how to deal with
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non-abstract bases. It's worth mentioning here that unlike
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``dynamic_cast<>``, LLVM-style RTTI can be used (and is often used) for
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classes that don't have v-tables.
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#. Next, you need to make sure that the ``Kind`` gets initialized to the
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value corresponding to the dynamic type of the class. Typically, you will
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want to have it be an argument to the constructor of the base class, and
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then pass in the respective ``XXXKind`` from subclass constructors.
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Here is the code after that change:
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/// Discriminator for LLVM-style RTTI (dyn_cast<> et al.)
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const ShapeKind Kind;
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ShapeKind getKind() const { return Kind; }
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+ Shape(ShapeKind K) : Kind(K) {}
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virtual double computeArea() = 0;
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class Square : public Shape {
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- Square(double S) : SideLength(S) {}
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+ Square(double S) : Shape(SK_Square), SideLength(S) {}
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double computeArea() override;
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class Circle : public Shape {
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- Circle(double R) : Radius(R) {}
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+ Circle(double R) : Shape(SK_Circle), Radius(R) {}
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double computeArea() override;
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#. Finally, you need to inform LLVM's RTTI templates how to dynamically
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determine the type of a class (i.e. whether the ``isa<>``/``dyn_cast<>``
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should succeed). The default "99.9% of use cases" way to accomplish this
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is through a small static member function ``classof``. In order to have
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proper context for an explanation, we will display this code first, and
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then below describe each part:
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/// Discriminator for LLVM-style RTTI (dyn_cast<> et al.)
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const ShapeKind Kind;
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ShapeKind getKind() const { return Kind; }
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Shape(ShapeKind K) : Kind(K) {}
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virtual double computeArea() = 0;
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class Square : public Shape {
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Square(double S) : Shape(SK_Square), SideLength(S) {}
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double computeArea() override;
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+ static bool classof(const Shape *S) {
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+ return S->getKind() == SK_Square;
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class Circle : public Shape {
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Circle(double R) : Shape(SK_Circle), Radius(R) {}
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double computeArea() override;
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+ static bool classof(const Shape *S) {
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+ return S->getKind() == SK_Circle;
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The job of ``classof`` is to dynamically determine whether an object of
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a base class is in fact of a particular derived class. In order to
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downcast a type ``Base`` to a type ``Derived``, there needs to be a
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``classof`` in ``Derived`` which will accept an object of type ``Base``.
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To be concrete, consider the following code:
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if (isa<Circle>(S)) {
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/* do something ... */
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The code of the ``isa<>`` test in this code will eventually boil
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down---after template instantiation and some other machinery---to a
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check roughly like ``Circle::classof(S)``. For more information, see
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:ref:`classof-contract`.
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The argument to ``classof`` should always be an *ancestor* class because
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the implementation has logic to allow and optimize away
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upcasts/up-``isa<>``'s automatically. It is as though every class
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``Foo`` automatically has a ``classof`` like:
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static bool classof(const T *,
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::std::is_base_of<Foo, T>::value
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>::type* = 0) { return true; }
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Note that this is the reason that we did not need to introduce a
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``classof`` into ``Shape``: all relevant classes derive from ``Shape``,
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and ``Shape`` itself is abstract (has no entry in the ``Kind`` enum),
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so this notional inferred ``classof`` is all we need. See `Concrete
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Bases and Deeper Hierarchies`_ for more information about how to extend
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this example to more general hierarchies.
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Although for this small example setting up LLVM-style RTTI seems like a lot
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of "boilerplate", if your classes are doing anything interesting then this
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will end up being a tiny fraction of the code.
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Concrete Bases and Deeper Hierarchies
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=====================================
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For concrete bases (i.e. non-abstract interior nodes of the inheritance
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tree), the ``Kind`` check inside ``classof`` needs to be a bit more
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complicated. The situation differs from the example above in that
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* Since the class is concrete, it must itself have an entry in the ``Kind``
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enum because it is possible to have objects with this class as a dynamic
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* Since the class has children, the check inside ``classof`` must take them
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Say that ``SpecialSquare`` and ``OtherSpecialSquare`` derive
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from ``Square``, and so ``ShapeKind`` becomes:
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+ SK_OtherSpecialSquare,
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Then in ``Square``, we would need to modify the ``classof`` like so:
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- static bool classof(const Shape *S) {
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- return S->getKind() == SK_Square;
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+ static bool classof(const Shape *S) {
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+ return S->getKind() >= SK_Square &&
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+ S->getKind() <= SK_OtherSpecialSquare;
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The reason that we need to test a range like this instead of just equality
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is that both ``SpecialSquare`` and ``OtherSpecialSquare`` "is-a"
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``Square``, and so ``classof`` needs to return ``true`` for them.
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This approach can be made to scale to arbitrarily deep hierarchies. The
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trick is that you arrange the enum values so that they correspond to a
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preorder traversal of the class hierarchy tree. With that arrangement, all
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subclass tests can be done with two comparisons as shown above. If you just
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list the class hierarchy like a list of bullet points, you'll get the
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The example just given opens the door to bugs where the ``classof``\s are
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not updated to match the ``Kind`` enum when adding (or removing) classes to
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(from) the hierarchy.
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Continuing the example above, suppose we add a ``SomewhatSpecialSquare`` as
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a subclass of ``Square``, and update the ``ShapeKind`` enum like so:
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SK_OtherSpecialSquare,
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+ SK_SomewhatSpecialSquare,
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Now, suppose that we forget to update ``Square::classof()``, so it still
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static bool classof(const Shape *S) {
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// BUG: Returns false when S->getKind() == SK_SomewhatSpecialSquare,
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// even though SomewhatSpecialSquare "is a" Square.
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return S->getKind() >= SK_Square &&
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S->getKind() <= SK_OtherSpecialSquare;
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As the comment indicates, this code contains a bug. A straightforward and
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non-clever way to avoid this is to introduce an explicit ``SK_LastSquare``
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entry in the enum when adding the first subclass(es). For example, we could
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rewrite the example at the beginning of `Concrete Bases and Deeper
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+ SK_OtherSpecialSquare,
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- static bool classof(const Shape *S) {
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- return S->getKind() == SK_Square;
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+ static bool classof(const Shape *S) {
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+ return S->getKind() >= SK_Square &&
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+ S->getKind() <= SK_LastSquare;
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Then, adding new subclasses is easy:
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SK_OtherSpecialSquare,
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+ SK_SomewhatSpecialSquare,
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Notice that ``Square::classof`` does not need to be changed.
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.. _classof-contract:
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The Contract of ``classof``
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---------------------------
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To be more precise, let ``classof`` be inside a class ``C``. Then the
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contract for ``classof`` is "return ``true`` if the dynamic type of the
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argument is-a ``C``". As long as your implementation fulfills this
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contract, you can tweak and optimize it as much as you want.
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For example, LLVM-style RTTI can work fine in the presence of
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multiple-inheritance by defining an appropriate ``classof``.
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An example of this in practice is
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`Decl <http://clang.llvm.org/doxygen/classclang_1_1Decl.html>`_ vs.
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`DeclContext <http://clang.llvm.org/doxygen/classclang_1_1DeclContext.html>`_
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The ``Decl`` hierarchy is done very similarly to the example setup
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demonstrated in this tutorial.
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The key part is how to then incorporate ``DeclContext``: all that is needed
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is in ``bool DeclContext::classof(const Decl *)``, which asks the question
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"Given a ``Decl``, how can I determine if it is-a ``DeclContext``?".
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It answers this with a simple switch over the set of ``Decl`` "kinds", and
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returning true for ones that are known to be ``DeclContext``'s.
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Touch on some of the more advanced features, like ``isa_impl`` and
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``simplify_type``. However, those two need reference documentation in
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the form of doxygen comments as well. We need the doxygen so that we can
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say "for full details, see http://llvm.org/doxygen/..."
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#. The ``Kind`` enum should have one entry per concrete class, ordered
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according to a preorder traversal of the inheritance tree.
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#. The argument to ``classof`` should be a ``const Base *``, where ``Base``
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is some ancestor in the inheritance hierarchy. The argument should
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*never* be a derived class or the class itself: the template machinery
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for ``isa<>`` already handles this case and optimizes it.
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#. For each class in the hierarchy that has no children, implement a
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``classof`` that checks only against its ``Kind``.
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#. For each class in the hierarchy that has children, implement a
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``classof`` that checks a range of the first child's ``Kind`` and the
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last child's ``Kind``.