docs/HowToSetUpLLVMStyleRTTI.rst - platform/external/llvm - Gitiles

 ======================================================
 How to set up LLVM-style RTTI for your class hierarchy
 ======================================================

 .. contents::

 Background
 ==========

 LLVM avoids using C++'s built in RTTI. Instead, it  pervasively uses its
 own hand-rolled form of RTTI which is much more efficient and flexible,
 although it requires a bit more work from you as a class author.

 A description of how to use LLVM-style RTTI from a client's perspective is
 given in the `Programmer's Manual <ProgrammersManual.html#isa>`_. This
 document, in contrast, discusses the steps you need to take as a class
 hierarchy author to make LLVM-style RTTI available to your clients.

 Before diving in, make sure that you are familiar with the Object Oriented
 Programming concept of "`is-a`_".

 .. _is-a: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is-a

 Basic Setup
 ===========

 This section describes how to set up the most basic form of LLVM-style RTTI
 (which is sufficient for 99.9% of the cases). We will set up LLVM-style
 RTTI for this class hierarchy:

 .. code-block:: c++

    class Shape {
    public:
      Shape() {}
      virtual double computeArea() = 0;
    };

    class Square : public Shape {
      double SideLength;
    public:
      Square(double S) : SideLength(S) {}
      double computeArea() /* override */;
    };

    class Circle : public Shape {
      double Radius;
    public:
      Circle(double R) : Radius(R) {}
      double computeArea() /* override */;
    };

 The most basic working setup for LLVM-style RTTI requires the following
 steps:

 #. In the header where you declare ``Shape``, you will want to ``#include
    "llvm/Support/Casting.h"``, which declares LLVM's RTTI templates. That
    way your clients don't even have to think about it.

    .. code-block:: c++

       #include "llvm/Support/Casting.h"

 #. In the base class, introduce an enum which discriminates all of the
    different concrete classes in the hierarchy, and stash the enum value
    somewhere in the base class.

    Here is the code after introducing this change:

    .. code-block:: c++

        class Shape {
        public:
       +  /// Discriminator for LLVM-style RTTI (dyn_cast<> et al.)
       +  enum ShapeKind {
       +    SK_Square,
       +    SK_Circle
       +  };
       +private:
       +  const ShapeKind Kind;
       +public:
       +  ShapeKind getKind() const { return Kind; }
       +
          Shape() {}
          virtual double computeArea() = 0;
        };

    You will usually want to keep the ``Kind`` member encapsulated and
    private, but let the enum ``ShapeKind`` be public along with providing a
    ``getKind()`` method. This is convenient for clients so that they can do
    a ``switch`` over the enum.

    A common naming convention is that these enums are "kind"s, to avoid
    ambiguity with the words "type" or "class" which have overloaded meanings
    in many contexts within LLVM. Sometimes there will be a natural name for
    it, like "opcode". Don't bikeshed over this; when in doubt use ``Kind``.

    You might wonder why the ``Kind`` enum doesn't have an entry for
    ``Shape``. The reason for this is that since ``Shape`` is abstract
    (``computeArea() = 0;``), you will never actually have non-derived
    instances of exactly that class (only subclasses). See `Concrete Bases
    and Deeper Hierarchies`_ for information on how to deal with
    non-abstract bases. It's worth mentioning here that unlike
    ``dynamic_cast<>``, LLVM-style RTTI can be used (and is often used) for
    classes that don't have v-tables.

 #. Next, you need to make sure that the ``Kind`` gets initialized to the
    value corresponding to the dynamic type of the class. Typically, you will
    want to have it be an argument to the constructor of the base class, and
    then pass in the respective ``XXXKind`` from subclass constructors.

    Here is the code after that change:

    .. code-block:: c++

        class Shape {
        public:
          /// Discriminator for LLVM-style RTTI (dyn_cast<> et al.)
          enum ShapeKind {
            SK_Square,
            SK_Circle
          };
        private:
          const ShapeKind Kind;
        public:
          ShapeKind getKind() const { return Kind; }

       -  Shape() {}
       +  Shape(ShapeKind K) : Kind(K) {}
          virtual double computeArea() = 0;
        };

        class Square : public Shape {
          double SideLength;
        public:
       -  Square(double S) : SideLength(S) {}
       +  Square(double S) : Shape(SK_Square), SideLength(S) {}
          double computeArea() /* override */;
        };

        class Circle : public Shape {
          double Radius;
        public:
       -  Circle(double R) : Radius(R) {}
       +  Circle(double R) : Shape(SK_Circle), Radius(R) {}
          double computeArea() /* override */;
        };

 #. Finally, you need to inform LLVM's RTTI templates how to dynamically
    determine the type of a class (i.e. whether the ``isa<>``/``dyn_cast<>``
    should succeed). The default "99.9% of use cases" way to accomplish this
    is through a small static member function ``classof``. In order to have
    proper context for an explanation, we will display this code first, and
    then below describe each part:

    .. code-block:: c++

        class Shape {
        public:
          /// Discriminator for LLVM-style RTTI (dyn_cast<> et al.)
          enum ShapeKind {
            SK_Square,
            SK_Circle
          };
        private:
          const ShapeKind Kind;
        public:
          ShapeKind getKind() const { return Kind; }

          Shape(ShapeKind K) : Kind(K) {}
          virtual double computeArea() = 0;
        };

        class Square : public Shape {
          double SideLength;
        public:
          Square(double S) : Shape(SK_Square), SideLength(S) {}
          double computeArea() /* override */;
       +
       +  static bool classof(const Shape *S) {
       +    return S->getKind() == SK_Square;
       +  }
        };

        class Circle : public Shape {
          double Radius;
        public:
          Circle(double R) : Shape(SK_Circle), Radius(R) {}
          double computeArea() /* override */;
       +
       +  static bool classof(const Shape *S) {
       +    return S->getKind() == SK_Circle;
       +  }
        };

    The job of ``classof`` is to dynamically determine whether an object of
    a base class is in fact of a particular derived class.  In order to
    downcast a type ``Base`` to a type ``Derived``, there needs to be a
    ``classof`` in ``Derived`` which will accept an object of type ``Base``.

    To be concrete, consider the following code:

    .. code-block:: c++

       Shape *S = ...;
       if (isa<Circle>(S)) {
         /* do something ... */
       }

    The code of the ``isa<>`` test in this code will eventually boil
    down---after template instantiation and some other machinery---to a
    check roughly like ``Circle::classof(S)``. For more information, see
    :ref:`classof-contract`.

    The argument to ``classof`` should always be an *ancestor* class because
    the implementation has logic to allow and optimize away
    upcasts/up-``isa<>``'s automatically. It is as though every class
    ``Foo`` automatically has a ``classof`` like:

    .. code-block:: c++

       class Foo {
         [...]
         template <class T>
         static bool classof(const T *,
                             ::llvm::enable_if_c<
                               ::llvm::is_base_of<Foo, T>::value
                             >::type* = 0) { return true; }
         [...]
       };

    Note that this is the reason that we did not need to introduce a
    ``classof`` into ``Shape``: all relevant classes derive from ``Shape``,
    and ``Shape`` itself is abstract (has no entry in the ``Kind`` enum),
    so this notional inferred ``classof`` is all we need. See `Concrete
    Bases and Deeper Hierarchies`_ for more information about how to extend
    this example to more general hierarchies.

 Although for this small example setting up LLVM-style RTTI seems like a lot
 of "boilerplate", if your classes are doing anything interesting then this
 will end up being a tiny fraction of the code.

 Concrete Bases and Deeper Hierarchies
 =====================================

 For concrete bases (i.e. non-abstract interior nodes of the inheritance
 tree), the ``Kind`` check inside ``classof`` needs to be a bit more
 complicated. The situation differs from the example above in that

 * Since the class is concrete, it must itself have an entry in the ``Kind``
   enum because it is possible to have objects with this class as a dynamic
   type.

 * Since the class has children, the check inside ``classof`` must take them
   into account.

 Say that ``SpecialSquare`` and ``OtherSpecialSquare`` derive
 from ``Square``, and so ``ShapeKind`` becomes:

 .. code-block:: c++

     enum ShapeKind {
       SK_Square,
    +  SK_SpecialSquare,
    +  SK_OtherSpecialSquare,
       SK_Circle
     }

 Then in ``Square``, we would need to modify the ``classof`` like so:

 .. code-block:: c++

    -  static bool classof(const Shape *S) {
    -    return S->getKind() == SK_Square;
    -  }
    +  static bool classof(const Shape *S) {
    +    return S->getKind() >= SK_Square &&
    +           S->getKind() <= SK_OtherSpecialSquare;
    +  }

 The reason that we need to test a range like this instead of just equality
 is that both ``SpecialSquare`` and ``OtherSpecialSquare`` "is-a"
 ``Square``, and so ``classof`` needs to return ``true`` for them.

 This approach can be made to scale to arbitrarily deep hierarchies. The
 trick is that you arrange the enum values so that they correspond to a
 preorder traversal of the class hierarchy tree. With that arrangement, all
 subclass tests can be done with two comparisons as shown above. If you just
 list the class hierarchy like a list of bullet points, you'll get the
 ordering right::

    | Shape
      | Square
        | SpecialSquare
        | OtherSpecialSquare
      | Circle

 .. _classof-contract:

 The Contract of ``classof``
 ---------------------------

 To be more precise, let ``classof`` be inside a class ``C``.  Then the
 contract for ``classof`` is "return ``true`` if the dynamic type of the
 argument is-a ``C``".  As long as your implementation fulfills this
 contract, you can tweak and optimize it as much as you want.

 .. TODO::

    Touch on some of the more advanced features, like ``isa_impl`` and
    ``simplify_type``. However, those two need reference documentation in
    the form of doxygen comments as well. We need the doxygen so that we can
    say "for full details, see http://llvm.org/doxygen/..."

 Rules of Thumb
 ==============

 #. The ``Kind`` enum should have one entry per concrete class, ordered
    according to a preorder traversal of the inheritance tree.
 #. The argument to ``classof`` should be a ``const Base *``, where ``Base``
    is some ancestor in the inheritance hierarchy. The argument should
    *never* be a derived class or the class itself: the template machinery
    for ``isa<>`` already handles this case and optimizes it.
 #. For each class in the hierarchy that has no children, implement a
    ``classof`` that checks only against its ``Kind``.
 #. For each class in the hierarchy that has children, implement a
    ``classof`` that checks a range of the first child's ``Kind`` and the
    last child's ``Kind``.
	======================================================
	How to set up LLVM-style RTTI for your class hierarchy
	======================================================

	.. contents::

	Background
	==========

	LLVM avoids using C++'s built in RTTI. Instead, it pervasively uses its
	own hand-rolled form of RTTI which is much more efficient and flexible,
	although it requires a bit more work from you as a class author.

	A description of how to use LLVM-style RTTI from a client's perspective is
	given in the `Programmer's Manual <ProgrammersManual.html#isa>`_. This
	document, in contrast, discusses the steps you need to take as a class
	hierarchy author to make LLVM-style RTTI available to your clients.

	Before diving in, make sure that you are familiar with the Object Oriented
	Programming concept of "`is-a`_".

	.. _is-a: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is-a

	Basic Setup
	===========

	This section describes how to set up the most basic form of LLVM-style RTTI
	(which is sufficient for 99.9% of the cases). We will set up LLVM-style
	RTTI for this class hierarchy:

	.. code-block:: c++

	class Shape {
	public:
	Shape() {}
	virtual double computeArea() = 0;
	};

	class Square : public Shape {
	double SideLength;
	public:
	Square(double S) : SideLength(S) {}
	double computeArea() /* override */;
	};

	class Circle : public Shape {
	double Radius;
	public:
	Circle(double R) : Radius(R) {}
	double computeArea() /* override */;
	};

	The most basic working setup for LLVM-style RTTI requires the following
	steps:

	#. In the header where you declare ``Shape``, you will want to ``#include
	"llvm/Support/Casting.h"``, which declares LLVM's RTTI templates. That
	way your clients don't even have to think about it.

	.. code-block:: c++

	#include "llvm/Support/Casting.h"

	#. In the base class, introduce an enum which discriminates all of the
	different concrete classes in the hierarchy, and stash the enum value
	somewhere in the base class.

	Here is the code after introducing this change:

	.. code-block:: c++

	class Shape {
	public:
	+ /// Discriminator for LLVM-style RTTI (dyn_cast<> et al.)
	+ enum ShapeKind {
	+ SK_Square,
	+ SK_Circle
	+ };
	+private:
	+ const ShapeKind Kind;
	+public:
	+ ShapeKind getKind() const { return Kind; }
	+
	Shape() {}
	virtual double computeArea() = 0;
	};

	You will usually want to keep the ``Kind`` member encapsulated and
	private, but let the enum ``ShapeKind`` be public along with providing a
	``getKind()`` method. This is convenient for clients so that they can do
	a ``switch`` over the enum.

	A common naming convention is that these enums are "kind"s, to avoid
	ambiguity with the words "type" or "class" which have overloaded meanings
	in many contexts within LLVM. Sometimes there will be a natural name for
	it, like "opcode". Don't bikeshed over this; when in doubt use ``Kind``.

	You might wonder why the ``Kind`` enum doesn't have an entry for
	``Shape``. The reason for this is that since ``Shape`` is abstract
	(``computeArea() = 0;``), you will never actually have non-derived
	instances of exactly that class (only subclasses). See `Concrete Bases
	and Deeper Hierarchies`_ for information on how to deal with
	non-abstract bases. It's worth mentioning here that unlike
	``dynamic_cast<>``, LLVM-style RTTI can be used (and is often used) for
	classes that don't have v-tables.

	#. Next, you need to make sure that the ``Kind`` gets initialized to the
	value corresponding to the dynamic type of the class. Typically, you will
	want to have it be an argument to the constructor of the base class, and
	then pass in the respective ``XXXKind`` from subclass constructors.

	Here is the code after that change:

	.. code-block:: c++

	class Shape {
	public:
	/// Discriminator for LLVM-style RTTI (dyn_cast<> et al.)
	enum ShapeKind {
	SK_Square,
	SK_Circle
	};
	private:
	const ShapeKind Kind;
	public:
	ShapeKind getKind() const { return Kind; }

	- Shape() {}
	+ Shape(ShapeKind K) : Kind(K) {}
	virtual double computeArea() = 0;
	};

	class Square : public Shape {
	double SideLength;
	public:
	- Square(double S) : SideLength(S) {}
	+ Square(double S) : Shape(SK_Square), SideLength(S) {}
	double computeArea() /* override */;
	};

	class Circle : public Shape {
	double Radius;
	public:
	- Circle(double R) : Radius(R) {}
	+ Circle(double R) : Shape(SK_Circle), Radius(R) {}
	double computeArea() /* override */;
	};

	#. Finally, you need to inform LLVM's RTTI templates how to dynamically
	determine the type of a class (i.e. whether the ``isa<>``/``dyn_cast<>``
	should succeed). The default "99.9% of use cases" way to accomplish this
	is through a small static member function ``classof``. In order to have
	proper context for an explanation, we will display this code first, and
	then below describe each part:

	.. code-block:: c++

	class Shape {
	public:
	/// Discriminator for LLVM-style RTTI (dyn_cast<> et al.)
	enum ShapeKind {
	SK_Square,
	SK_Circle
	};
	private:
	const ShapeKind Kind;
	public:
	ShapeKind getKind() const { return Kind; }

	Shape(ShapeKind K) : Kind(K) {}
	virtual double computeArea() = 0;
	};

	class Square : public Shape {
	double SideLength;
	public:
	Square(double S) : Shape(SK_Square), SideLength(S) {}
	double computeArea() /* override */;
	+
	+ static bool classof(const Shape *S) {
	+ return S->getKind() == SK_Square;
	+ }
	};

	class Circle : public Shape {
	double Radius;
	public:
	Circle(double R) : Shape(SK_Circle), Radius(R) {}
	double computeArea() /* override */;
	+
	+ static bool classof(const Shape *S) {
	+ return S->getKind() == SK_Circle;
	+ }
	};

	The job of ``classof`` is to dynamically determine whether an object of
	a base class is in fact of a particular derived class. In order to
	downcast a type ``Base`` to a type ``Derived``, there needs to be a
	``classof`` in ``Derived`` which will accept an object of type ``Base``.

	To be concrete, consider the following code:

	.. code-block:: c++

	Shape *S = ...;
	if (isa<Circle>(S)) {
	/* do something ... */
	}

	The code of the ``isa<>`` test in this code will eventually boil
	down---after template instantiation and some other machinery---to a
	check roughly like ``Circle::classof(S)``. For more information, see
	:ref:`classof-contract`.

	The argument to ``classof`` should always be an ancestor class because
	the implementation has logic to allow and optimize away
	upcasts/up-``isa<>``'s automatically. It is as though every class
	``Foo`` automatically has a ``classof`` like:

	.. code-block:: c++

	class Foo {
	[...]
	template <class T>
	static bool classof(const T *,
	::llvm::enable_if_c<
	::llvm::is_base_of<Foo, T>::value
	>::type* = 0) { return true; }
	[...]
	};

	Note that this is the reason that we did not need to introduce a
	``classof`` into ``Shape``: all relevant classes derive from ``Shape``,
	and ``Shape`` itself is abstract (has no entry in the ``Kind`` enum),
	so this notional inferred ``classof`` is all we need. See `Concrete
	Bases and Deeper Hierarchies`_ for more information about how to extend
	this example to more general hierarchies.

	Although for this small example setting up LLVM-style RTTI seems like a lot
	of "boilerplate", if your classes are doing anything interesting then this
	will end up being a tiny fraction of the code.

	Concrete Bases and Deeper Hierarchies
	=====================================

	For concrete bases (i.e. non-abstract interior nodes of the inheritance
	tree), the ``Kind`` check inside ``classof`` needs to be a bit more
	complicated. The situation differs from the example above in that

	* Since the class is concrete, it must itself have an entry in the ``Kind``
	enum because it is possible to have objects with this class as a dynamic
	type.

	* Since the class has children, the check inside ``classof`` must take them
	into account.

	Say that ``SpecialSquare`` and ``OtherSpecialSquare`` derive
	from ``Square``, and so ``ShapeKind`` becomes:

	.. code-block:: c++

	enum ShapeKind {
	SK_Square,
	+ SK_SpecialSquare,
	+ SK_OtherSpecialSquare,
	SK_Circle
	}

	Then in ``Square``, we would need to modify the ``classof`` like so:

	.. code-block:: c++

	- static bool classof(const Shape *S) {
	- return S->getKind() == SK_Square;
	- }
	+ static bool classof(const Shape *S) {
	+ return S->getKind() >= SK_Square &&
	+ S->getKind() <= SK_OtherSpecialSquare;
	+ }

	The reason that we need to test a range like this instead of just equality
	is that both ``SpecialSquare`` and ``OtherSpecialSquare`` "is-a"
	``Square``, and so ``classof`` needs to return ``true`` for them.

	This approach can be made to scale to arbitrarily deep hierarchies. The
	trick is that you arrange the enum values so that they correspond to a
	preorder traversal of the class hierarchy tree. With that arrangement, all
	subclass tests can be done with two comparisons as shown above. If you just
	list the class hierarchy like a list of bullet points, you'll get the
	ordering right::

	\| Shape
	\| Square
	\| SpecialSquare
	\| OtherSpecialSquare
	\| Circle

	.. _classof-contract:

	The Contract of ``classof``
	---------------------------

	To be more precise, let ``classof`` be inside a class ``C``. Then the
	contract for ``classof`` is "return ``true`` if the dynamic type of the
	argument is-a ``C``". As long as your implementation fulfills this
	contract, you can tweak and optimize it as much as you want.

	.. TODO::

	Touch on some of the more advanced features, like ``isa_impl`` and
	``simplify_type``. However, those two need reference documentation in
	the form of doxygen comments as well. We need the doxygen so that we can
	say "for full details, see http://llvm.org/doxygen/..."

	Rules of Thumb
	==============

	#. The ``Kind`` enum should have one entry per concrete class, ordered
	according to a preorder traversal of the inheritance tree.
	#. The argument to ``classof`` should be a ``const Base *``, where ``Base``
	is some ancestor in the inheritance hierarchy. The argument should
	never be a derived class or the class itself: the template machinery
	for ``isa<>`` already handles this case and optimizes it.
	#. For each class in the hierarchy that has no children, implement a
	``classof`` that checks only against its ``Kind``.
	#. For each class in the hierarchy that has children, implement a
	``classof`` that checks a range of the first child's ``Kind`` and the
	last child's ``Kind``.