[swift-dev] Implementing New Syntax in Swift

Mon Jan 18 11:10:55 CST 2016

Sure, but this is a completely arbitrary, simple example designed to
illustrate how to add new syntax to Swift. Conforming to
IntegerLiteralConvertible would defeat the point of the exercise.

Thanks,
Seth
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 8:55 AM Svein Halvor Halvorsen <
svein.h at lvor.halvorsen.cc> wrote:

> Can't you just make your SuperInt conform to IntergerLiteralConvertible
> and initialise it like so:
>
> let superIntExample: SuperInt = 100
>
> sv.
>
> 2016-01-18 1:13 GMT+01:00 Seth Friedman via swift-dev <swift-dev at swift.org
> >:
>
>> Created SR-569 <https://bugs.swift.org/browse/SR-569> to track this
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Seth
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 4:18 PM, Seth Friedman <sethfri at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Changing the subject of this thread since it's now an entirely different
>>> question than what I originally asked. Hopefully this will result in better
>>> visibility in getting an answer as well.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Seth
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 4:16 PM Seth Friedman <sethfri at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Thanks Jordan!
>>>>
>>>> Here's a specific flow I'm interested in understanding. Note that this
>>>> is just a wild example that would help me better understand parts of the
>>>> compiler I'm interested in rather than any sort of proposal for the
>>>> language.
>>>>
>>>> Let's say I have a type called SuperInt that has some cool integer
>>>> operations that would be applicable and useful to everyone writing Swift.
>>>> It's a given that this makes sense to be in the Swift language, and people
>>>> are going to be using it so often that it makes sense to create a new
>>>> literal syntax for this type. I'd like users to be able to instantiate a
>>>> SuperInt with the following:
>>>>
>>>> let superIntExample = %^100^%
>>>>
>>>> Crazy syntax for a crazy example, but I wanted to make sure it's not
>>>> something that's already in Swift. In this example, my SuperInt would be
>>>> instantiated with a value of 100.
>>>>
>>>> I'd like to know the parts of the Swift compiler I would need to
>>>> understand and change to implement this new type with its new syntax.
>>>>
>>>> I really this question requires a lengthy answer, but I think it would
>>>> make a great start to a Swift internals manual (which I agree with you
>>>> would be a fantastic idea).
>>>>
>>>> Anyone's help would be much appreciated!
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Seth
>>>> On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 5:25 PM Jordan Rose <jordan_rose at apple.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi, Seth. Sorry for not getting back to you sooner! I don't think we
>>>>> have anything exactly like this, but there's *sort* of a sequence
>>>>> diagram in Chris and Joe's talk at the LLVM conference, "Swift's
>>>>> High-Level IR <https://youtu.be/Ntj8ab-5cvE>". I'd say it looks
>>>>> something like this:
>>>>>
>>>>> 1. Parsing
>>>>> 2. Semantic analysis, including type-checking
>>>>> 3. SIL generation
>>>>> 4. Mandatory SIL passes
>>>>> 5. SIL optimization
>>>>> 6. LLVM IR generation
>>>>> 7. LLVM optimization
>>>>> 8. LLVM output (usually including machine code generation and writing
>>>>> to a .o file)
>>>>>
>>>>> …with the last two handled pretty much completely by LLVM
>>>>> <http://llvm.org> itself, and not customized by Swift.
>>>>>
>>>>> We probably ought to have something like Clang's "Internals
>>>>> <http://clang.llvm.org/docs/InternalsManual.html>" manual (hopefully
>>>>> better), which lays out the major concepts in each library. As it is we
>>>>> have various concepts that are documented very well, either in docs/ or in
>>>>> header comments, and others which are just arcane knowledge in the heads of
>>>>> the implementers. This is not a good thing.
>>>>>
>>>>> The "Contributing <https://swift.org/contributing/>" page on the
>>>>> website lists a handful of ways to get involved; another one we're still
>>>>> bringing up is issues with the "StarterBug" label in JIRA. These are
>>>>> intended to be bugs that a newcomer could use as a goal-oriented way to
>>>>> learn about one part of the project.
>>>>>
>>>>> Of course, we're happy to answer any specific questions you might have
>>>>> (and this list is probably the right place for them). It's the general ones
>>>>> that are hard. :-)
>>>>>
>>>>> Jordan
>>>>>
>>>>> On Dec 16, 2015, at 2:36, Seth Friedman <sethfri at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks Jordan!
>>>>>
>>>>> Another question if anyone has some time: I'm really interested in
>>>>> contributing to the project, but given that I don't have a ton of
>>>>> experience with compilers, I'm having a really hard time following the flow
>>>>> of the program. I understand that the high level flow is lexing, parsing,
>>>>> sema, and building the AST. However, tracing through the actual functions
>>>>> in the compiler prove much more difficult due to the amount of
>>>>> indirection/metaprogramming.
>>>>>
>>>>> Are there any sort of sequence diagrams that I haven't found yet? If
>>>>> anyone could let me know of any good resources you know of, that would be
>>>>> great. I'm sure this would also be of use to people in my boat that want to
>>>>> help but don't know how to start.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> Seth
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 9:04 PM Jordan Rose <jordan_rose at apple.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi, Seth. I think you're getting Clang / swift-clang mixed up with
>>>>>> swiftc / swift. Clang is not the Swift compiler; the Swift compiler lives
>>>>>> in the "swift" repo. Swift depends on Clang for its interoperation with C
>>>>>> and Objective-C.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A *lot* of the compiler encodes information about Optional, but most
>>>>>> of it stems from ASTContext.h and ASTContext.cpp, which has dedicated
>>>>>> entrypoints for getting Optional, Optional.None, and Optional.Some.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hope this helps,
>>>>>> Jordan
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Dec 8, 2015, at 17:59 , Seth Friedman via swift-dev <
>>>>>> swift-dev at swift.org> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In Optional.swift in the stdlib, there's a comment that says "The
>>>>>> compiler has special knowledge of Optional<Wrapped>, including the fact
>>>>>> that it is an enum with cases named 'None' and 'Some'."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What I'm trying to understand is: If I wanted to implement the
>>>>>> optional type from scratch, what would be the process I would go through?
>>>>>> I've scoured the swift-clang project and can't seem to find any reference
>>>>>> to optionals or even Swift explicitly. I discovered nullability attributes
>>>>>> and am hypothesizing that an expression of something like "Type?" is
>>>>>> somehow mapped to an attribute, but I'm really just stumbling around in the
>>>>>> dark.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In terms of what I've tried, I've gone through a lot of the source in
>>>>>> the swift-clang lib/Basic and lib/AST directories, and I've read through
>>>>>> the "Clang CFE Internals Manual" on the Clang website.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Help is much appreciated!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks in advance,
>>>>>> Seth
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> swift-dev mailing list
>>>>>> swift-dev at swift.org
>>>>>> https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-dev
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Seth Friedman
>> *Software Development Engineer II*
>> *Amazon.com*
>>
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>>
>>
>
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