[swift-evolution] Proposal: Sealed protocols

[Dmitri Gribenko]

On Thu, Dec 3, 2015 at 3:09 PM, Douglas Gregor <dgregor at apple.com> wrote:
>
>> On Dec 3, 2015, at 2:59 PM, Felix Gabel <felix.gabel at me.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hey everyone,
>>
>> I hereby propose adding a ’sealed’ modifier for protocols to enable
library developers to declare protocols that can be only conformed to in
the scope of the library itself. This is similar to a ’sealed trait’ in
Scala with the difference that it does not limit the protocol to be only
applicable in the file it is declared in.
>>
>> Example:
>>
>> public sealed protocol FooType {
>>    // this protocol can be conformed to only in scope of the library
itself
>>    // it can NOT be conformed to by any object declared outside the
library
>> }
>>
>> What do you think?
>
>
> Can you elaborate on why a Swift developer would want to distinguish
between “public sealed” and “internal”?

There are cases when the library isn't designed to support new conformances
for the protocol, but the protocol is public because other public APIs are
expressed in terms of it.

We have a case for it in the standard library, 'protocol
AnyCollectionType'.  Foundation also has a use case -- property list types.

Dmitri

-- 
main(i,j){for(i=2;;i++){for(j=2;j<i;j++){if(!(i%j)){j=0;break;}}if
(j){printf("%d\n",i);}}} /*Dmitri Gribenko <gribozavr at gmail.com>*/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.swift.org/pipermail/swift-evolution/attachments/20151203/ab0c1961/attachment.html>