[swift-evolution] [Pitch] Exhaustive pattern matching for protocols and classes

[Leonardo Pessoa]

I like this but I think it would be a lot hard to ensure you have all
subclasses covered. Think of frameworks that could provide many
unsealed classes. You could also have an object that would have to
handle a large subtree (NSObject?) and the order in which the cases
are evaluated would matter just as in exception handling in languages
such as Java (or require some evaluation from the compiler to raise
warnings). I'm +1 for this but these should be open-ended like strings
and require the default case.

On 24 May 2016 at 17:08, Austin Zheng via swift-evolution
<swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
> I have been hoping for the exhaustive pattern matching feature for a while
> now, and would love to see a proposal.
>
> Austin
>
> On Tue, May 24, 2016 at 1:01 PM, Matthew Johnson via swift-evolution
> <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>>
>> Swift currently requires a default pattern matching clause when you switch
>> on an existential or a non-final class even if the protocol or class is
>> non-public and all cases are covered.  It would be really nice if the
>> default clause were not necessary in this case.  The compiler has the
>> necessary information to prove exhaustiveness.
>>
>> Related to this is the idea of introducing something like a `sealed`
>> modifier that could be applied to public protocols and classes.  The
>> protocol or class would be visible when the module is imported, but
>> conformances or subclasses outside the declaring module would be prohibited.
>> Internal and private protocols and classes would implicitly be sealed since
>> they are not visible outside the module.  Any protocols that inherit from a
>> sealed protocol or classes that inherit from a sealed class would also be
>> implicitly sealed (if we didn’t do this the sealing of the superprotocol /
>> superclass could be violated by conforming to or inheriting from a
>> subprotocol / subclass).
>>
>> Here are examples that I would like to see be valid:
>>
>> protocol P {}
>> // alternatively public sealed protocol P {}
>> struct P1: P {}
>> struct P2: P {}
>>
>> func p(p: P) -> Int {
>>     switch p {
>>     case is P1: return 1 // alternatively an `as` cast
>>     case is P2: return 2 // alternatively an `as` cast
>>     }
>> }
>>
>> class C {}
>> // alternatively public sealed class C {}
>> class C1: C {}
>> class C2: C {}
>>
>> func c(c: C) -> Int {
>>     switch c {
>>     case is C1: return 1 // alternatively an `as` cast
>>     case is C2: return 2 // alternatively an `as` cast
>>     case is C: return 0   // alternatively an `as` cast
>>     }
>> }
>>
>> I am wondering if this is something the community is interested in.  If
>> so, I am wondering if this is something that might be possible in the Swift
>> 3 timeframe (maybe just for private and internal protocols and classes) or
>> if it should wait for Swift 4 (this is likely the case).
>>
>> -Matthew
>> _______________________________________________
>> swift-evolution mailing list
>> swift-evolution at swift.org
>> https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> swift-evolution mailing list
> swift-evolution at swift.org
> https://lists.swift.org/mailman/listinfo/swift-evolution
>