Method-ish

In my last post I once again struggled with augmenting classes from CORE. That struggle wasn’t needed at all as I didn’t change state of the object with the added method. For doing more advanced stuff I might have to. By sticking my hand so deep into the guts of Rakudo I might get myself burned. Since what I want to do is tying my code to changes the compiler anyway, I might as well go all in and decent into nqp-land.

my \j = 1 | 2 | 3;
dd j;
use nqp;
.say for nqp::getattr(j, Junction, '$!eigenstates');
# OUTPUT: any(1, 2, 3)
          1
          2
          3

We can use nqp to get hold of private attributes without adding any methods. That’s a bit unwildy. So let’s do some deboilerplating with a pseudo-method.

sub pry(Mu $the-object is raw) {
    use InterceptAllMethods;

    class Interceptor {
        has Mu $!the-object;
        method ^find_method(Mu \type, Str $name) {
            my method (Mu \SELF:) is raw {
                use nqp;
                my $the-object := nqp::getattr(SELF, Interceptor, '$!the-object');
                nqp::getattr($the-object, $the-object.WHAT, '$!' ~ $name)
            }
        }
    }

    use nqp;
    nqp::p6bindattrinvres(nqp::create(Interceptor), Interceptor, '$!the-object', $the-object);
}

.say for j.&pry.eigenstates;
# OUTPUT: 1
          2
          3

With InterceptAllMethods lizmat changed the behaviour of the class-keyword to allow us to provide a FALLBACK-method that captures anything, including methods inherited from Mu. That in turn allows the object returned by pry to divert any method call to a custom method. In this method we can do whatever we want with the object .&pry is called with.

Since our special object will intercept any call, even those of Mu, we need to find another way to call .new. Since .^ is not a special form of . we can use it to get access to class methods.

sub interceptor(Method $the-method){
    use InterceptAllMethods;
    use nqp;

    sub (Mu $the-object is raw) {
        my class Interceptor {
            has Mu $!the-object;
            has Code $!the-method;

            method ^find_method(Mu \type, Mu:D $name) {
                my method (Mu \SELF: |c) is raw {
                    $!the-method.($!the-object, $name, |c)
                }
            }
            method ^introspect(Mu \type, Mu \obj) {
                my method call-it() is raw {
                    $!the-object
                }
                obj.&call-it;
            }
            method ^new(Mu \type, $the-object!, $the-method) {
                nqp::p6bindattrinvres(
                        nqp::p6bindattrinvres(nqp::create(Interceptor), Interceptor, '$!the-object', $the-object),
                        Interceptor, '$!the-method', $the-method)
            }
        }

            # nqp::p6bindattrinvres(
                #     nqp::p6bindattrinvres(nqp::create(Interceptor), Interceptor, '$!the-object', $the-object),
                #   Interceptor, '$!the-method', $the-method);
        Interceptor.^new($the-object, $the-method)
    }
}

my &first-defined = interceptor(
    my method (Positional \SELF: $name) {
        for SELF.flat -> $e {
            with $e."$name"(|%_) {
                .return
            }
        }
        Nil
    }
);

my $file = <file1.txt file2.txt file3.txt nohup.out>».IO.&first-defined.open(:r);
dd $file;
# OUTPUT: Handle $file = IO::Handle.new(path => IO::Path.new("nohup.out", :SPEC(IO::Spec::Unix), :CWD("/home/dex/projects/raku/tmp")), chomp => Bool::True, nl-in => $["\n", "\r\n"], nl-out => "\n", encoding => "utf8")

The sub interceptor takes a method and returns a sub. If that sub is called like a method, it will forward both the name of the to be called method and the invocant to a custom method. When .&first-defined is called a special object is returned. Let’s have a look what it is.

my \uhhh-special = <a b c>.&first-defined;
dd uhhh-special.^introspect(uhhh-special);
# OUTPUT: ($("a", "b", "c"), method <anon> (Positional \SELF: $name, *%_) { #`(Method|93927752146784) ... })

We have to give .^introspect the object we want to have a look at because its invocant is the type object of the class Interceptor.

Currently there is no way known to me (After all, I know just enough to be really dangerous.) to export and import from EXPORTHOW in the same file. That is unfortunate because lizmat decided to overload the keyword class instead of exporting the special Metamodel::ClassHOW with a different name. If we don’t want or can’t have external dependencies, we can use the MOP to create our type object.

class InterceptHOW is Metamodel::ClassHOW {
    method publish_method_cache(|) { }
}

sub ipry(Mu $the-object is raw) {
    my \Interceptor = InterceptHOW.new_type(:name<Interceptor>);
    Interceptor.^add_attribute(Attribute.new(:name<$!the-object>, :type(Mu), :package(Interceptor)));
    Interceptor.^add_meta_method('find_method',
        my method find_method(Mu \type, Str $name) {
            # say „looking for $name“;
            my method (Mu \SELF:) is raw {
                use nqp;
                my $the-object := nqp::getattr(SELF, Interceptor, '$!the-object');
                nqp::getattr($the-object, $the-object.WHAT, '$!' ~ $name)
            }
    });
    Interceptor.^compose;

    use nqp;
    nqp::p6bindattrinvres(nqp::create(Interceptor), Interceptor, '$!the-object', $the-object);
}

While I wrote this I discovered that .^add_meta_method only works if the method provided to it got the same name as the Str in its first argument. At first I tried an anonymous method which ended up in .^meta_method_table but was never called. I guess this bug doesn’t really matter because this meta-method isn’t documented at all. If I play with dragons I have no right to complain about burns. You will spot that method in the wild in Actions.nqp. There is no magic going on with the class-keyword. Rakudo is just using the MOP to construct type objects.

We can’t overload the assignment operator in Raku. That isn’t really needed because assignment happens by calling a method named STORE. Since we got full control over dispatch, we can intercept any method call including a chain of method calls.

multi sub methodify(%h, :$deeply!) {
    sub interceptor(%h, $parent = Nil){
        use InterceptAllMethods;
        use nqp;

        class Interceptor is Callable {
            has Mu $!the-object;
            has Mu @!stack;

            method ^find_method(Mu \type, Mu:D $name) {
                my method (Mu \SELF: |c) is raw {
                    my @new-stack = @!stack;
                    my $the-object = $!the-object;

                    if $name eq 'STORE' {
                        # workaround for rakudobug#4203
                        $the-object{||@new-stack.head(*-1)}:delete if $the-object{||@new-stack.head(*-1)}:exists;

                        $the-object{||@new-stack} = c;
                        return-rw c
                    } else {
                        @new-stack.push: $name;
                        my \nextlevel = SELF.^new($!the-object, @new-stack, $name);
                        nextlevel
                    }
                }
            }
            method ^introspect(Mu \type, Mu \obj) {
                my method call-it() is raw {
                    $!the-object, @!stack
                }
                obj.&call-it;
            }
            method ^new(Mu \type, $the-object!, @new-stack?, $name?) {
                $name
                    ?? nqp::p6bindattrinvres(
                        nqp::p6bindattrinvres(nqp::create(Interceptor), Interceptor, '$!the-object', $the-object),
                        Interceptor, '@!stack', @new-stack)
                    !! nqp::p6bindattrinvres(nqp::create(Interceptor), Interceptor, '$!the-object', $the-object)
                }
        }

        Interceptor.^new(%h)
    }

    interceptor(%h)
}

my %h2;
my $o2 = methodify(%h2, :deeply);
$o2.a.b = 42;
dd %h2;
$o2.a.b.c = <answer>;
dd %h2;
say $o2.a.b.c;
# OUTPUT: Hash %h2 = {:a(${:b(\(42))})}
          Hash %h2 = {:a(${:b(${:c(\("answer"))})})}
          This type cannot unbox to a native string: P6opaque, Interceptor
            in block <unit> at /home/dex/projects/raku/any-chain.raku line 310

Every time we call a method a new instance of Interceptor is created that stores the name of the previous method. That way we can move along the chain of method calls. Since assignment calls STORE, we can divert the assignment to the Hash we use as an actual data structure. Alas, retrieving values does not work the same way because Raku does not distinguish between method call and FETCH. Here the dragon was stronger then me. I still included this halve failed attempt because I had good use for slippy semi lists. This requires use v6.e.PREVIEW and allowed me to step on a bug. There are likely more of those. So please use the same so we can get all the beasties slain before .e is released into the wild.

Having full control over chains of method calls would be nice. Maybe we can do so with RakuAST.

With the things that do work already we can do a few interesting things. Those pesky exceptions are always slowing our progress. We can defuse them with try but that will break a method call chain.

constant no-argument-given = Mu.new;
sub try(Mu $obj is raw, Mu $alternate-value = no-argument-given) {
    interceptor(my method (Mu \SELF: $name, |c) {
        my $o = SELF;
        my \m = $o.^lookup($name) orelse {
            my $bt = Backtrace.new;
            my $idx = $bt.next-interesting-index($bt.next-interesting-index + 1);
            (X::Method::NotFound.new(:method($name), :typename($o.^name)) but role :: { method vault-backtrace { False }}).throw(Backtrace.new($idx + 1));
        }

        try {
            $o = $o."$name"(|c);
        }
 
        $! ~~ Exception
            ?? $alternate-value.WHICH eqv no-argument-given.WHICH
                ?? $o
                !! $alternate-value
            !! $o
    }).($obj)
}

class C {
    has $.greeting;
    method might-throw { die "Not today love!" }
    method greet { say $.greeting }
}

C.new(greeting => ‚Let's make love!‘).&try.might-throw.greet;
# OUTPUT: Let's make love!

The pseudo-method try will defuse any exception and allows to just carry on with calling methods of C. I have to mark the absence of the optional parameter $alternate-value with a special value because one might actually turn the exception object into Nil.

I’m quite sure there are many more such little helpers waiting to be discovered. There may be a module in the future, hopefully helping to make Raku a good programming language.