Dynamic declaration

Shortly after my last blog post, Stashes raised a question. Coincidence? Conspiracy? You decide! Anyway, the EVAL caught my eye, because with it we can dynamically create compile time constructs such as a package.

our package EXPORTHOW {
}

sub EXPORT($declarator-name = 'registered') {
    use MONKEY-SEE-NO-EVAL;
    OUR::EXPORTHOW::DECLARE := EVAL q:s:to /EOH/;
        package DECLARE {
            constant $declarator-name = MetamodelX::RegisteredHOW;
        }
        EOH

    Map.new
}

Thanks to be our-scoped, the package EXPORTHOW can be modified at runtime. The EVAL allows to define a constant at runtime. Runtime in this context, is when the use statement of a consuming module is executed.

use Registered 'remembered', :recall-types;

remembered Foo {
    method answer { 42 }
    method common { self.^name }
}

With this technique, we allow the user of a module to decide what symbols are being used for a declarator. Pretty handy, if a module is added late to a project, which might have occupied a given symbol already. Quite some time ago, I lamented a little lizmats decision to modify class with InterceptAllMethods. This is now a solvable problem.

I once believed Raku to be less dynamic then Perl. Looks like I have to reconsider.