swift-mirror/docs/Literals.rst

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.. @raise litre.TestsAreMissing

Literals
========

*What happens when a literal expression is used?*

The complicated case is for integer, floating-point, character, and string
literals, so let's look at those.


High-Level View
---------------

::

  window.setTitle("Welcome to Xcode")

In this case, we have a string literal and an enclosing context. If ``window``
is an NSWindow, there will only be one possible method named ``setTitle``,
which takes an NSString. Therefore, we want the string literal expression to
end up being an NSString.

Fortunately, NSString implements StringLiteralConvertible, so the type checker
will indeed be able to choose NSString as the type of the string literal. All
is well.

In the case of integers or floating-point literals, the value effectively has
infinite precision. Once the type has been chosen, the value is checked to see
if it is in range for that type.


The StringLiteralConvertible Protocol
-------------------------------------

Here is the StringLiteralConvertible protocol as defined in the standard
library's CompilerProtocols.swift::

  // NOTE: the compiler has builtin knowledge of this protocol
  // Conforming types can be initialized with arbitrary string literals.
  public protocol StringLiteralConvertible
    : ExtendedGraphemeClusterLiteralConvertible {
    
    typealias StringLiteralType : _BuiltinStringLiteralConvertible
    // Create an instance initialized to `value`.
    init(stringLiteral value: StringLiteralType)
  }

Curiously, the protocol is not defined in terms of primitive types, but in
terms of any StringLiteralType that the implementer chooses. In most cases,
this will be Swift's own native String type, which means users can implement
their own StringLiteralConvertible types while still dealing with a high-level
interface.

(Why is this not hardcoded? A String *must* be a valid Unicode string, but
if the string literal contains escape sequences, an invalid series of code
points could be constructed...which may be what's desired in some cases.)


The _BuiltinStringLiteralConvertible Protocol
---------------------------------------------

CompilerProtocols.swift contains a second protocol::

  // NOTE: the compiler has builtin knowledge of this protocol
  public protocol _BuiltinStringLiteralConvertible
    : _BuiltinExtendedGraphemeClusterLiteralConvertible {

    init(
        _builtinStringLiteral start: Builtin.RawPointer,
        utf8CodeUnitCount: Builtin.Word,
        isASCII: Builtin.Int1)
  }

The use of builtin types makes it clear that this is *only* for use in the
standard library. This is the actual primitive function that is used to
construct types from string literals: the compiler knows how to emit raw
data from the literal, and the arguments describe that raw data.

So, the general runtime behavior is now clear:

1. The compiler generates raw string data.
2. Some type conforming to _BuiltinStringLiteralConvertible is constructed from 
   the raw string data. This will be a standard library type.
3. Some type conforming to StringLiteralConvertible is constructed from the
   object constructed in step 2. This may be a user-defined type. This is the
   result.


The Type-Checker's Algorithm
----------------------------

In order to make this actually happen, the type-checker has to do some fancy
footwork. Remember, at this point all we have is a string literal and an
expected type; if the function were overloaded, we would have to try all the
types.

This algorithm can go forwards or backwards, since it's actually defined in
terms of constraints, but it's easiest to understand as a linear process.

1. Filter the types provided by the context to only include those that are 
   StringLiteralConvertible.
2. Using the associated StringLiteralType, find the appropriate
   ``_convertFromBuiltinStringLiteral``.
3. Using the type from step 1, find the appropriate 
   ``convertFromStringLiteral``.
4. Build an expression tree with the appropriate calls.

How about cases where there is no context? ::

  var str = "abc"

Here we have nothing to go on, so instead the type checker looks for a global
type named ``StringLiteralType`` in the current module-scope context, and uses
that type if it is actually a StringLiteralConvertible type. This both allows
different standard libraries to set different default literal types, and allows
a user to *override* the default type in their own source file.

The real story is even more complicated because of implicit conversions:
the type expected by ``setTitle`` might not actually be literal-convertible,
but something else that *is* literal-convertible can then implicitly convert
to the proper type. If this makes your head spin, don't worry about it.


Arrays, Dictionaries, and Interpolation
---------------------------------------

Array and dictionary literals don't have a Builtin*Convertible form. Instead,
they just always use a variadic list of elements (``T...``) in the array case
and (key, value) tuples in the dictionary case. A variadic list is always
exposed using the standard library's Array type, so there is no separate step
to jump through.

The default array literal type is always Array, and the default dictionary
literal type is always Dictionary.

String interpolations are a bit different: they try to individually convert
each element of the interpolation to the type that adopts
StringInterpolationConvertible, then calls the variadic
``convertFromStringInterpolation`` to put them all together. The default type
for an interpolated literal without context is also ``StringLiteralType``.