Boost C++ Libraries

Description

proto::pack is useful within CallableTransforms and ObjectTransforms when one wishes to unpack an expression into a function call or an object constructor. proto::pack turns a Proto expression into a pseudo-parameter pack, which may appear in an unpacking pattern to be expanded with the "..." syntax.

Example:

// The following demonstrates how to use a pseudo-pack expansion
// to unpack an expression into a function call.

struct do_sum : proto::callable
{
    typedef int result_type;
    
    int operator()(int i) const { return i; }
    int operator()(int i, int j) const { return i + j; }
    int operator()(int i, int j, int k) const { return i + j + k; }
};

// Take any n-ary expression where the children are all int terminals and sum all the ints
struct sum
  : proto::when<
  
        // Match any nary expression where the children are all int terminals
        proto::nary_expr<_, proto::vararg<proto::terminal<int> > >

        // Turn the current expression into a pseudo-parameter pack, then expand it,
        // extracting the value from each child in turn.
      , do_sum(proto::_value(proto::pack(_))...)
    >
{};

int main()
{
    proto::terminal<int>::type i = {42};
    int result = sum()( i(3,5) ); // Creates a ternary functional-call expression
    std::cout << "Sum of 42, 3, and 5 : " << result << std::endl;
}

The above program displays:

Sum of 42, 3, and 5 : 50

In the above example, the type proto::_value(proto::pack(_)) is a so-called unpacking pattern, described below.

Unpacking Patterns:

Composite transforms (either CallableTransforms or ObjectTransforms) usually have the form X(A0,…An). However, when the argument list in a composite transform is terminated with a C-style vararg ellipsis as in X(A0,…An ...), the final argument An is treated as an unpacking pattern.

An unpacking pattern must itself be a composite transform; that is, it must be a function type representing either a CallableTransform or an ObjectTransform. The type proto::pack(_) must appear exactly once in the unpacking pattern. This type will receive a substitution when the unpacking pattern is expanded.

A composite transform like X(A0,…An ...), when evaluated against a given expression E, state and data, is evaluated as if it were X(A0,…An-1,S) where S is a type sequence computed as follows:

Let SUB(A,B) be a type function that replaces every occurence of proto::pack(_) within A with B.