Previously, `AirTplAggregate` worked only in a `Pkg` context, being able to
root `Tpl` `Ident`s in `Pkg` and expand only into `Pkg`. This still does
the same, but generalizes to allow for different roots and expansion
targets.
This will be utilized to parse nested templates.
DEV-13708
This applies to template application only; there's still some work to do for
template parameters in definitions (well, for deriving them in `xmli` at
least). And, as you can see, there's still a lot of TODO items here.
I ended up backtracking on tree edges to Meta, and even on cross edges to
Meta, because it complicated xmli derivation with no benefit right now;
maybe a cross edge will be re-added in the future, but I need to move on and
see where this takes me.
But, it works.
DEV-13708
Identifier lookups, as done using the graph methods today, look up from a
cache representing the global environment.
Templates must not contribute to this environment until expansion. Further,
metavariables will not be present in this environment. To avoid confusion
and help obviate accidental contributions to this environment, the methods
have been renamed. This will also allow for the creation of more general
methods down the line.
DEV-13708
This this a big change that's difficult to break up, and I don't have the
energy after it.
This introduces nullary template application, short- and long-form. Note
that a body of the short form is a `@values@` argument, so that's not
supported yet.
This continues to formalize the idea of what "template application" and
"template expansion" mean in TAMER. It makes a separate `TplApply`
unnecessary, because now application is simply a reference to a
template. Expansion and application are one and the same: when a template
expands, it'll re-bind metavariables to the parent context. So in a
template context, this amounts to application.
But applying a closed template will have nothing to bind, and so is
equivalent to expansion. And since `Meta` objects are not valid outside of
a `Tpl` context, applying a non-closed template outside of another template
will be invalid.
So we get all of this with a single primitive (getting the "value" of a
template).
The expansion is conceptually like `,@` in Lisp, where we're splicing trees.
It's a mess in some spots, but I want to get this committed before I do a
little bit of cleanup.
This chooses Option B, as stated would likely be the case in the previous
commit. The reasons are practical---I intend to support partial application
if doing so is worth it, either in implementation of the compiler or the
source language.
Closed templates can be referenced using `IdentRef` to trigger
expansion---their value is what they expand into, and they are spliced into
that point in the tree, like `,@` in Lisp. We are able to overload this
behavior because we have the necessary type information.
However, I don't want to have to generate an Ident for every single template
expansion; there are many tens of thousands of them in our production
system. Since AIR doesn't presently have a way to deal with this situation,
I'll for now add a special token that will close and expand a template in
place; it can be replaced with two separate tokens (`TplEnd` + `Ref`, for
example) in the future if such a need arises.
Are we there yet...?
DEV-13708
Also known as metavariables or template parameters.
This is a bit of a tortured excursion, trying to figure out how I want to
best represent this. I have a number of pages of hand-written notes that
I'd like to distill over time, but the rendered graph ontology (via
`asg-ontviz`) demonstrates the broad idea.
`AirTpl::TplApply` highlights some remaining questions. What I had _wanted_
to do is to separate the concepts of application and expansion, and support
partial application and such. But it's going to be too much work for now,
when it isn't needed---partial application can be worked around by simply
creating new templates and duplicating params, as we do today, although that
sucks and is a maintenance issue. But I'd rather address that head-on in
the future.
So it's looking like Option B is going to be the approach for now, with
templates being closed (as in, no free metavariables) and expanded at the
same time. This simplifies the parser and error conditions significantly
and makes it easier to utilize anonymous templates, since it'll still be the
active context.
My intent is to get at least the graph construction sorted out---not the
actual expansion and binding yet---enough that I can use templates to
represent parts of NIR that do not have proper graph representations or
desugaring yet, so that I can spit them back out again in the `xmli` file
and incrementally handle them. That was an option I had considered some
months ago, but didn't want to entertain it at the time because I wasn't
sure what doing so would look like; while it was an attractive approach
since it pushes existing primitives into the template system (something I've
wanted to do for years), I didn't want to potentially tank performance or
compromise the design for it after I had spent so much effort on all of this
so far.
But my efforts have yielded a system that significantly exceeds my initial
performance expectations, with a decent abstractions, and so this seems
viable.
DEV-13708
See the Air docblock for more information. I'm introducing new tokens for
the template system, which uses the terms "free" and "closed". I prefer
open/close for delimiters, as I've expressed elsewhere, but unfortunately it
conflicts too much (and too confusingly) with other standard terminology as
we get more into the formal side of the language.
DEV-13708
This removes special cases, but it does complicate the parent `AirAggregate`
parser. A pattern of delegation is forming, though abstracting it may be an
interesting challenge, given Rust's limitation on macro invocations as match
arms. But, I think I can manage by generating the entire match using a
macro with a match-compatible syntax, augmenting where
needed...maybe. This'll be messy.
...but if I can write the nightmare that is `ele_parse!`, I'm sure I can
manage this. I just prefer to avoid complex macros unless I really need
them.
DEV-13708
And finally we have tokens aggregated onto the ASG in the context of a
template. I expected to arrive here much more quickly, but there was a lot
of necessary refactoring. There's a lot more that could be done, but I need
to continue; I had wanted this done a week ago.
It is worth noting, though, that this finally achieves something I had been
wondering about since the inception of this project---how I'd represent
templates on the graph. I think this worked out rather nicely. It wasn't
even until a few months ago that I decided to use AIR instead of NIR for
that purpose (NIR wouldn't have worked).
And note how I didn't have to touch the program derivation at all---the
system test just works with the AIR change, because of the consistent
construction of the graph. Beautiful.
DEV-13708
This sets us up to be able to determine how `Dangling` expressions will be
rooted into templates.
This new strategy isn't yet handling `Dangling`; I wanted to get this
committed first so that the `Dangling` refactoring is more clear.
DEV-13708
Expressions were previously tied to packages. This prepares for using a
`Tpl` as a container for expressions.
This does not yet handle the situation of auto-rooting dangling expressions
within the container.
DEV-13708
Mike Gerwitz