Re:Reflection for C++26
by utensil4778 on Tuesday July 02, 2024 @12:39AM
(#40853615)
Maybe this doesn't count as static, but I used to regularly use reflection in C# to generate code for interacting with foreign DLLs.
This was a video game mod, essentially. I needed to create a text interface to modify settings for any other mod that might be installed. Other mods would simply implement a settings class with certain attributes, then I could list out all fields and their types. The list was processed into a sort of tree presented through the chat interface. From there I can generate code to modify that settings class from outside its assembly and raise value change events.
The reflection part of that was extremely simple, but just because that's how C# works. C# makes a task like this almost trivial.
At my current job, we have a similar thing. Classes decorated with attributes. We inspect them and check the generic type they implement. This way we register message handlers by their message type dynamically. You write a handler class and it simply works.
Windows Forms had a PropertyGrid control which did the same thing as my text interface, but with a grid of properties you can edit freely.
Most of this stuff is typically done at runtime. But you could have it be static if you wanted. A precious job did this to access the backing array inside of a List<> object. I offer no explanation or excuse for that one.
This was a video game mod, essentially. I needed to create a text interface to modify settings for any other mod that might be installed. Other mods would simply implement a settings class with certain attributes, then I could list out all fields and their types. The list was processed into a sort of tree presented through the chat interface. From there I can generate code to modify that settings class from outside its assembly and raise value change events.
The reflection part of that was extremely simple, but just because that's how C# works. C# makes a task like this almost trivial.
At my current job, we have a similar thing. Classes decorated with attributes. We inspect them and check the generic type they implement. This way we register message handlers by their message type dynamically. You write a handler class and it simply works.
Windows Forms had a PropertyGrid control which did the same thing as my text interface, but with a grid of properties you can edit freely.
Most of this stuff is typically done at runtime. But you could have it be static if you wanted. A precious job did this to access the backing array inside of a List<> object. I offer no explanation or excuse for that one.