Advanced Declarations

Just like C/C++ (and even more so) Jancy allows declaring quite sophisticated entities in one go; therefore, declarations in Jancy can be rather complex, and both specifier and declarator can be composite.

Specifiers can contain:

  • Access specifiers (public or protected)

  • Storage specifiers (e.g. static, typedef, virtual etc)

  • Type specifiers (e.g. char, int, double etc)

  • Type modifiers (e.g. const, volatile, unsigned etc)

Declarators can contain:

  • Type modifiers (e.g. const, volatile, unsigned etc)

  • Pointer prefixes (*)

  • Declarator identifiers (e.g. myVariable)

  • Declarator special function kind (e.g. construct, get, set etc)

  • Array suffixes (e.g. [10])

  • Function suffixes (e.g. (int, double))

  • Bitfied suffixes (e.g. : 10)

  • Initializers (e.g. = 0)

  • Function bodies (e.g. { return 0; })

A realistic example of a complex declaration could look like:

static int const* function* a [2] () = { foo, bar };

Here static is a storage specifier, int is a type specifier, const and function are type modifiers, two * (asterisks) are pointer prefixes, a is a declarator name, [2] is a array suffix, () is a function suffix and = { foo, bar } is an initializer. This line declares a static variable a as an array of two elements of type “pointer to a function which takes no arguments and returns a const-pointer to int and initializes it with pointers to functions foo and bar. Wheh! Seriously, it’s much easier to read the code itself than its explanation.

C/C++ equivalent of the above example would look like:

static int const* (*a [2]) () = { foo, bar };

Now, if we add one extra layer of function pointers, C/C++ falls short of declaring it in one go (you will receive function returns function error); Jancy syntax still allows to do so (not like that could be crucial in any realistic scenario; just a small demonstration of flexibility):

static int const* function* function* a [2] () (int);

There are no nested declarators in Jancy. Nested declarators in C/C++ emerged as a solution (and in my personal opinion, not an elegant one) to the problem of resolving ambiguities in complex pointer-to-function declarations. Like you just saw, Jancy uses a different approach with type modifiers function, property, array:

int property* function* array* a [2] [3] ();

Here a is an array of three elements of type pointer to array of two elements of type pointer to a function taking no arguments and returning a pointer to int property. Speaking formally, the rules for reading Jancy declaration are as follows. First, you start unrolling declarator’s pointer prefixes right-to-left. If type modifiers of a pointer prefix requires a suffix, you unroll the first suffix. After all pointer prefixes are unrolled, you unroll the remaining suffixes.

In reality, however, you are unlikely going to need mind-boggling declarations like the one above. It’s always possible to split an overcomplicated declaration into two (or more) using good-old typedefs: just like in C/C++, Jancy declarations with typedef storage specifier result in creation of a type alias:

typedef double DoubleBinaryFunc (double, double);
DoubleBinaryFunc* funcPtr; // use new typedef to declare a variable

typedef int IntArray [10] [20];
IntArray foo ();  // use new typedef as a retval type

There are other important differences with C/C++. In Jancy named type declaration is not a type specifier. The following code, perfectly valid in C/C++ will produce an error in Jancy:

struct Point
{
    int m_x;
    int m_y;
} point;

In Jancy you cannot declare a named type and immediatly use it to declare a variable or a field. Therefore, to fix previous example, we need to simply split a single declaration into two:

struct Point
{
    int m_x;
    int m_y;
}

Point point;

Note that declaration of a named type does not need to end with a semicolon (needless to say, it will also compile should you add a semicolon).

Jancy does not require declaration-before-usage at global scope. Therefore, there is no need to create so-called forward declarations of functions or types, so the following example will compile in Jancy, but not in C/C++:

void foo ()
{
    A a;
    B b;
}

struct A
{
    B* m_b;
}

struct B
{
    A* m_a;
}

It is allowed to omit type specifier; void type is assumed in this case. This is done to unify rules applied to declaration of normal functions and special functions like constructors, destructors, setters etc. In Jancy the following two declarations are equivalent:

void foo ()
{
    //...
}

foo ()
{
    //...
}