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# Objective ### TL;DR #14098 added the `FunctionRegistry` but had some last minute complications due to anonymous functions. It ended up going with a "required name" approach to ensure anonymous functions would always have a name. However, this approach isn't ideal for named functions since, by definition, they will always have a name. Therefore, this PR aims to modify function reflection such that we can make function registration easier for named functions, while still allowing anonymous functions to be registered as well. ### Context Function registration (#14098) ran into a little problem: anonymous functions. Anonymous functions, including function pointers, have very non-unique type names. For example, the anonymous function `|a: i32, b: i32| a + b` has the type name of `fn(i32, i32) -> i32`. This obviously means we'd conflict with another function like `|a: i32, b: i32| a - b`. The solution that #14098 landed on was to always require a name during function registration. The downside with this is that named functions (e.g. `fn add(a: i32, b: i32) -> i32 { a + b }`) had to redundantly provide a name. Additionally, manually constructed `DynamicFunction`s also ran into this ergonomics issue. I don't entirely know how the function registry will be used, but I have a strong suspicion that most of its registrations will either be named functions or manually constructed `DynamicFunction`s, with anonymous functions only being used here and there for quick prototyping or adding small functionality. Why then should the API prioritize the anonymous function use case by always requiring a name during registration? #### Telling Functions Apart Rust doesn't provide a lot of out-of-the-box tools for reflecting functions. One of the biggest hurdles in attempting to solve the problem outlined above would be to somehow tell the different kinds of functions apart. Let's briefly recap on the categories of functions in Rust: | Category | Example | | ------------------ | ----------------------------------------- | | Named function | `fn add(a: i32, b: i32) -> i32 { a + b }` | | Closure | `\|a: i32\| a + captured_variable` | | Anonymous function | `\|a: i32, b: i32\| a + b` | | Function pointer | `fn(i32, i32) -> i32` | My first thought was to try and differentiate these categories based on their size. However, we can see that this doesn't quite work: | Category | `size_of` | | ------------------ | --------- | | Named function | 0 | | Closure | 0+ | | Anonymous function | 0 | | Function pointer | 8 | Not only does this not tell anonymous functions from named ones, but it struggles with pretty much all of them. My second then was to differentiate based on type name: | Category | `type_name` | | ------------------ | ----------------------- | | Named function | `foo::bar::baz` | | Closure | `foo::bar::{{closure}}` | | Anonymous function | `fn() -> String` | | Function pointer | `fn() -> String` | This is much better. While it can't distinguish between function pointers and anonymous functions, this doesn't matter too much since we only care about whether we can _name_ the function. So why didn't we implement this in #14098? #### Relying on `type_name` While this solution was known about while working on #14098, it was left out from that PR due to it being potentially controversial. The [docs](https://doc.rust-lang.org/stable/std/any/fn.type_name.html) for `std::any::type_name` state: > The returned string must not be considered to be a unique identifier of a type as multiple types may map to the same type name. Similarly, there is no guarantee that all parts of a type will appear in the returned string: for example, lifetime specifiers are currently not included. In addition, the output may change between versions of the compiler. So that's it then? We can't use `type_name`? Well, this statement isn't so much a rule as it is a guideline. And Bevy is no stranger to bending the rules to make things work or to improve ergonomics. Remember that before `TypePath`, Bevy's scene system was entirely dependent on `type_name`. Not to mention that `type_name` is being used as a key into both the `TypeRegistry` and the `FunctionRegistry`. Bevy's practices aside, can we reliably use `type_name` for this? My answer would be "yes". Anonymous functions are anonymous. They have no name. There's nothing Rust could do to give them a name apart from generating a random string of characters. But remember that this is a diagnostic tool, it doesn't make sense to obfuscate the type by randomizing the output. So changing it to be anything other than what it is now is very unlikely. The only changes that I could potentially see happening are: 1. Closures replace `{{closure}}` with the name of their variable 2. Lifetimes are included in the output I don't think the first is likely to happen, but if it does then it actually works out in our favor: closures are now named! The second point is probably the likeliest. However, adding lifetimes doesn't mean we can't still rely on `type_name` to determine whether or not a function is named. So we should be okay in this case as well. ## Solution Parse the `type_name` of the function in the `TypedFunction` impl to determine if the function is named or anonymous. This once again makes `FunctionInfo::name` optional. For manual constructions of `DynamicFunction`, `FunctionInfo::named` or ``FunctionInfo::anonymous` can be used. The `FunctionRegistry` API has also been reworked to account for this change. `FunctionRegistry::register` no longer takes a name and instead takes it from the supplied function, returning a `FunctionRegistrationError::MissingName` error if the name is `None`. This also doubles as a replacement for the old `FunctionRegistry::register_dynamic` method, which has been removed. To handle anonymous functions, a `FunctionRegistry::register_with_name` method has been added. This works in the same way `FunctionRegistry::register` used to work before this PR. The overwriting methods have been updated in a similar manner, with modifications to `FunctionRegistry::overwrite_registration`, the removal of `FunctionRegistry::overwrite_registration_dynamic`, and the addition of `FunctionRegistry::overwrite_registration_with_name`. This PR also updates the methods on `App` in a similar way: `App::register_function` no longer requires a name argument and `App::register_function_with_name` has been added to handle anonymous functions (and eventually closures). ## Testing You can run the tests locally by running: ``` cargo test --package bevy_reflect --features functions ``` --- ## Internal Migration Guide > [!important] > Function reflection was introduced as part of the 0.15 dev cycle. This migration guide was written for developers relying on `main` during this cycle, and is not a breaking change coming from 0.14. > [!note] > This list is not exhaustive. It only contains some of the most important changes. `FunctionRegistry::register` no longer requires a name string for named functions. Anonymous functions, however, need to be registered using `FunctionRegistry::register_with_name`. ```rust // BEFORE registry .register(std::any::type_name_of_val(&foo), foo)? .register("bar", || println!("Hello world!")); // AFTER registry .register(foo)? .register_with_name("bar", || println!("Hello world!")); ``` `FunctionInfo::name` is now optional. Anonymous functions and closures will now have their name set to `None` by default. Additionally, `FunctionInfo::new` has been renamed to `FunctionInfo::named`. |
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compile_fail | ||
derive | ||
examples | ||
src | ||
Cargo.toml | ||
README.md |
Bevy Reflect
This crate enables you to dynamically interact with Rust types:
- Derive the Reflect traits
- Interact with fields using their names (for named structs) or indices (for tuple structs)
- "Patch" your types with new values
- Look up nested fields using "path strings"
- Iterate over struct fields
- Automatically serialize and deserialize via Serde (without explicit serde impls)
- Trait "reflection"
Features
Derive the Reflect traits
// this will automatically implement the Reflect trait and the Struct trait (because the type is a struct)
#[derive(Reflect)]
struct Foo {
a: u32,
b: Bar,
c: Vec<i32>,
d: Vec<Baz>,
}
// this will automatically implement the Reflect trait and the TupleStruct trait (because the type is a tuple struct)
#[derive(Reflect)]
struct Bar(String);
#[derive(Reflect)]
struct Baz {
value: f32,
}
// We will use this value to illustrate `bevy_reflect` features
let mut foo = Foo {
a: 1,
b: Bar("hello".to_string()),
c: vec![1, 2],
d: vec![Baz { value: 3.14 }],
};
Interact with fields using their names
assert_eq!(*foo.get_field::<u32>("a").unwrap(), 1);
*foo.get_field_mut::<u32>("a").unwrap() = 2;
assert_eq!(foo.a, 2);
"Patch" your types with new values
let mut dynamic_struct = DynamicStruct::default();
dynamic_struct.insert("a", 42u32);
dynamic_struct.insert("c", vec![3, 4, 5]);
foo.apply(&dynamic_struct);
assert_eq!(foo.a, 42);
assert_eq!(foo.c, vec![3, 4, 5]);
Look up nested fields using "path strings"
let value = *foo.get_path::<f32>("d[0].value").unwrap();
assert_eq!(value, 3.14);
Iterate over struct fields
for (i, value: &Reflect) in foo.iter_fields().enumerate() {
let field_name = foo.name_at(i).unwrap();
if let Some(value) = value.downcast_ref::<u32>() {
println!("{} is a u32 with the value: {}", field_name, *value);
}
}
Automatically serialize and deserialize via Serde (without explicit serde impls)
let mut registry = TypeRegistry::default();
registry.register::<u32>();
registry.register::<i32>();
registry.register::<f32>();
registry.register::<String>();
registry.register::<Bar>();
registry.register::<Baz>();
let serializer = ReflectSerializer::new(&foo, ®istry);
let serialized = ron::ser::to_string_pretty(&serializer, ron::ser::PrettyConfig::default()).unwrap();
let mut deserializer = ron::de::Deserializer::from_str(&serialized).unwrap();
let reflect_deserializer = ReflectDeserializer::new(®istry);
let value = reflect_deserializer.deserialize(&mut deserializer).unwrap();
let dynamic_struct = value.take::<DynamicStruct>().unwrap();
assert!(foo.reflect_partial_eq(&dynamic_struct).unwrap());
Trait "reflection"
Call a trait on a given &dyn Reflect
reference without knowing the underlying type!
#[derive(Reflect)]
#[reflect(DoThing)]
struct MyType {
value: String,
}
impl DoThing for MyType {
fn do_thing(&self) -> String {
format!("{} World!", self.value)
}
}
#[reflect_trait]
pub trait DoThing {
fn do_thing(&self) -> String;
}
// First, lets box our type as a Box<dyn Reflect>
let reflect_value: Box<dyn Reflect> = Box::new(MyType {
value: "Hello".to_string(),
});
// This means we no longer have direct access to MyType or its methods. We can only call Reflect methods on reflect_value.
// What if we want to call `do_thing` on our type? We could downcast using reflect_value.downcast_ref::<MyType>(), but what if we
// don't know the type at compile time?
// Normally in rust we would be out of luck at this point. Lets use our new reflection powers to do something cool!
let mut type_registry = TypeRegistry::default();
type_registry.register::<MyType>();
// The #[reflect] attribute we put on our DoThing trait generated a new `ReflectDoThing` struct, which implements TypeData.
// This was added to MyType's TypeRegistration.
let reflect_do_thing = type_registry
.get_type_data::<ReflectDoThing>(reflect_value.type_id())
.unwrap();
// We can use this generated type to convert our `&dyn Reflect` reference to a `&dyn DoThing` reference
let my_trait: &dyn DoThing = reflect_do_thing.get(&*reflect_value).unwrap();
// Which means we can now call do_thing(). Magic!
println!("{}", my_trait.do_thing());
// This works because the #[reflect(MyTrait)] we put on MyType informed the Reflect derive to insert a new instance
// of ReflectDoThing into MyType's registration. The instance knows how to cast &dyn Reflect to &dyn DoThing, because it
// knows that &dyn Reflect should first be downcasted to &MyType, which can then be safely casted to &dyn DoThing
Why make this?
The whole point of Rust is static safety! Why build something that makes it easy to throw it all away?
- Some problems are inherently dynamic (scripting, some types of serialization / deserialization)
- Sometimes the dynamic way is easier
- Sometimes the dynamic way puts less burden on your users to derive a bunch of traits (this was a big motivator for the Bevy project)