Generic type variables

[thekid]

Scope of Change

Access to the type variables declared in the @generic annotations of methods will be granted.

Rationale

Working with lang.Type's utility methods such as cast, newInstance, isInstance and its default member comes in handy in writing generic methods.,

Functionality

General idea:

#[@generic(return= 'T[]')]
public function all() {
  $r= [];
  foreach ($this->list as $value) {
    $r[]= $T->newInstance($value);
  }
  return $r;
}

Security considerations

n/a

Speed impact

Slightly slower only if type variables are used.

Dependencies

Removal of __generic left-overs from #193 in util.collections

Related documents

The experiment this RFC is based on

[thekid]

This is inconsistent with #214 as $T is a string and not a lang.Type instance.

[thekid]

Part of XP 6, see #172