[erlang-patches] Callback attribute for better definition of behaviour callbacks.

[Raimo Niskanen]

Two issues:

1) Your first commit (05ac0898ead518c92cd884bdbd2ffa78877f050b) adds a file
   bootstrap/lib/stdlib/egenerl_parse.erl but there is already a generated
   file bootstrap/lib/stdlib/egen/erl_parse.erl, which makes me suspect
   you slipped on the keybord on this commit... Is that so?
2) All your commit taglines has a trailing dot, which we prefer not to
   have, and if you are fixing the first commit, it is a good opportunity
   to take care of this too...

On Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 06:33:54PM +0300, Stavros Aronis wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> On March the following thread appeared in the erlang-questions list:
> 
> http://www.erlang.org/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?4:sss:50104:201003:hbmaknhcnnhjngliogof
> 
> In that thread there was discussion about how the current idiom to define a
> behaviour lacks specific information about what the callbacks are supposed
> to do. The proposal was to somehow use '-spec' attributes in order to
> provide better information about the type of the arguments that each
> callback function requires and its result. This patch implements this using
> a new attribute: '-callback'.
> 
> The reason why the already existent '-spec' keyword can't be used is that
> lint checks are performed to ensure that specs exist only for functions
> defined in the module where the spec is defined. This is not what a callback
> function requires, as it's going to be defined in another module.
> 
> These '-callback' attributes can then be used to automatically generate the
> usual 'behaviour_info(callbacks)' export, required by the compiler to
> confirm that a module that implements a behaviour exports all the required
> callbacks.
> 
> The patch can be obtained with:
> 
>   git fetch git://github.com/aronisstav/otp.git callback-attr
> 
> Included in this patch are:
> 
> - updates in the syntax of Erlang (erl_parse.yrl) to allow the new attribute
> with a form similar to that of the already familiar '-specs'
> - updates in the lint (erl_lint) to ensure that no duplicates are defined
> and no behaviour_info/1 function is defined as it will be automatically
> generated and exported
> - updates in the stdlib's, kernel's and inet's behaviours to use the new
> syntax. The type information I've added is based on current published
> documentation and comments in the files so it might be incorrect
> and should be double-checked by someone who has more experience in the
> actual usage of these behaviours than me.
> - updates to the bootstrap files
> 
> Future additions:
> 
> - Dialyzer can use such attributes to find errors in the inferred callback
> function types. (I've already implemented this but it's a different thing so
> I'm gonna make a separate request for it)
> - Documentation tools can use these attributes instead of comments to
> specify the types of the arguments and the result of callback functions.
> 
> As this is my first patch, any feedback is gratefully accepted!
> 
> Stavros Aronis

-- 

/ Raimo Niskanen, Erlang/OTP, Ericsson AB