Man closures
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Description
Closures provide a means of creating code dynamically and passing pieces of code as parameters, storing them in variables. One might think of them as a very advanced form of process_string(). However, this falls short of what you can actually do with them.
The simplest kind of closures are efuns, lfuns or operators. For example, #'this_player is an example of a closure. You can assign it to a variable as in
closure f;
object p;
f = #'this_player;
and later use either the funcall() or apply() efun to evaluate it. Like
p = funcall(f);
or
p = apply(f);
In both cases there p will afterwards hold the value of this_player(). Of course, this is only a rather simple application.
Inline closures are a variant of lfun closures, the difference being that the function text is written right where the closure is used, enclosed in a pair of '(:' and ':)'. The compiler will then take care of creating a proper lfun and lfun-closure. The arguments passed to such an inline closure are accessible by position: $1 would be the first argument, $2 the second, and so on. With this, the above example would read:
int * bar() {
return filter_array(({ 10,50,30,70 }), (: ($1 * 2) > 42 :));
}
or alternatively:
int * bar() {
return filter_array(({ 10,50,30,70 }), (: return ($1 * 2) > 42; :));
}
The difference between the two versions is that in the first form the text of the inline closure must be an expression only, whereas in the second form any legal statement is allowed. The compiler distinguishes the two forms by the last character before the ':)': if it's a ';' or '}', the compiler treats the closure as statement(s), otherwise as expression.
Inline closures may also nested, so that the following (not very useful) example is legal, too:
return filter_array( ({ 10, 50, 30, 70 })
, (: string *s;
s = map_array(users(), (: $1->query_name() :));
return s[random(sizeof(s))] + ($1 * 2);
:));
The notation of inline closures is modelled after the MudOS functionals, but there are a few important differences in behaviour.
More useful instances of closures can be created using the lambda() efun. It is much like the lambda function in LISP. For example, you can do the following:
f = lambda( ({ 'x }), ({ #'environment, 'x }) );
This will create a lambda closure and assign it to f. The first argument to lambda is an array describing the arguments (symbols) passed to the closure upon evaluation by funcall() or apply(). You can now evaluate f, for example by means of funcall(f,this_object()). This will result in the following steps:
1. The value of this_object() will be bound to symbol x.
2. environment(x) evaluates to environment(this_object())
and is returned as the result of the funcall().
One might wonder why there are two functions, funcall() and apply(), to perform the seemingly same job, namely evaluating a closure. Of course there is a subtle difference. If the last argument to apply() is an array, then each of its elements gets expanded to an additional paramater. The obvious use would be #'call_other as in:
mixed eval(object ob,string func,mixed *args) {
return apply(#'call_other,ob,func,args);
}
This will result in calling ob->func(args[0],args[1],...,args[sizeof(args)-1]). Using funcall() instead of apply() would have given us ob->func(args).
Of course, besides efuns there are closures for operators, like #'+, '-, #'<, #'&&, etc.
Well, so far closures have been pretty much limited despite their obvious flexibility. This changes now with the introduction of conditional and loop operators. For example, try:
closure max;
max = lambda( ({ 'x, 'y }),
({ #'? ,({ #'>, 'x, 'y }), 'x, 'y }) );
return funcall(max,7,3);
The above example will return 7. What happened? Of course #'? is the conditional operator and its 'syntax' is as follows:
({ #'?, cond1, val1, cond2, val2, ..., condn, valn,
valdefault });
It evaluates cond1, cond2, ..., condn successively until it gets a nonzero result and then returns the corresponding value. If there is no condition evaluating to a nonzero result, valdefault gets returned. If valdefault is omitted, 0 gets returned. #'?! works just like #'?, except that the ! operator is applied to conditions before testing. Therefore, while #'? is somewhat like an if statement, #'?! resembles an if_not statement if there were one.
There are also loops:
({ #'do, loopbody1, ..., loopbodyN, loopcond, loopresult })
will evaluate the loopbodies until loopcond evaluates to 0 and then return the value of loopresult. Symbols may be used as variables, of course.
({ #'while, loopcond, loopresult, loopbody1, ..., loopbodyN })
works similar but evaluates loopcond before the loopbodies.
The foreach() loop also exists:
({ #'foreach, 'var, expr, loopbody1, ..., loopbodyN })
({ #'foreach, ({ 'var1, ..., 'varN}) , expr
, loopbody1, ..., loopbodyN })
Now on to a couple of tricky things:
- How do I write down an array within a lambda closure to avoid interpretation as a subclosure?
({ #'member_array, 'x, ({ "abc", "xyz" }) }) will obviously result in an error as soon as lambda() tries to interpret "abc" as a closure operator. The solution is to quote the array, as in: ({ #'member_array, 'x, '({ "abc", "xyz" }) }). Applying lambda() to this will not result in an error. Instead, the quote will be stripped from the array and the result regarded as a normal array literal. The same can be achieved by using the efun quote(), e.g.:
({ #'member_array, 'x, quote( ({ "abc", "xyz" }) ) })
- Isn't it a security risk to pass, say, a closure to the master object which then evaluates it with all the permissions it got?
Luckily, no. Each closure gets upon compilation bound to the object defining it. That means that executing it first sets this_object() to the object that defined it and then evaluates the closure. This also allows us to call lfuns which might otherwise be undefined in the calling object.
There is however, a variant of lambda(), called unbound_lambda(), which works similar but does not allow the use of lfuns and does not bind the closure to the defining object. The drawback is that trying to evaluate it by apply() or funcall() will result in an error. The closure first needs to be bound by calling bind_lambda(). bind_lambda() normally takes one argument and transforms an unbound closure into a closure bound to the object executing the bind_lambda().
Privileged objects, like the master and the simul_efun object (or those authorized by the privilege_violation() function in the master) may also give an object as the second argument to bind_lambda(). This will bind the closure to that object. A sample application is:
dump_object(ob)
// will dump the variables of ob to /dump.o
{
closure save;
save = unbound_lambda( ({ }),
({ #'save_object, "/open/dump" }) );
bind_lambda(save,ob);
funcall(save);
}
bind_lambda() can also be used with efun closures.
- It might be an interesting application to create closures dynamically as an alternative to writing LPC code to a file and then loading it. However, how do I avoid doing exactly that if I need symbols like 'x or 'y?
To do that one uses the quote() efun. It takes a string as its argument and transforms it into a symbol. For example, writing quote("x") is exactly the same as writing 'x.
- How do I test if a variable holds a closure?
Use the closurep() efun which works like all the other type testing efuns. For symbols there is also symbolp() available.
- That means, I can do:
if (closurep(f)) return funcall(f); else return f; ?
Yes, but in the case of funcall() it is unnecessary. If funcall() gets only one argument and it is not a closure it will be returned unchanged. So return funcall(f); would suffice.
- I want to use a function in some object as a closure. How do I do that?
There are several ways. If the function resides in this_object(), just use #'func_name. If not, or if you want to create the function dnynamically, use the efun symbol_function(). It takes a string as it first and an object as its second argument and returns a closure which upon evaluation calls the given function in the given object (and faster than call_other(), too, if done from inside a loop, since function search will be done only when calling symbol_function().
- Can I create efun closures dynamically, too?
Yes, just use symbol_function() with a single argument. Most useful for marker objects and the like. But theoretically a security risk if not used properly and from inside a security relevant object. Take care, however, that, if there is a simul_efun with the same name, it will be preferred as in the case of #'function. Use the efun::modifier to get the efun if you need it.
- Are there other uses of closures except using them to store code?
Lots. For example, you can use them within almost all of the efuns where you give a function as an argument, like filter_array(), sort_array() or walk_mapping(). sort_array(array,#'>) does indeed what is expected. Another application is set_prompt(), where a closure can output your own prompt based on the current time and other stuff which changes all the time.
Finally, there are some special efun/operator closures:
#'[ : indexes an array.
#'[< : does the same, but starting at the end.
#'[..] : gets an array and two numbers
and returns a sub-array.
#'[..<] : same as above but the second index is
interpreted as counted from the left end.
#'[<..] and
#'[<..<] : should be clear now.
#'[.. : takes only one index and returns the sub-
array from this index to the end.
#'[<.. : same as above but the index is interpreted
as counted from the left end.
#'({ : puts all arguments into an array.
#'([ : gets an unquoted (!) array which must include
at least one element as argument and returns a mapping of
the width of the given array's size with one entry that
contains the first element as key and the other elements
as values to the key.
#'negate is for unary minus.
- ', may be followed by any number of closures, e.g.: ({ (#',),
({#'= 'h, 'a, }), ({#'=, 'a, 'b }), ({#'=, 'b, 'h }) })
will swap 'a and 'b when compiled and executed.
See Also
closures-abstract(LPC), closures-example(LPC), closure_guide(LPC)
