public inbox for [email protected]  

help / color / mirror / Atom feed

From: Thomas Munro <[email protected]>
To: Jelte Fennema-Nio <[email protected]>
Cc: Bertrand Drouvot <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Safer hash table initialization macro
Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2025 13:56:32 +1300
Message-ID: <CA+hUKGLZPZ4DgJs46-dkkkF5pi0gm23SerJY0HbOUP5r7siPsg@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAGECzQSnhom3wFnY6a7xepGfxzzVmwyNCcJQE=y8UYS-g2G=RQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <aS2b3LoUypW1/[email protected]>
	<CAGECzQSHb6FxuSdYNY7tt8SKFw2dianACvkExrWRmTBfy-CkjQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<aTAcV/[email protected]>
	<[email protected]>
	<CA+hUKG+TuQPXtfkaam6trfLrk+OXf89zUt7Jx27zEY-y8i1swA@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAGECzQSnhom3wFnY6a7xepGfxzzVmwyNCcJQE=y8UYS-g2G=RQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Dec 6, 2025 at 3:32 AM Jelte Fennema-Nio <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Fri, 5 Dec 2025 at 02:30, Thomas Munro <[email protected]> wrote:
> > How much of our header stuff is supposed to work from C++ too?
>
> I think it's nice if it works, but it doesn't seem the most important.
> Especially since C++ has its own hashmaps. And if it really needs to
> create a hashmap it's still possible to call the.

... C functions without the helper macros.  Yeah.  That seems OK to me.

> > I suppose you could
> > write the typeof-based version you already hinted at, but only use it
> > for __cplusplus__ (where typeof exists as decltype).
>
> I tried to figure something out that would work in C++ (with help of
> Claude), but I wasn't able to create a version of the macros without
> also needing to add:
>
> #ifdef __cplusplus
> }
> #include <type_traits>
> extern "C" {
> #endif
>
> It seems quite ugly to escape the extern "C" from the parent like that
> and then re-enter it. Overall it doesn't seem worth the hassle to me
> to make these macros work in C++.

Yeah.  I don't think we want that sort of thing all over the place.
We could eventually come up with a small set of tools in a central
place though, so people can work with this stuff without also known
C++ meta-programming voodoo.  For example something like (untested, I
didn't think about char[size], just spitballing here...):

(pg_expr_has_type_p(ptr, char *) || pg_expr_has_type_p(ptr, NameData *))

... given the definition I posted recently[1].

I take your point that it's not really important for this case though.

> > Another consideration is what impact we have on the Rust world, and
> > potentially other languages used for extensions that call C via FFI
> > etc
>
> FFI generally cannot call macros anyway, only actual symbols.

Sure, I was just thinking about how such cross-language usage would be
forced to unpick our macrology and call the underlying C functions
without them.  Doesn't seem like the end of the world anyway, I was
just thinking out loud about the consequences of this phenomenon in
headers.

[1] https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/[email protected]...

view thread (17+ messages)  latest in thread

reply

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Reply to all the recipients using the --to and --cc options:
  reply via email

  To: [email protected]
  Cc: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
  Subject: Re: Safer hash table initialization macro
  In-Reply-To: <CA+hUKGLZPZ4DgJs46-dkkkF5pi0gm23SerJY0HbOUP5r7siPsg@mail.gmail.com>

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

This inbox is served by agora; see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox