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Sat, 23 Feb 2013

A curiously recurring explanation

In conversation recently(-ish), I tried to explain the infamous Curiously Recurring Template Pattern (CRTP) of C++ by relating it to mixins. That just turned one surprisingly tricky problem into two. Here I will try to rectify both problems by proivding a somewhat coherent explanation of how to realise mixins using CRTP.

/* defining a mixin */
template <class Instantiator>
class my_mixin
{
	int some_state;
public:
	void invoke_feature() { /* using some_state, somehow */ }
};

/* "mixing in" a mixin */
class built_from_mixins
 : public 
      my_mixin<built_from_mixins> /* , other mixins ... */
{
    /* ... */
};

Unlike normal base classes, a mixin is designed to attach at an arbitrary point in the subtyping hierarchy. It's an orthogonal feature that can be “mixed in” to many potential classes, rather than an increment on a particular class. Therefore, rather than referencing a specific base class, a mixin leaves this reference unbound. Nevertheless, it still gives a name to the class it is extending. Here it is called Instantiator. This can be thought of as a “forward reference” to the class that is “mixing it in”. The name is a placeholder for the class that the programmer will extend using the mixin.

(There are other variations on this theme in other mixin-like constructs. Anyone interested in the many meanings of “mixin” could do worse than to start with Richard Gabriel's essay which is based around this subject— though I note that its actual point about incommensurability is deeper, completely distinct, and very interesting!)

Looking at the code, we see there is a cyclical reference chain: from the mixin user built_from_mixins to a specialisation of the mixin itself my_mixin<built_from_mixins> and back (via Instantiator, which is instantiated to built_from_mixins). These references are a bit strange. We haven't even defined built_from_mixins at the point where we use it to parameterise our mixin instance. Why does the compiler even allow this?

The answer is that of course it's allowed, and the compiler allows it simply by virtue of the usual C++ (and C) rules about incomplete types. Cyclic reference among data type definitions is not unique to mixins. Consider a linked list, where it's no problem to create a recursive “next” pointer inside the list node type. Since pointers-to-incompletes are allowed, and the list node type is just another incomplete type at that location in the code, the code compiles fine.

It takes only a small generalisation to apply this not just to incomplete pointer target types, but more generally to incomplete types used as template parameter instances. Of course we can refer to built_from_mixins inside its own inheritance clause—but we can only do things that we can do with an incomplete type. Using it as a template parameter is one such thing—so long as the template's definition is consistent with its parameter being incomplete. In particular, possible usages of Instantiator inside my_mixin, above, are limited if we want to use the incomplete my_mixin as our Instantiator: we can only do the things we can do with any other incomplete types inside a class definition. Happily, my_mixin's definition sticks to this regime, so is well-formed. Moreover, it itself is a complete data type! (Similarly, if you defined a mutually recursive pair of data types using pointers, whichever one of them you defined first in your source file would be complete immediately, even though it contains a pointer to the yet-to-be-defined second data type.) Being complete, our instantiation of my_mixin is fair game for deriving from. This is what allows us to derive build_from_mixins from my_mixin<built_from_mixins>: the latter is complete, even though its type parameter built_from_mixins (known as Instantiator inside the mixin) isn't.

In fact, we haven't used Instantiator at all inside my_mixin. So, why include it? What can we do with it? Well, we can safely use it in any way we can use any other incomplete type: as a pointer (or reference) target type, or as a type parameter. An example is boost's enable_shared_from_this, a mixin which adds the necessary state and member functions for allowing a class to provide a shared_ptr version of its this pointer. You can't safely create a shared_ptr from a regular pointer in general because you don't know where the target object's reference count lives. The enable_shared_from_this mixin fixes this by embedding a pointer to the refcount, in the guise of a weak_ptr subobject, into the mixing-in class. The guts of enable_shared_from_this are basically as follows.

template<class T> class enable_shared_from_this
{
private:
    mutable weak_ptr<T> weak_this_;
public:
    shared_ptr<T> shared_from_this()
    {
        shared_ptr<T> p( weak_this_ );
        return p;
    }
};

Just as in our first example, we have some private state and a public interface which implement an orthogonal feature that can be “mixed in” to any class. The mixin-instantiating class T is referenced only in an incompleteness-tolerant way, to instantiate other templates and (eventually, inside the definition of weak_ptr, which is not shown) to define a pointer target type.

I've also seen CRTP described as “virtual functions without polymorphic behaviour”. What does that mean? Since our mixin has a reference to its instantiating class, it can call its methods—even though the binding to that specific class has not yet been formed. In other words, we have deferred the binding of methods—but not until run time. Rather, we have deferred them to later in compile time, when our templates are elaborated. Let's look at an example.

Let's try to get this deferred binding without using CRTP, but also without using virtual functions. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't work. The best we can do is to try non-polymorphic inheritance, by writing something like this.

class X
{
public:
	void f() { /* unimplemented */ }
	void g() { f(); }
};

class Y : public X
{
public:
	void f() { cout << "Done something"; }
};

Of course, if we call X::g(), it calls X::f() and not G::f(). Using CRTP, we can get it to call G::f() without resorting to virtual functions.

template <class Derived>
class X
{
public:
	void f() { /* unimplemented */ }
	void g() { Derived::f(); }
};
class Y : public X<Y>
{
public:
	void f() { cout << "Done something"; }
};

CRTP allows the base class to leave certain functions undefined, for definition later in many possible derived classes. The derived classes are not derived the usual way, though: they are derived using CRTP, passing the derived class back to the base class as a type parameter.

This sets up a now-familiar kind of cyclic reference: the base class refers to its (potentially many) derived classes, through its template parameter. Having this “forward” reference, down the inheritance hierarchy, as well as the usual backward reference up it, is what allows derivation-time binding. It's also limiting: we can't subsequently “re-override” Y::f(). Y's method bindings are fixed at derivation time. We have to create a new specialization of X and derive immediately from that, using some other means to get at Y's functionality if we need it.

Interestingly, note that it's okay for us to do Derived::f() in our X class template. This is surprising because at the point where we instantiate X, Derived is an incomplete type. I mentioned earlier that we were restricted in what we could do with incomplete template parameters, but in this case, here we are happily calling a method of ours. At definition time, there are at least two possibilities for the code that must be generated at the site of our call to Derived::f(), because f() might be an instance member function or a static. (It could also be a function object overloading operator().) When we instantiate X, if we read the code strictly top-to-bottom, we haven't yet got to the body of Y, so it is not yet decided whether it will define f() as a static or an instance member function. Somehow, the compiler is examining looking ahead at the definition of Y at the point where it elaborates X<Y>, even though Y cannot be complete yet (because we're in the middle of elaborating its base class). I must confess, this is where my understanding of the C++ language runs out. Thte standard contains complicated rules about name lookup in templates—principally the infamous “two-phase name lookup”. In short, “unqualified names” in templates are looked up at template definition time, whereas “qualified names” are looked up at instantiation time. Clearly our use of Derived::f() is a qualified name. No doubt there is some part of the standard detailing how the second-phase lookup is permitted (and required) to look into an incomplete type, namely Y in our example (incomplete at the time of X's instantiation), to understand the meaning of Y::f(). I haven't yet found a reference to it though. If anyone can point me to it, I'd be much obliged.

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