ExtensibleUnions

julia> import Pkg; Pkg.add("ExtensibleUnions")

ExtensibleUnions adds abstract multiple inheritance to Julia in the form of extensible (mutable) type unions.

Warning: ExtensibleUnions is an experimental package. Do not use ExtensibleUnions in any production code.

Usage

Create a new extensible union:

struct MyUnion end
extensibleunion!(MyUnion)

Add methods that dispatch on extensible unions:

f(x::MyUnion1, y, z, ...) = ...
f(x, y::MyUnion2, z, ...) = ...
extensiblefunction!(f, MyUnion1, MyUnion2, ...)

Add types to an extensible union:

addtounion!(MyUnion, SomeType1, SomeType2, ...)

At any later time, you can add more types to an extensible union:

addtounion!(MyUnion, SomeType3, SomeType4, ...)

Examples

Example 1

julia> using ExtensibleUnions

julia> abstract type AbstractCar end

julia> abstract type AbstractFireEngine end

julia> struct RedCar <: AbstractCar
       end

julia> struct BlueCar <: AbstractCar
           x
       end

julia> struct LadderTruck{T} <: AbstractFireEngine
           x::T
       end

julia> mutable struct WaterTender{T} <: AbstractFireEngine
           x::T
           y::T
       end

julia> struct RedColorTrait end

julia> struct BlueColorTrait end

julia> extensibleunion!(RedColorTrait)
RedColorTrait

julia> extensibleunion!(BlueColorTrait)
BlueColorTrait

julia> describe(x) = "I don't know anything about this object"
describe (generic function with 1 method)

julia> methods(describe)
# 1 method for generic function "describe":
[1] describe(x) in Main at REPL[12]:1

julia> describe(RedCar())
"I don't know anything about this object"

julia> describe(BlueCar(1))
"I don't know anything about this object"

julia> describe(LadderTruck{Int}(2))
"I don't know anything about this object"

julia> describe(WaterTender{Int}(3,4))
"I don't know anything about this object"

julia> describe(x::RedColorTrait) = "The color of this object is red"
describe (generic function with 2 methods)

julia> extensiblefunction!(describe, RedColorTrait)
describe (generic function with 2 methods)

julia> describe(x::BlueColorTrait) = "The color of this object is blue"
describe (generic function with 3 methods)

julia> extensiblefunction!(describe, BlueColorTrait)
describe (generic function with 3 methods)

julia> methods(describe)
# 3 methods for generic function "describe":
[1] describe(x::BlueColorTrait) in Main at REPL[20]:1
[2] describe(x::RedColorTrait) in Main at REPL[18]:1
[3] describe(x) in Main at REPL[12]:1

julia> describe(RedCar())
"I don't know anything about this object"

julia> describe(BlueCar(1))
"I don't know anything about this object"

julia> describe(LadderTruck{Int}(2))
"I don't know anything about this object"

julia> describe(WaterTender{Int}(3,4))
"I don't know anything about this object"

julia> addtounion!(RedColorTrait, RedCar)
RedColorTrait

julia> methods(describe)
# 3 methods for generic function "describe":
[1] describe(x::BlueColorTrait) in Main at REPL[20]:1
[2] describe(x::Union{RedCar, RedColorTrait}) in Main at REPL[18]:1
[3] describe(x) in Main at REPL[12]:1

julia> describe(RedCar())
"The color of this object is red"

julia> describe(BlueCar(1))
"I don't know anything about this object"

julia> describe(LadderTruck{Int}(2))
"I don't know anything about this object"

julia> describe(WaterTender{Int}(3,4))
"I don't know anything about this object"

julia> addtounion!(BlueColorTrait, BlueCar)
BlueColorTrait

julia> methods(describe)
# 3 methods for generic function "describe":
[1] describe(x::Union{RedCar, RedColorTrait}) in Main at REPL[18]:1
[2] describe(x::Union{BlueColorTrait, BlueCar}) in Main at REPL[20]:1
[3] describe(x) in Main at REPL[12]:1

julia> describe(RedCar())
"The color of this object is red"

julia> describe(BlueCar(1))
"The color of this object is blue"

julia> describe(LadderTruck{Int}(2))
"I don't know anything about this object"

julia> describe(WaterTender{Int}(3,4))
"I don't know anything about this object"

julia> addtounion!(RedColorTrait, AbstractFireEngine)
RedColorTrait

julia> methods(describe)
# 3 methods for generic function "describe":
[1] describe(x::Union{BlueColorTrait, BlueCar}) in Main at REPL[20]:1
[2] describe(x::Union{RedCar, RedColorTrait, AbstractFireEngine}) in Main at REPL[18]:1
[3] describe(x) in Main at REPL[12]:1

julia> describe(RedCar())
"The color of this object is red"

julia> describe(BlueCar(1))
"The color of this object is blue"

julia> describe(LadderTruck{Int}(2))
"The color of this object is red"

julia> describe(WaterTender{Int}(3,4))
"The color of this object is red"

Acknowledgements

Some of the code in this package is taken from:

https://github.com/NHDaly/DeepcopyModules.jl (license: MIT)
https://github.com/perrutquist/CodeTransformation.jl (license: MIT)

Related Work

https://github.com/rofinn/Interfaces.jl: An implementation of interfaces for Julia