Documenting Scala 2.10 macros [closed]

Question

I'll start with an example. Here's an equivalent of List.fill for tuples as a macro in Scala 2.10:

import scala.language.experimental.macros import scala.reflect.macros.Context  object TupleExample {   def fill[A](arity: Int)(a: A): Product = macro fill_impl[A]    def fill_impl[A](c: Context)(arity: c.Expr[Int])(a: c.Expr[A]) = {     import c.universe._      arity.tree match {       case Literal(Constant(n: Int)) if n < 23 => c.Expr(         Apply(           Select(Ident("Tuple" + n.toString), "apply"),           List.fill(n)(a.tree)         )       )       case _ => c.abort(         c.enclosingPosition,         "Desired arity must be a compile-time constant less than 23!"       )     }   } } 

We can use this method as follows:

scala> TupleExample.fill(3)("hello") res0: (String, String, String) = (hello,hello,hello) 

This guy is a weird bird in a couple of respects. First, the arity argument must be a literal integer, since we need to use it at compile time. In previous versions of Scala there was no way (as far as I know) for a method even to tell whether one of its arguments was a compile-time literal or not.

Second, the Product return type is a lie—the static return type will include the specific arity and element type determined by the arguments, as shown above.

So how would I document this thing? I'm not expecting Scaladoc support at this point, but I'd like to have a sense of conventions or best practices (beyond just making sure the compile-time error messages are clear) that would make running into a macro method—with its potentially bizarre demands—less surprising for users of a Scala 2.10 library.

The most mature demonstrations of the new macro system (e.g., ScalaMock, Slick, the others listed here) are still relatively undocumented at the method level. Any examples or pointers would be appreciated, including ones from other languages with similar macro systems.

Answer 1

I think the best way to document these is with example code, as Miles has been doing in his experimental macro based branch of shapeless.