Tricks: class cloning

Hi!

Another question to improve understanding of Perl6 internals.

Let's say, I've got an idea of allowing a user to define a 'template' class. I.e. it wouldn't be used directly, but I could be used as a base for creating a new one (or a couple of new ones – it would depend). Basically, what is needed to perform this operation is to create the new class, then copy methods/attributes from the template and then set those properties I would need (like parent class, for example). The following code even do some of the job:

     class Foo {
         ...
         method foo { ... }
     }

     my \type = Metamodel::ClassHOW.new_type( name => 'Foo-clone' );

     for Foo.^methods(:local) -> $m {
         next if $m.?is-hidden-from-backtrace;
         type.^add_method( $m.name, $m.clone );
     }

     type.^compose;

     my $inst = type.new;

     $inst.foo;

Except that that .foo cannot be called on Foo-clone because it has an implicit constraint Foo:D for 'self'. I tried re-compose the method signature and pass it to method's clone:

     $m.clone( :$signature );

but ended up with 'unexpected named parameter' error. So far, this is where I stuck and would like to know if there is a workaround for this?

Basically, what I'm trying to achieve is could also be done by using a role as a template which could then be applied to the custom class. But roles has a few restrictions which would make them less flexible.

Best regards,
Vadim Belman

• Tricks: class cloning by Vadim Belman