"Registering" trait implementations + factory method for trait objects - metaprogramming

Question

Say we want to have objects implementations switched at runtime, we'd do something like this:
pub trait Methods {
fn func(&self);
}
pub struct Methods_0;
impl Methods for Methods_0 {
fn func(&self) {
println!("foo");
}
}
pub struct Methods_1;
impl Methods for Methods_1 {
fn func(&self) {
println!("bar");
}
}
pub struct Object<'a> { //'
methods: &'a (Methods + 'a),
}
fn main() {
let methods: [&Methods; 2] = [&Methods_0, &Methods_1];
let mut obj = Object { methods: methods[0] };
obj.methods.func();
obj.methods = methods[1];
obj.methods.func();
}
Now, what if there are hundreds of such implementations? E.g. imagine implementations of cards for collectible card game where every card does something completely different and is hard to generalize; or imagine implementations for opcodes for a huge state machine. Sure you can argue that a different design pattern can be used -- but that's not the point of this question...
Wonder if there is any way for these Impl structs to somehow "register" themselves so they can be looked up later by a factory method? I would be happy to end up with a magical macro or even a plugin to accomplish that.
Say, in D you can use templates to register the implementations -- and if you can't for some reason, you can always inspect modules at compile-time and generate new code via mixins; there are also user-defined attributes that can help in this. In Python, you would normally use a metaclass so that every time a new child class is created, a ref to it is stored in the metaclass's registry which allows you to look up implementations by name or parameter; this can also be done via decorators if implementations are simple functions.
Ideally, in the example above you would be able to create Object as
Object::new(0)
where the value 0 is only known at runtime and it would magically return you an Object { methods: &Methods_0 }, and the body of new() would not have the implementations hard-coded like so "methods: [&Methods; 2] = [&Methods_0, &Methods_1]", instead it should be somehow inferred automatically.

Answer 1

So, this is probably extremely buggy, but it works as a proof of concept.
It is possible to use Cargo's code generation support to make the introspection at compile-time, by parsing (not exactly parsing in this case, but you get the idea) the present implementations, and generating the boilerplate necessary to make Object::new() work.
The code is pretty convoluted and has no error handling whatsoever, but works.
Tested on rustc 1.0.0-dev (2c0535421 2015-02-05 15:22:48 +0000)
(See on github)
src/main.rs:
pub mod implementations;
mod generated_glue {
include!(concat!(env!("OUT_DIR"), "/generated_glue.rs"));
}
use generated_glue::Object;
pub trait Methods {
fn func(&self);
}
pub struct Methods_2;
impl Methods for Methods_2 {
fn func(&self) {
println!("baz");
}
}
fn main() {
Object::new(2).func();
}
src/implementations.rs:
use super::Methods;
pub struct Methods_0;
impl Methods for Methods_0 {
fn func(&self) {
println!("foo");
}
}
pub struct Methods_1;
impl Methods for Methods_1 {
fn func(&self) {
println!("bar");
}
}
build.rs:
#![feature(core, unicode, path, io, env)]
use std::env;
use std::old_io::{fs, File, BufferedReader};
use std::collections::HashMap;
fn main() {
let target_dir = Path::new(env::var_string("OUT_DIR").unwrap());
let mut target_file = File::create(&target_dir.join("generated_glue.rs")).unwrap();
let source_code_path = Path::new(file!()).join_many(&["..", "src/"]);
let source_files = fs::readdir(&source_code_path).unwrap().into_iter()
.filter(|path| {
match path.str_components().last() {
Some(Some(filename)) => filename.split('.').last() == Some("rs"),
_ => false
}
});
let mut implementations = HashMap::new();
for source_file_path in source_files {
let relative_path = source_file_path.path_relative_from(&source_code_path).unwrap();
let source_file_name = relative_path.as_str().unwrap();
implementations.insert(source_file_name.to_string(), vec![]);
let mut file_implementations = &mut implementations[*source_file_name];
let mut source_file = BufferedReader::new(File::open(&source_file_path).unwrap());
for line in source_file.lines() {
let line_str = match line {
Ok(line_str) => line_str,
Err(_) => break,
};
if line_str.starts_with("impl Methods for Methods_") {
const PREFIX_LEN: usize = 25;
let number_len = line_str[PREFIX_LEN..].chars().take_while(|chr| {
chr.is_digit(10)
}).count();
let number: i32 = line_str[PREFIX_LEN..(PREFIX_LEN + number_len)].parse().unwrap();
file_implementations.push(number);
}
}
}
writeln!(&mut target_file, "use super::Methods;").unwrap();
for (source_file_name, impls) in &implementations {
let module_name = match source_file_name.split('.').next() {
Some("main") => "super",
Some(name) => name,
None => panic!(),
};
for impl_number in impls {
writeln!(&mut target_file, "use {}::Methods_{};", module_name, impl_number).unwrap();
}
}
let all_impls = implementations.values().flat_map(|impls| impls.iter());
writeln!(&mut target_file, "
pub struct Object;
impl Object {{
pub fn new(impl_number: i32) -> Box<Methods + 'static> {{
match impl_number {{
").unwrap();
for impl_number in all_impls {
writeln!(&mut target_file,
" {} => Box::new(Methods_{}),", impl_number, impl_number).unwrap();
}
writeln!(&mut target_file, "
_ => panic!(\"Unknown impl number: {{}}\", impl_number),
}}
}}
}}").unwrap();
}
The generated code:
use super::Methods;
use super::Methods_2;
use implementations::Methods_0;
use implementations::Methods_1;
pub struct Object;
impl Object {
pub fn new(impl_number: i32) -> Box<Methods + 'static> {
match impl_number {
2 => Box::new(Methods_2),
0 => Box::new(Methods_0),
1 => Box::new(Methods_1),
_ => panic!("Unknown impl number: {}", impl_number),
}
}
}