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Feature Kinds

A major design goal of Fuzion is to unify different concepts into the single concept of a Fuzion feature. This makes a Fuzion feature a very powerful mechanism. Nevertheless, Fuzion features are not all the same, there are different kinds of features and what can be done with one feature might not be possible with a different kind of feature. The following table gives an overview of what can be done with features of different kinds.

But first, let's see what all features have in common

What all features have in common

Feature name

All features declared in Fuzion have a feature name. The name is typically just an identifier such as execute, or an operand such as postfix !.

Feature nesting

All features are declared within the context of an outer feature. This outer feature is the feature that syntactically surrounds the feature declaration. In case there is no explicit feature surrounding a feature declaration, the outer feature is an implicit feature called universe.

Differences between Feature Kinds

Fuzion Features are of one of several kinds and not all features can be used in every context. This gives an overview of the feature kinds and what they can do.

Feature Kind
Property
Constructor Routine Field Intrinsic Abstract Choice Function
Defines Type ✅ Yes ✅ Yes1 ❌ No ❌ No ❌ No ✅ Yes ✅ Yes
May contain code ✅ Yes ✅ Yes ❌ No ❌ No ❌ No ❌ No ✅ Yes
May contain declarations ✅ Yes ✅ Yes ❌ No ❌ No ❌ No ✅ Yes2 ✅ Yes
May be redefined ❌ No3 ✅ Yes ✅ Yes ✅ Yes ✅ Yes ❌ No ❌ No3
May redefine ❌ No ✅ Yes ✅ Yes ✅ Yes ✅ Yes ❌ No ✅ Yes4
May have formal arguments ✅ Yes ✅ Yes ❌ No ✅ Yes ✅ Yes ❌ No ✅ Yes
Has explicit result type ❌ No ✅ Yes5 ✅ Yes5 ✅ Yes ✅ Yes ❌ No ❌ No
May have formal type arguments ✅ Yes ✅ Yes ❌ No ✅ Yes ✅ Yes ✅ Yes ✅ Yes
May be called ✅ Yes ✅ Yes ✅ Yes ✅ Yes ❌ No ❌ No ✅ Yes6
May be assigned to ❌ No ❌ No ✅ Yes ❌ No ❌ No ❌ No ❌ No
May be called in inheritance clause ✅ Yes ❌ No ❌ No ❌ No ❌ No ❌ No ✅ Yes
May inherit ✅ Yes ✅ Yes ❌ No ❌ No ❌ No ❌ No ✅ Yes
1The inner type of a routine is anonymous, so it cannot be used in declarations.
2Inner features may be constructors or routines, not fields.
3Redefinition would require dynamic binding in inherits call which results in trouble since different targets in that call would result in different inherited features.
4Requires type defined by constructor to be compatible to result type of redefined feature.
5Result type may be inferred from returned or assigned expression.
6There are two ways to call a function: Calling its constructor and calling its inner feature call.

Examples

Defining a Type

Constructor

One restriction is that type names must not be ambiguous. Overloading of constructors results in the corresponding types to be no longer usable since Fuzion does not permit a means to disambiguate overloaded types:

Routine

A routine does define a type, but this type is anonymous. It does not have a name that we could use in a declaration. However, type inference can be used to create features using a routine's type:

An instance of a routine's implicit type can even exist longer than the routine's call itself. Here is an example that shows a routine in a closure that extends the life span of the routine's instance until after the call to the routine has returned:

Negative example: Using a routine's name explicitly as a type does not work since a routine does not define a name for its type:

Field

Intrinsic

Abstract

Choice

Containing code

Constructor

Routine

Field

Intrinsic

Abstract

Choice

Containing declarations

Constructor

Routine

Field

Intrinsic

Abstract

Choice

Positive example declarations:

Negative example declaring a field:

Being redefined

Constructor

Routine

Field

Intrinsic

Abstract

Choice

Redefining

Constructor

Negative example with compatible types that could be permitted, but is forbidden:

Negative example with incompatible types:

Routine

Field

Intrinsic

Abstract

Choice

Having formal arguments

Constructor

Routine

Field

Intrinsic

Abstract

Choice

Having explicit result type

Constructor

Routine

Field

Intrinsic

Abstract

Choice

Having formal type arguments

Constructor

Routine

Field

Intrinsic

Abstract

Choice

Being called

Constructor

Routine

Field

Intrinsic

Abstract

Choice

Being assigned to

Constructor

Routine

Field

Intrinsic

Abstract

Choice

Being target of inheritance call

Constructor

Routine

Field

Intrinsic

Abstract

Choice

May inherit

Constructor

Routine

Field

Intrinsic

Abstract

Choice

last changed: 2024-06-28