Carbon currently requires a comment to be the only non-whitespace on its
line. A `//` comment that follows other content on a line, called a
_trailing comment_, is a lexer error. This proposal removes that
restriction, allowing a comment to follow other content on a line.
Everything else about comments is unchanged: a comment still begins with
`//`, still requires whitespace after the `//`, and still runs to the
end of the line. Carbon continues to provide only line comments; no
block or intra-line comments are added.
Three observations motivate the change. First, trailing comments are
well suited to short _annotations_ attached to a specific entity or
value on a line. Second, the lexer design now makes it trivial to lex
trailing comments, and in fact requires extra logic and potentially cost
to reject them. Third, C++ code routinely uses trailing comments, so
allowing them lets Carbon carry the layout of migrated code over
directly, rather than reworking each comment to read well in a different
structure.
Implementation notes (beyond the proposal's design):
Keeping trailing comments cheap to lex required a few supporting
changes, all of which keep the cost off the lexer's hot path:
- The lexer already dispatches `//` to comment lexing wherever it
appears, so classifying a comment as trailing is a single O(1) check of
whether the `//` is the line's first non-whitespace (`start + indent`).
The hot comment path is otherwise unchanged.
- That check relies on each line's recorded indentation being its real
leading whitespace. Multi-line string literals previously recorded the
column where the literal opened for the lines they span; they now record
the true (closing-delimiter) indentation instead.
- Parser error recovery (`SkipPastLikelyEnd`) had relied on that
opening-column indentation to keep tokens following a multi-line string
literal attached to the same construct. It now reconstructs that
relationship directly by consulting the line on which the literal
opened, including when other tokens follow the closing delimiter (such
as `''' + "more"`). This is on the cold recovery path.
- `CommentData` records the trailing bit in the high bit of its length
field, keeping it at 8 bytes.
Assisted-by: Claude Code
Mainly because "sorting_diagnostic_consumer" is legacy, since
`SortingDiagnosticConsumer` became `SortingConsumer`. Also better
reflecting contents of these files.
Where I'm not renaming, I'm less positive about dropping "diagnostics"
from "file_diagnostics" and "null_diagnostics" (which contain both a
consumer and emitter, and "null.h" seems like poor naming), so not doing
that here. Also "diagnostic.h" contains `struct Diagnostic`, so is a
decent fit.
Assisted-by: Google Antigravity with Gemini 3 Flash
Adapts `StringLiteral` to lex characters. Adds a `CharLiteral` token,
which contains a `CharLiteralValue` which is a straight unicode code
point (suggested by zygoloid).
---------
Co-authored-by: Richard Smith <richard@metafoo.co.uk>
What this really does is avoids shadowing names, so that we can
comfortable have things like `Check::DiagnosticEmitter` or
`Check::DiagnosticLoc` without shadowing being a concern.
Note, down this path I'm also thinking about:
- Renaming misc DiagnosticConsumer/DiagnosticEmitter classes, possibly
just to DiagnosticConsumer/DiagnosticEmitter (so
`Check::DiagnosticEmitter` instead of `SemIRLocDiagnosticEmitter`).
- Dropping `Diagnostic` from `Emitter::DiagnosticBuilder`.
- But not for `Check::DiagnosticBuilder`, because `Check::Builder` would
be ambiguous.
- Renaming diagnostics/diagnostic_* to drop "diagnostic".
[Discussion about SemIRLoc ->
DiagnosticLoc](https://discord.com/channels/655572317891461132/655578254970716160/1353771570463768698)
reminded me of this (in particular the older [Check::DiagnosticBuilder
discussion](https://discord.com/channels/655572317891461132/655578254970716160/1344363562608627763)),
but I'd only do that rename if there's matching consensus about a path
forward where we keep SemIRLoc, and in a way that it's only ever used
for diagnostics (the divergence from which is at the root of current
LocId discussion).
I'm trying to keep that separate from a namespace addition for clarity.
At present, we typically define a DiagnosticConverter, then store an
instance of it and a DiagnosticEmitter that wraps it. This is relatively
minor in general, but I've been trying to create more self-contained
DiagnosticEmitter classes (which hold their own DiagnosticConverter,
similar to NullDiagnosticEmitter), and there it just gets in the way.
Since we don't reuse DiagnosticConverter instances, this combines the
definition into DiagnosticEmitter. Mainly this means we don't have a
separate object in play, and less to carry around.
The most impact is probably to SemIRDiagnosticConverter, which was also
the most complex. Now `SemIRLocDiagnosticEmitter`, this gets some
different construction flow. Note in the PR I've split the file rename
to its own commit, to try to help delta views. However, the most
substantial parts of the refactoring are split into #4876, which this
depends upon.
Pursuant to discussion regarding #4699, turn on
`misc-non-private-member-variables-in-classes` using the
`IgnoreClassesWithAllMemberVariablesBeingPublic` flag (the check treats
structs as classes, so we need this for structs with all-public
members). Updates the style guide notes to match, which should be pretty
minor due to the scoping of test fixtures.
Also fixes some underscore uses in test files on the way. Basically this
is keeping the style for [class data member
naming](https://google.github.io/styleguide/cppguide.html#Variable_Names)
even while making them public.
Since the addition of TranslateArg, I don't think this type is going to
go away (cutting a TODO). Refactoring names slightly to fit the current
role, and adding const to ConvertLocation.
Building on #3311, which started moving the result string into a
`unique_ptr`, instead have `StringLiteral` use a `BumpPtrAllocator` to
manage memory. But also, detect when a string is really trivial during
`Lex` and, if so, return `contents_` directly.
Rationale: this convention avoids forcing closely-related code to be far
apart in the namespace hierarchy, and vice versa. By the same token, it
makes the namespace hierarchy more consistent with the directory
hierarchy.
Continuing with #3070. Just a dir and file rename (only prefix change is
lexer_file_test). Everything in the lex dir should be marked as a move.
Note, I think this closes#3070. There may still be further cleanup
later, but the organizational changes suggested there are being
completed.
---------
Co-authored-by: Chandler Carruth <chandlerc@gmail.com>
Chandler Carruth
Jon Ross-Perkins
Thomas Köppe
Geoff Romer