Adding Reflection to C

7 hours ago

Reflection enables programs to introspect their own data structures and procedures, essential for metaprogramming, but C lacks this feature natively.
C programmers resort to strategies like maintaining parallel metadata structures, using X-macros for code generation, relying on external tools/IDLs, or writing custom C parsers to extract type information.
A runtime type info structure can be manually defined to support serialization, but it is error-prone, especially for bitfields, and requires tedious synchronization.
X-macros automate metadata generation but result in complex and unreadable code.
External code generation tools are effective for IDLs but introduce build system complexity and shift programming away from C.
Writing a custom C compiler or using parsers like libclang can extract type information but adds significant overhead.
Extending C with a native _Type type provides direct access to compiler-level type info, enabling seamless reflection without boilerplate, as demonstrated with an interpreter-based C implementation.

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