Printing StackOverflowError

[keorn]

If one implements custom AbstractMeasure and not override any printing methods this method leads to an error:
https://github.com/cscherrer/MeasureBase.jl/blob/master/src/utils.jl#L3

That is most likely because pprint falls back to show at some point.

Replicate in REPL:

julia> using MeasureBase: AbstractMeasure
julia> struct A <: AbstractMeasure end
julia> A()
Error showing value of type A:
ERROR: StackOverflowError:

Few ways to address it, not sure which one you prefer.

[cscherrer]

Thanks @keorn . I didn't realize this was a problem in master, but I did hit this a couple of times in the refactoring I'm doing in dev. I added this, which I think gives a reasonable fallback:

function Pretty.tile(d::AbstractMeasure)
    M = Symbol(constructor(d))
    the_names = fieldnames(typeof(d))
    isempty(the_names) && return Pretty.literal(M)*Pretty.literal("()")
    Pretty.list_layout(Pretty.tile.([getfield(d, n) for n in the_names]); prefix=M)
end

Then we can override that for particular types whenever it makes sense.

[keorn]

I would prefer if by default AbstractMeasure would print in the default Base way. Just because something is an AbstractMeasure should not affect its string representation.

[cscherrer]

Hmm good point, that is a little strange. I mean, it's usually what I want, but kind of arbitrary to impose on new types an end-user might build.

[cscherrer]

MechanicalRabbit/PrettyPrinting.jl#5

[cscherrer]

I've updated this so the default mimics Base as closely as possible:

function Pretty.tile(d::M) where {M<:AbstractMeasure}
    the_names = fieldnames(typeof(d))
    result = Pretty.literal(repr(M))
    isempty(the_names) && return result * Pretty.literal("()")
    Pretty.list_layout(Pretty.tile.([getfield(d, n) for n in the_names]); prefix=result)
end

I'll close this for now, but I'm open to alternatives if the PrettyPrinting issue leads to a better approach or if you have a PR. Please reopen in that case.

[keorn]

Great, thanks. This temporary solution makes sense.

[cscherrer]

Reopening, since @xitology gave some helpful information in response to MechanicalRabbit/PrettyPrinting.jl#5. We don't need to finalize this right away, but my quick fix shouldn't be considered the final solution.