Support for the isinstance(...) builtin

The following code is perfectly valid in Python:

def abssqr(x):
    if isinstance(x, complex):
        return x.real ** 2 + x.imag ** 2
    else:
        return abs(x) ** 2

However, it is not trivial to turn it into a statically compiled, generic function because of the guard over isinstance(...). This closely resembles a feature of C++17, if constexpr, something supported by Pythran (even though we're generating C++11 code in the back-end, but that's another story). So it was just a small step forward to handle the isinstance(...) builtin. Icing on the cake: it's actually the same code transformation that we already use to support is None!

Trivia: Pythran automatically detect a call to abs(x) ** 2 and replaces it by a call to a Pythran builtin, optimized for the actual type of x, so this example is just... well... an example!

Support the type(...) builtin

Typing is difficult, so I've always been reluctant to implement type-related operators. Here is the implementation of the type(...) in pythonic:

template <class T>
typename type_functor<T>::type type(T const &)
{
    return {};
}

Where type_functor maintains a binding between types and functors capable of building that type, as in:

template <class T>
struct type_functor<types::list<T>> {
    using type = functor::list;
};

That's some ugly internals of pythonic but the interesting part is that all the pieces fit together! Gast do I love static polymorphism and modern C++! Say hello to beautiful polymorphic code like:

def poly(x, l):
    return type(x)(l) + x

clang-cl

Native extension like the ones produced by Pythran are supposed to be compiled using the Microsoft Visual Studio Compiler. That behavior is hardcoded in distutils. Unfortunately, this compiler regularly fails to compile Pythran code that compiles fine with GCC and Clang.

The (relatively hacky, but so satisfying) answer I found out is to rely on clang-cl.exe, a binary shipped with the clang toolchain that mimics the cl.exe Command Line Interface. It requires some monkey patching in distutils, but it's worth the price: Pythran now seems to work nice in a MS environment. And according to AppVeyor, the generated module run just fine.

Python 3.8 support

Pythran uses an internal representation that closely resembles the Python AST, but which is independent from it: it can represent both py2, py35, py36, py37 and now py38 code. That's all thank to this innocent package: gast and not to forget its happy companion beniget which provides use-def chains for Python.

Fun fact: gast is a relatively small package but it's by far the most popular one I created, according to pypistats.