Feature Request: Hashed Based Assertion

[tcak via Digitalmars-d]

I brought this topic in "Learn" a while ago, but I want to talk 
about it again.

You are in a big team or working with a big code base. APIs are 
being defined/modified, configuration constants are 
defined/modified, structures are defined/modified for data.

You are coding on business logic side, and relying everything 
based on current APIs, configuration, and data structures. A part 
of codes have been updated on API side, but you are not aware of 
it, or time has passed, and you assume that your code will work 
properly. Nobody would be checking every single part of business 
logic line by line.

On runtime, you will get unexpected results, and lose some hair 
till finding where the problem is. Also finding expected results 
on a long running processes would cause much more trouble.

---

What I do currently is that: I calculate the hash of API code 
(function, configuration, etc together) with a hash function, and 
store it where the API is defined as a constant.

public enum HASH_OF_THIS_API = 0x1234;

// Hash is calculated from here
public void my_api_function(){}

public enum my_api_constant = 5;
// till here

Then wherever I use that API, I insert a "static assert( 
HASH_OF_THIS_API == 0x1234 );".

Whoever modifies the API, after the modification, calculates the 
most recent code's hash value and updates the constant. This 
allows compiler to warn the business logic programmer about 
changes on API codes. So, changing parts can be reviewed and 
changes are made if required.

---

The feature request part comes here: It is possible that API 
programmer forgets to update the hash value in the code. Also, 
comments in the code shouldn't affect the hash value. Automation 
is required on compile-time, so the compiler automatically 
calculates the hash value of code, and it can be read on 
compile-time. Hence, no constant is required to store the hash 
value.

What is needed is to be able to bind a hash value to any block 
with a name.