🦋63. More on the proto keyword in Raku

Before digging into the details of the EVAL routine, we have to reveal some more information about protos and multiple dispatch. Examine the following program:

proto sub f($x) {
    say "proto f($x)";
}

multi sub f($x) {
    say "f($x)"
}

multi sub f(Int $x) {
    say "f(Int $x)"
}

multi sub f(Str $x) {
    say "f(Str $x)"
}

f(2);
f('2');
f(3);
f('3');

Here, there are three multi-candidates of the function plus a function declared with the proto keyword. Earlier, we only saw such proto-functions with empty body, such as:

proto sub f($x) {*}

But this is not a necessity. The function can carry a regular load, as we see in the example:

proto sub f($x) {
    say "proto f($x)";
}

Run the program:

proto f(2)
proto f(2)
proto f(3)
proto f(3)

All the calls were caught by the proto-candidate. Now, update it and return the {*} block for some dedicated values;

proto sub f($x) {
    if $x.Str eq '3' {
        return {*}
    }
    say "proto f($x)";
}

The if check triggers its block for the last two function calls:

f(3);
f('3');

In these cases, the proto-function returns {*}, which makes Perl 6 trying other candidates. As we have enough candidates for both integer and string arguments, the compiler can easily choose one of them:

proto f(2)
proto f(2)
f(Int 3)
f(Str 3)