Derives type class instance for record type. Record type is a class/trait whose companion object has matching apply and unapply methods. In particular, every case class is a proper record type.

Derives type class instance for union type (sealed hierarchy in which every non-abstract subtype has the type class instance of its own or can also be automatically derived).

Derives type class instance for singleton type (i.e. an object or this)

Derives type class instance for arbitrary type which is neither a singleton, record nor union type. Usually, you want to throw a TypecheckException to indicate that type class instance cannot be derived for this type. You can use typecheckException method for this.

Returns tree that instantiates a "deferred instance" of this type class. Deferred instance is a special implementation of the type class which implements the com.avsystem.commons.derivation.DeferredInstance trait and wraps an another, actual instance of the type class and delegates all operations to that wrapped instance. The wrapped instance itself is supplied later, by assigning a var available on the deferred instance.

This is all necessary to handle automatic derivation for recursively-defined types like:

case class Tree(children: List[Tree])

EXAMPLE:

Let's assume a type class Traverser defined like this:

trait Traverser[T] {
  def traverse(value: T): Unit
}
object Traverser {
  class Deferred[T] extends DeferredInstance[Traverser[T]] with Traverser[T] {
    def traverse(value: T) = underlying.traverse(value)
  }

  implicit def forList[T](implicit forElement: Traverser[T]): Traverser[List[T]] =
    new Traverser[List[T]] {
      def traverse(value: List[T]) = value.foreach(forElement.traverse)
    }
}

Automatically derived type class instance for Tree would then look somewhat like this:

val tcTree: Traverser[Tree] = {
  val deferred: DeferredInstance[Traverser[Tree]] with Traverser[Tree] = new Traverser.Deferred[T]
  deferred.underlying = new Traverser[Tree] {
    val forChildren = Traverser.forList[Tree](deferred)
    def traverse(value: Tree) = value.children.foreach(forChildren.traverse)
  }
  deferred.underlying
}

Human-friendly name of the type class. Used in error messages.

Returns a Tree that should typecheck to the type passed as argument (without using TypeTree).