rebindable static array

Michal Minich michal.minich at gmail.com
Thu Sep 2 09:40:22 PDT 2010


// Original question by Peter Alexander is at http://stackoverflow.com/
questions/3627023/how-do-you-initialise-an-array-of-const-values-in-d2

to summarize consider this code:

const(int)[2] a;
const int [2] b;
const(int)[] c;
const int [] d;

void main () {
  a = [1, 2]; // Error: slice a[] is not mutable
             // - is it a bug or according specification
  b = [1, 2]; // Error: slice b[] is not mutable - this is ok
  c = [1, 2]; // can assign - this is ok
  // d = [1, 2]; // error - cannot assign - this is ok.
}

from high level point of view, there is difference in const(int)[2] and 
const (int [2]). One would expect that it is possible to rebind b. From 
low level/implementation point - there seems to be no difference because 
a and b are value types - there is not indirection.

Possible resolutions:

1. a = [1,2]; should pass and it is a bug in current implementation

2. it is not a bug, then disallow writing const(int)[n] - only full const 
should be possible to use to prevent confusion.

3. it is not a bug, then update language definition to make static and 
dynamic arrays constnes modifiers act the same way.

My first question is it a bug or not, then what would be good thing to 
do...


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