removing an item from a dynamic array

[Timon Gehr]

On 10/25/2011 08:38 PM, Graham Fawcett wrote:
> On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 13:11:20 -0400, bearophile wrote:
>
>> Dmitry Olshansky:
>>
>>> No, it's not a bug. It's the same as c++ STL remove - it operates on
>>> range but not on container. To shrink container, update it's length.
>>
>> Thank you for your answer, I didn't know this, and I didn't think about
>> this possibility because it's weird, it's an in-place operation that
>> modifies the data only partially, leaving it in a wrong state. It looks
>> like a bad design, bug prone-too. The design of Python del is better.
>> (Maybe I'll have to bring this in the main D newsgroup too, because
>> Phobos bug reports often get unnoticed). In the meantime I'll add a
>> wrapper function to dlibs2.
>
> I think I'd like to see std.array.replaceInPlace grow a three-parameter
> version, so you could write:
>
>    replaceInPlace(arr, f, t);	// del arr[f:t]
>
> ...instead of:
>
>    replaceInPlace(arr, f, t, cast(typeof(arr)) []);
>
> ...and skip the pointless allocation of the empty array.
>
> Graham
>

There is no allocation, so no significant runtime overhead ( assert([] 
is null); )

I can see how the functionality of the overload would be useful, but I 
think it should get a more descriptive name as there is no more 
parameter that specifies with what to _replace_ arr[f..t] with. 
removeInPlace?