passing static arrays to each! with a ref param [Re: Why can't static arrays be sorted?]

[Jon Degenhardt via Digitalmars-d-learn]

On Tuesday, 11 October 2016 at 19:46:31 UTC, Jon Degenhardt wrote:
> On Tuesday, 11 October 2016 at 18:18:41 UTC, ag0aep6g wrote:
>> On 10/11/2016 06:24 AM, Jon Degenhardt wrote:
>>> The example I gave uses ref parameters. On the surface it 
>>> would seem
>>> reasonable to that passing a static array by ref would allow 
>>> it to be
>>> modified, without having to slice it first.
>>
>> Your ref parameters are only for the per-element operations. 
>> You're not passing the array as a whole by reference. And you 
>> can't, because `each` itself takes the whole range by copy.
>>
>> So, the by-ref increments themselves do work, but they're 
>> applied to a copy of your original static array.
>>
> I see. Thanks for the explanation. I wasn't thinking it through 
> properly. Also, I guess I had assumed that the intent was that 
> each! be able to modify the elements, and therefore the whole 
> array it would be pass by reference, but didn't consider it 
> properly.
>
Another perspective where the current behavior could be confusing 
is that it is somewhat natural to assume that 'each' is the 
functional equivalent of foreach, and that they can be used 
interchangeably. However, for static arrays they cannot be.