Obtain pointer from static array literal

[Nicholas Wilson]

On Friday, 8 October 2021 at 05:31:21 UTC, codic wrote:
> On Friday, 8 October 2021 at 05:01:00 UTC, Nicholas Wilson 
> wrote:
>> note that if the pointer is not escaped from the function 
>> (i.e. thing is void thing(scope int* abc)note the addition of 
>> scope) LDC will perform promotion of GC allocation to stack of 
>> the array literal even if you don't use .staticArray.

> Interesting, I think you meant "even if you do use 
> .staticArray";

No, I meant what I said. The array literal will cause a GC 
allocation, unless it is assigned to a static array of the same 
length or is inferred to be a static array. The latter happens 
when you pass it to `staticArray` because staticArray takes a 
static array as a parameter and the literal is inferred to be 
static array instead of a dynamic array, which is the default.

> not sure why it would do that,

When you _don't_ use staticArray, what happens is LDC looks at 
the allocation and the fact that the allocated memory does not 
escape the passed to function (because the argument is annotated 
with `scope`) and turns the GC allocated dynamic array literal 
into a stack allocation (assuming that the array is of 
sufficiently small size as to not blow the stack).

> but it doesn't  matter because my code is betterC

I guess the point is moot

> and therefore nogc so it  *should* allocate it on the stack, I 
> think

No, you can still try to use the GC in betterC but you will get a 
compile time error if you do so. Passing `-betterC` does not 
cause GC to stack promotion, it issues errors if you try to use 
GC (or any other feature that requires druntime like associative 
arrays or typeinfo).