in operator generalization

[Regan Heath]

On Fri, 17 Mar 2006 17:50:02 -0500, Les Baker  
<les_baker at REMOVEbellsouthREMOVE.net> wrote:
> Looking through old NG posts I found this one by Ben Hinkle last year  
> about extending the "in" operator to support static/dynamic arrays.
>
> http://www.digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/25164
>
> Was this ever totally dismissed?  It just seemed to fall off the radar.  
>   I'm liking the concept though; I don't know how many times I've  
> written loops in quickie utility programs just to hunt for a item and  
> return it.  I would also additionally suggest (if it hasn't already  
> been) that "in" be overloadable so that if D supports other data  
> structures in the standard library that they can use that syntax as well.
>
> The only disadvantage I can think of is that when a developer sees "in",  
> he/she can't assume it's a constant time operation anymore.  I think the  
> increase in utility outweights that though.
>
> Thoughts?

I think it might be better to keep this in library code, i.e. it could be  
achieved with a utility functions or template. i.e. a template that does a  
binary search of a (presumed sorted) object which can be indexed with [],  
etc. It could then be used on dynamic/static arrays and other container  
style objects. This sort of thing is what I'd expect to see in the  
proposed DTL library.

Regan