Robustness of the built in associative array

[Walter Bright]

"Oskar Linde" <oskar.lindeREM at OVEgmail.com> wrote in message 
news:e00v0m$te2$3 at digitaldaemon.com...
> It turns out it is neither. It is definitely not a value type. The above 
> function will in most cases alter the original associative array and work 
> as expected. But it is not a reference type either -- in the few cases 
> where adding a new key to the AA invokes a rehash, all hell breaks loose. 
> The original associative array is suddenly *corrupted*! (The way to make 
> the function work as expected is to make the map an inout argument, but 
> that is beside my point.)

I hadn't realized that could happen, and it clearly needs to be fixed.

> A simple fix is to change the AA implementation so that AAs become MyAA* 
> instead of aaA*[], with MyAA defined as:
>
> struct MyAA {
> AANode[] buckets;
> uint numberOfNodes;
> }
>
> You get a very slight additional lookup cost (double dereferencing to get 
> to the buckets), but make the AA a pure reference type without any caveats 
> and problems.

I'll make that change.