a more consistent const syntax

[Rioshin an'Harthen]

"Reiner Pope" <some at address.com> kirjoitti viestissä 
news:f95nqs$lk5$1 at digitalmars.com...
> Paul Collier wrote:
>> Rioshin an'Harthen wrote:
>>> Same list, this time a const func returning a const return value:
>>>
>>> const const(P) func (P p)
>>> const(P) const func (P p)
>>> const(P) const(func) (P p)
>>> const(P) func const (P p)
>>> const(P) func:const (P p)
>>> const(P) func (P p) const
>>>
>>> I definitely prefer the last one as the cleanest of these.
>>
>> Just chiming in on a slightly different note... the line that stuck out 
>> in both examples for me was actually the const(func) line. That seems 
>> really intuitive and consistent with the const syntax elsewhere.
>>
>> I do find the const-on-the-end readable too, but really mostly because of 
>> familiarity with C++ ;)
>
> Although the idea is nice, I tried it out, and I don't like the look of 
> it:
>
> int const(getFoo)() { return foo; }
>
> My main objection is that the const() is around getFoo, so you're saying 
> that the function won't change -- but how can it, it's static data. What 
> you really mean when you are saying it's a const function is that the this 
> object is constant. So how about that?
>
> const(this) int getFoo() { return foo; }
>
> (It's syntactically unambiguous because this is a keyword)

Ok, same list as above, once again, this time using const(this) for method 
constness (and dropping the const(func) from the list):

const(this) const(P) func (P p)
const(P) const(this) func (P p)
const(P) func const(this) (P p)
const(P) func:const(this) (P p)
const(P) func (P p) const(this)

Personally, I find all of these quite unreadable this time around, although 
I guess I could get used to it. Too many parenthesized consts.

I'll do even a list with the parameter of the function as a const:

const(this) const(P) func (const(P) p)
const(P) const(this) func (const(P) p)
const(P) func const(this) (const(P) p)
const(P) func:const(this) (const(P) p)
const(P) func (const(P) p) const(this)

This is getting to where my eyes start to bleed. ;)

I'd still have to say that the cleanest syntax, at least to me, seems to be 
the last one, with the method constness indicator after the parameter list.