Calling members of null pointers-to-struct

[Daniel Keep]

Tor Myklebust wrote:
> [...] (I still see no
> earthly reason why it *should* be invalid for nonvirtual functions --- 
> by extension, I see no earthly reason why it should be invalid for 
> methods in D structs.)
> 
> Tor Myklebust

I suppose one could argue that if it is allowable to call the method
with a non-existent instance for context, then there's no reason for
making it a member function in the first place.

Conversely, the vast majority of member functions are member functions
specifically *because* they require the context to be there, where the
assertion makes sense to have.

Of course, since all D ever gives is "ZOMG!  ASSERT ERRORZ!" and neither
tells you *where* it happened[1], or on what, it's not very useful for
more than telling you you screwed up somewhere.

Thank $DEITY for ddbg, though.

	-- Daniel

[1] Ok, it tells you the line of the function being called, but all
things considered, that isn't very useful.  Oh for the day we get
back-traces in the standard library :)

-- 
int getRandomNumber()
{
    return 4; // chosen by fair dice roll.
              // guaranteed to be random.
}

http://xkcd.com/

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