Can pure functions accept const parameters or only invariant

[Denis Koroskin]

On Tue, 30 Dec 2008 03:37:55 +0300, mastrost <titi.mastro at free.fr> wrote:

> Christopher Wright Wrote:
>
>> mastrost wrote:
>> > So why is this code accepted by the compiler?
>>
>> I'm not sure whether it's intentional, but a pure function is correct
>> for mutable input as well as invariant input (barring threading issues),
>> so this avoids code duplication.
>
> Yes maybe, but it creates strange stuffs... you could have a pure  
> function taking const inputs, another pure function taking invariant  
> inputs, and of course the first one could not call the second one, even  
> if it was called with invariant inputs.....I mean this would not be  
> allowed:
>
> pure int g(invariant A a){
>     return a.x;
> }
>
> pure int f(const A a){
>     assert(is(typeof(a) == const(A))); //a is seen as const, even if a  
> is in fact invariant
>     return g(a); //error
> }
>
> Wich means that it is possible that a pure function can not call another  
> one.
>

Does everyone still remember discussion we had some time ago about equivariant functions (http://www.digitalmars.com/webnews/newsgroups.php?art_group=digitalmars.D&article_id=77729)?

Perhaps, we could use a property of pure functions that they can accept all kind of input data (mutable, const and immutable) and still be correct and checked by compiler?

Currently, we have to declare three distinct functions:

pure invariant(char)[] trim(invariant(char)[] str);
         const(char)[] trim(const(char)[] str);
                char[] trim(char[] str);

Could they be reduced to just one:

pure char[] trim(char[] str); // ?

Another example:

class Matrix3x3
{
    pure ref float at(int row, int col)
    {
        return _values[row][col];
    }

    float _values[3][3];
}

The only problem here is that no modifier is applied to return value. It may mislead novices by giving false impression that function always accepts and returns mutable data. My suggestion was to attach 'same' modifier to both input and return type:

pure same(char)[] trim(same(char)[] str);

class Matrix3x3
{
    pure ref same(float) at(int row, int col) same(this)
    {
        return _values[row][col];
    }

    float _values[3][3];
}