When D is not nice

[Koroskin Denis]

On Mon, 07 Jul 2008 03:12:27 +0400, superdan <super at dan.org> wrote:

> downs Wrote:
>
>> superdan wrote:
>> > Ary Borenszweig Wrote:
>> >
>> >> Frank Benoit a écrit :
>> >>> String concatenation in Java:
>> >>>
>> >>> "abc " + a + " bla";
>> >>>
>> >>> where a is an interface ref.
>> >>>
>> >>> Ported to D, this look like this:
>> >>>
>> >>> "abc " ~ (cast(Object)a).toString ~ " bla";
>> >>>
>> >>> This are 3 steps more:
>> >>> 1.) explicit cast to Object (interface/class compatibility!)
>> >>> 2.) explicit call to toString
>> >>> 3.) put additional parentheses
>> >>>
>> >>> I would be happy if we could remove all three of this annoying  
>> points.
>> >> Exactly the same thought here. Also:
>> >>
>> >> int i = ...;
>> >> char[] x = "You pressed button " + i;
>> >>
>> >> Oops... doesn't compile. To fix it:
>> >>
>> >> import std.string;
>> >>
>> >> int i = ...;
>> >> char[] x = "You pressed button " + toString(i);
>> >>
>> >> But wait, if that piece of code is inside a method of a class, than
>> >> (WHY?) it thinks it's the toString() method, so you end up writing:
>> >>
>> >> import std.string;
>> >>
>> >> int i = ...;
>> >> char[] x = "You pressed button " + std.string.toString(i);
>> >>
>> >> Those are the cases I find D not nice.
>> >
>> > yarp i concur. phobos oughtta have a function asStr that converts  
>> everything to string and concats. then you write:
>> >
>> > auto x = asStr("You pressed button ", i, " with your pinky toe");
>> >
>>
>> This is also known as std.string.format.
>
> narp that interprets %s and shit which can quickly become dangerous.

No, unlike printf-family functions, writef/std.string.format and other D  
counterparts *are* type-safe, so you can use %s with strings, ints, longs,  
Objects, i.e. with just _anything_.

> you'd have to say
>
> auto x = format("", ........);
>

class Dude {}
auto greeting = format("Hello, %s!", new Dude());

> i also agree with ary that infix could help a ton. but then it would  
> confuse noobs. can't please everyone. life's a bitch.