Dynamic arrays in D 1.0

[Walter Bright]

Edward Diener wrote:
> In D 1.0 dynamic arrays are the equivalent of C++'s std::vector<T>, with 
> slicing replacing iterators in order to access some subrange of the 
> sequence. In C++ there is functionality in std::vector::erase for 
> erasing elements from the vector and std::vector::insert for inserting 
> new elements into the vector. Where is that functionality in D's dynamic 
> arrays ?

The D string library is oriented more towards COW (copy-on-write) 
operations rather than in-place modification. Hence, things are biased 
towards slicing and concatenating strings.

> Furthermore in D 1.0 a char[], a dynamic array of characters, is the 
> equivalent of the C++ std::string. In the C++ std::string class there is 
> a rich set of functionality for manipulating the char elements in the 
> string, for finding particular elements in the string,

std.string.find() for basic searches, std.regexp for more advanced ones.

> and for comparing 
> the character elements in strings with other strings,

== works for array contents, too

> but I see little 
> of this in dynamic array functionality. What am I missing ?

Can you be a bit more specific about what operation(s) you want to do?

> I am guessing this must be provided in D libraries of functions ( Phobos 
> ? Tango ? ) templated on the dynamic array type. But, if so, this seems 
> a poor way of providing dynamic array functionality as compared to 
> built-in dynamic array functionality in order to provide the sort of 
> functionality mentioned above, especially as D's dynamic arrays are part 
> of the D language as opposed to a separate library like C++'s 
> std::vector<T> and std::string.

I don't really understand your point. It sounds like you're suggesting 
that, by analogy, all floating point operations should be core language 
operations since floating point arithmetic is.