Safer casts

[Sean Kelly]

Janice Caron wrote:
> 2008/5/13 Yigal Chripun <yigal100 at gmail.com>:
>>  I want the following API:
>>  (I don't care now for the internal implementation and the wrapper
>>  functions/aliases should be provided by the standard library)
>>
>>  array.sort; //same as array.sort(ASC);
> 
>     That one already works.
> 
>>  array.sort(DESC);
> 
>     alias std.algorithm.sort!("b<a") sort_reverse;
>     array.sort_reverse;
> 
> Is that close enough?
> 
> 
>>  array.sort(someStaticComperator);
>>  array.sort(aDelegateComperator);
>>  array.someOtherfunction(params);
> 
> That will never be possible either with or without templates.
> 
> Guess why?
> 
> Well, to save you guessing, I'll tell you. It's because "sort" is a
> built-in property of D's dynamic arrays. (Like length and ptr are
> built in). In general, we can define a function foo upon arrays which
> can be called as either
> 
>     foo(array,otherParams);
>     array.foo(otherParams);
> 
> But unfortunately, you can't do that if the function happens to be
> named "sort". (Likewise "length", "ptr", "init", and so on). As I
> said, this is /not/ a limitation of templates.

Wow, then tango.core.Array.sort must work by magic!  I had no idea Tango 
had such powers:

     C:\code\src\d\test>cat test.d
     import tango.core.Array;

     void main()
     {
         int[] buf = ([1,2,3]).dup;

         buf.sort( (int a, int b){ return a < b; } );
     }

     C:\code\src\d\test>dmd test

     C:\code\src\d\test>


Sean