Hidden allocations (Was: Array literals REALLY should be immutable )

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

Denis Koroskin wrote:
> On Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:49:58 +0300, dsimcha <dsimcha at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
>> == Quote from Denis Koroskin (2korden at gmail.com)'s article
>>> I strongly believe that "No hidden allocation" policy should be 
>>> adopted by
>>> D/Phobos (it is already adopted by Tango with a great success).
>>
>> I can see the value in this, but two issues:
>>
>> 1.  What counts as a "hidden" allocation?  How non-obvious does it 
>> have to be that
>> something requires an allocation?  If something really has to allocate 
>> and it's
>> not obvious from the nature of the function, is it enough to just 
>> document it?
>>
> 
> I can't give a formal definition of that, but for me a is allowed to 
> allocate if it produces something new or unique.
> 
> For example, void mkdirRecurse(string pathname) shouldn't allocate, but 
> it does, because the author didn't care about allocations when 
> implemented it.

Please bugzilla that, thanks. I'll fix.

Andrei