T[new] misgivings

[Sergey Gromov]

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:55:07 -0500, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

> int[new] a;
> ...
> a = [1, 2, 3];
> 
> What should that do?

To me a is an array, a reference type.  Therefore assignment here means
rebinding a to a new array created from a literal.

> A: Ok, then how do I say the common operation "I want to overwrite 
> whatever the array had with 1, 2, 3"? I can only presume there must be 
> an obvious and simple way to do so, and I thought a = [1, 2, 3] was the 
> obvious syntax to achieve that.

I'd say

a.replace([1, 2, 3]);

> T[new] a;
> T[] b;
> ...
> a = b;
> 
> What should that do?

Error: type mismatch.  Use

a = b.dup;