Is [] mandatory for array operations?

[Michel Fortin]

On 2010-05-07 01:34:39 -0400, "Robert Jacques" <sandford at jhu.edu> said:

> On Fri, 07 May 2010 00:13:04 -0400, Jason House  
> <jason.james.house at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Robert Jacques Wrote:
>>> given
>>> real foo(real value) {...}
>>> and
>>> real[] foo(real[] value) {...}
>>> 
>>> what should happen with the follow line of code:
>>> 
>>> x[] = foo(y[]) + z[];
>> 
>> That can be interpreted in either of the following ways:
>> 
>> foreach(i) x[i] = foo(y[i]) + z[i];
>> OR
>> auto F = foo(y[]); foreach(i) x[i] = F + z[i];
>> 
>> The 2nd would be a compile error, so it must be the first.
> 
> Well, this adds a bunch of complexity, since a combinatorial number of  
> statements have to be evaluated and a match picked.
> 
> And then there's the ambiguous case:
> x[] = foo(y[]);
> Which is an example of x[] = y; vs x[] = y[]; problem.

True. The problem comes from the overloaded meaning of []: "slice" or 
"array op"? I'm not sure whether this is a problem or not. We already 
have overloaded functions which can be ambiguous. The compiler solves 
this with a compile-time error; perhaps it should be the same here.

-- 
Michel Fortin
michel.fortin at michelf.com
http://michelf.com/