Streaming library

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 10/14/10 11:01 CDT, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 09:33:54 -0400, Denis Koroskin <2korden at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 14 Oct 2010 17:24:34 +0400, Steven Schveighoffer
>> <schveiguy at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, 13 Oct 2010 18:21:16 -0400, bearophile
>>> <bearophileHUGS at lycos.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Andrei:
>>>>
>>>>> Well casting from void[] is equally awkward isn't it? I'm still
>>>>> undecided on which is better.
>>>>
>>>> See also:
>>>> http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=4572
>>>>
>>>> Bye,
>>>> bearophile
>>>
>>> That issue is slightly different because std.file.read actually
>>> creates the buffer. In this cases, the buffer is not created, dup'd,
>>> concatenated, etc. so void[] offers the most flexibility.
>>>
>>> -Steve
>>
>> That is also the least safe:
>>
>> Object[] objects;
>> stream.read(objects); // most likely will fill with garbage
>>
>> writeln(objects[0]); // access violation
>>
>> It's a type subversion that doesn't require casts.
>
> Yes, and this is a problem.
>
> But on the flip side, requring casts for non-ubyte value types may be
> too restrictive. Do we want to require casts when the array being filled
> is for example utf-8? If so, then won't that disallow such a function in
> safe D?

I think a solid idea would be to template streaming interfaces on any 
type T that has no indirections.

Andrei