Dynamic array creation with default

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 8/23/11 8:11 AM, foobar wrote:
> == Quote from Andrei Alexandrescu (SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org)'s article
>> On 8/23/11 6:15 AM, foobar wrote:
>>> == Quote from bearophile (bearophileHUGS at lycos.com)'s article
>>>> foobar:
>>>>> you raise a valid concern but this looks too complicated.
>>>>> I'd suggest to simplify into only two cases.
>>>>>
>>>>> // 1) T.INIT - as you suggested the dimension should be checked
>>>>> auto foo = new int[][](10, 20); // correct
>>>>> auto foo1 = new int[][](10); // compilation error
>>>> Keep in mind that currently this is correct and it generates a 1D dynamic array:
>>>> auto v = new int[10];
>>>
>>> Isn't this an inconsistency in the language?
>>>
>>> // Generally speaking, allocates an instance of T on the heap
>>> auto foo = new T;
>>>
>>> However, "int[10]" and "new int[10]" are different types.
>> I hate that, too. Walter hates it, too, but we both reckon it's too late
>> now to change things. It makes it impossible to create an instance of
>> the type "int[10]" dynamically because of an gratuitous syntactic
>> special case. It comes from C++, where it was an unforced error.
>> Andrei
>
> Is it possible to deprecate/disallow "new T[size]" since we have an alternate
> syntax for it? At least until D3 comes along when we could change this. This also
> aligns with your goal of moving built-in types from the compiler/runtime to the
> library (AAs..) which I think is an important goal.
> I'd like to see dynamic arrays as well as AAs as plain templates in phobos and D
> itself only provides a thin layer of syntax sugar for literals and such.

I'm afraid too much paste is out of the tube at this point.

Andrei