auto + Top-level Const/Immutable

dsimcha dsimcha at yahoo.com
Tue Dec 20 06:23:31 PST 2011


The changes made to IFTI in DMD 2.057 are great, but they reveal another 
hassle with getting generic code to play nice with const.

import std.range, std.array;

ElementType!R sum(R)(R range) {
     if(range.empty) return 0;
     auto ans = range.front;
     range.popFront();

     foreach(elem; range) ans += elem;
     return ans;
}

void main() {
     const double[] nums = [1, 2, 3];
     sum(nums);
}

test.d(8): Error: variable test9.sum!(const(double)[]).sum.ans cannot 
modify const
test.d(14): Error: template instance test9.sum!(const(double)[]) error 
instantiating

Of course this is fixable with an Unqual, but it requires the programmer 
to remember this every time and breaks for structs with indirection. 
Should we make `auto` also strip top-level const from primitives and 
arrays and, if const(Object)ref gets in, from objects?


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