string is rarely useful as a function argument

[Peter Alexander]

On 28/12/11 4:27 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> The problem is escaping. A function that transitorily operates on a
> string indeed does not care about the origin of the string, but storing
> a string inside an object is a completely different deal. The setup
>
> class Query
> {
> string name;
> ...
> }
>
> is safe, minimizes data copying, and never causes surprises to anyone
> ("I set the name of my query and a little later it's all messed up!").
>
> So immutable(char)[] is the best choice for a correct string abstraction
> compared against both char[] and const(char)[]. In fact it's in a way
> good that const(char)[] takes longer to type, because it also carries
> larger liabilities.

I don't follow your argument. You've said (paraphrasing) "If a function 
does A then X is best, but if a function does B then Y is best, so Y is 
best."

If a function needs to store the string then by all means it should use 
immutable(char)[]. However, this is a much rarer case than functions 
that simply use the string transitorily as you put it.

Again, there are very, very few functions in Phobos that accept a string 
as an argument. The vast majority accept `const(char)[]` or `in char[]`. 
This speaks volumes about how useful the string alias is.