findSkip signature

[Ali Çehreli]

Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> I just added a useful function to Phobos: findSkip. Refer to
> 
> http://d-programming-language.org/cutting-edge/phobos/std_algorithm.html#findSkip 
> 
> 
> and
> 
> http://www.dsource.org/projects/phobos/changeset/2339
> 
> I'm unsure about the signature. Currently the function returns 
> Tuple!(R1, "balance", bool, "found"), i.e. the balance of the range 
> being searched and a Boolean telling whether or not the other range was 
> found. The Boolean is necessary because returning an empty range is 
> ambiguous - did you find the needle at the very end of the haystack, or 
> not at all?
> 
> I think a signature that's easier to use is:
> 
> bool findSkip(alias pred = "a == b", R1, R2)(ref R1 haystack, R2 needle);
> 
> i.e. the haystack is passed by reference and modified if the find was 
> successful. This is in keep with skipOver's signature, but not in keep 
> with find's signature.
> 
> Opinions?
> 
> 
> Andrei

I am not sure where findSkip is useful but can we assume that the caller 
is not interested in whether it was found or not?

If the callers are interested, they should have the option of calling 
find and skip separately. If they are always interested, then find and 
skip should not be merged together.

Ali