xxxInPlace or xxxCopy?

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 1/19/11 6:53 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Wednesday, January 19, 2011 15:33:16 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> I'm consolidating some routines from std.string into std.array. They are
>> specialized for operating on arrays, and include the likes of insert,
>> remove, replace.
>>
>> One question is whether operations should be performed in place or on a
>> copy. For example:
>>
>> string s = "Mary has a lil lamb.";
>> // Implicit copy
>> auto s1 = replace(s, "lil", "li'l");
>> assert(s == "Mary has a lil lamb.");
>> // Explicit in-place
>> replaceInPlace(s, "lil", "li'l");
>> assert(s == "Mary has a li'l lamb.");
>
> ++vote;
>
>> So that would make copying the default behavior. Alternatively, we could
>> make in-place the default behavior and ask for the Copy suffix:
>>
>> string s = "Mary has a lil lamb.";
>> // Explicit copy
>> auto s1 = replaceCopy(s, "lil", "li'l");
>> assert(s == "Mary has a lil lamb.");
>> // Implicit in-place
>> replace(s, "lil", "li'l");
>> assert(s == "Mary has a li'l lamb.");
>
> --vote;

So I guess vote stays unchanged :o).

>> Thoughts?
>
> Haven't we been using the approach that string operations generally make copies
> (in many cases slices) and marking functions that do it in place with InPlace?

Problem is, even though the example uses strings, the functions apply to 
all arrays.

Andrei