Rename std.string.toStringz?

[KennyTM~]

On Jun 16, 11 14:30, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> Okay. I have an open pull request whose main goal is to rename various string
> and character functions so that they're properly camelcased (as has been
> discussed previous in this group): https://github.com/D-Programming-
> Language/phobos/pull/101
>
> All in all, I think that the renaming in there is fairly obvious and non-
> controversial. However, we have the problem of std.string.toStringz. toStringz
> isn't properly camelcased (at least, _I_ would definitely argue that it
> isn't). Currently (in that pull request), I have it renamed to toStringZ (with
> the old version still around and scheduled to be deprecated, so no code would
> break immediately if it were merged in). But some have said that they consider
> toStringz to be properly camelcased (apparently they view stringz as a special
> word indicating a zero-terminated string). Another suggestion was to rename it
> to toCString (which is arguably much more obvious for newbies). In addition to
> that, we have std.utf.toUTF16z, which matches the naming scheme that toStringz
> has, so if we rename toStringz, we should probably rename toUTF16z as well (to
> toWCString?). Certainly, there's no consensus on what to do with the name of
> toStringz.
>
> Now, toStringz is probably one of the most heavily used string functions in
> Phobos. If we rename it, a _lot_ of code is going to have to be changed. So,
> if we rename it, we need to give it a name which most people would consider
> better than toStringz and worth the consistency that we gain with regards to
> the naming of functions in Phobos. So, the question is, should we
>
> 1. Keep toStringz as it is (as well as toUTF16z) and either consider stringz
> to be some sort of word unique to the D community or just admit that we're not
> going to camelcase it because it would break too much code to do so.
>
> 2. Just camelcase it properly and rename it to toStringZ (and probably rename
> toUTF16z to toUTF16Z). Code will have to be changed, but the function is still
> immediately recognizable to long time D programmers.
>
> 3. Rename it to toCString (probably renaming toUTF16z to something like
> toWCString), so it's then more recognizable to newbies, but it'll take some
> getting used to for everyone else (and of course require lots of code to be
> changed).
>
> 4. Rename toStringz to something else which is properly camelcased.
>
> I don't like leaving toStringz as it is because of its casing, but I also
> don't want to cause code breakage without general agreement on the replacement
> name. It's just too important of a function to change the name of willy-nilly.
> So, I'm looking to see what everyone else thinks.
>
> Thoughts? Opinions?
>
> - Jonathan M Davis

+1 toCString
+0 toStringz
-1 toStringZ & toUTF16Z