byKey and byValue: properties or methods?

[Timon Gehr]

On 01/17/2012 11:19 PM, Alvaro wrote:
> El 17/01/2012 18:24, Andrei Alexandrescu escribió:
>>> On 2012-01-17 06:48:26 +0000, Andrei Alexandrescu
> ...
>>
>> aa.keys is taken btw.
>>
>
>
> OK, I see, .keys and .values currently return dynamic arrays.
>
> But the most appropriate property name for the above range should indeed
> be .keys !
>
> Now, wouldn't it be be better to turn .keys into the proposed range?
>
> Let's see. What is the use of .keys?
>
> I searched phobos and found that .keys is mostly used to itarate over
> the keys in a foreach loop. With the problem that is needs to allocate a
> dynamic array. If silently changed to the proposed range, the foreach
> loop would do the same and without an allocation.
>
> In a few unittests, .keys is followed by .sort, usually to print the
> keys in order. That would not work... unless the produced range includes
> a .sort method. Alternatively a .sortedKeys property can be added.
>
> The other use I see in phobos is just a typeof(a.keys[0]), which could
> be replaced by typeof(a.keys.front)
>
>
> What is the benefit of .keys as a range? it does not allocate an array,
> just gives the keys.
>
> And if an array is needed, it is easy to turn a range into an array.
> [Well, I'm missing a more direct way of doing that than using foreach
> and appending]
>

See std.array.array.