byKey and byValue: properties or methods?

[Alex Rønne Petersen]

On 18-01-2012 01:02, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> "Alvaro"<alvaroDotSegura at gmail.com>  wrote in message
> news:jf4tr4$lnv$1 at digitalmars.com...
>> El 17/01/2012 23:32, Timon Gehr escribió:
>>> 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.
>>
>> Oops. Yes, thanks.
>>
>> So, not bad. In those [infrequent, I'd say] cases needing an array one
>> would do:
>>
>>   auto keys = array(aa.keys);
>>
>
> My thoughts exactly. The current .keys made sense back in the days before
> ranges, std.algorithm, etc, but not so much anymore. Vote++
>
>

Vote++ from me as well.

-- 
- Alex