How to break const

Timon Gehr timon.gehr at gmx.ch
Mon Jun 18 06:03:45 PDT 2012


On 06/18/2012 02:45 PM, deadalnix wrote:
> Le 18/06/2012 07:59, Matthias Walter a écrit :
>> On 06/18/2012 07:36 AM, Mehrdad wrote:
>>> Is it just me, or did I subvert the type system here?
>>>
>>>
>>> import std.stdio;
>>>
>>> struct Const
>>> {
>>>      this(void delegate() increment)
>>>      { this.increment = increment; }
>>>      int a;
>>>      void delegate() increment;
>>>      void oops() const { this.increment(); }
>>> }
>>>
>>> void main()
>>> {
>>>      Const c;
>>>      c = Const({ c.a++; });
>>>      writeln(c.a);
>>>      c.oops();
>>>      writeln(c.a);
>>> }
>>>
>>
>> I don't think so. When calling oops you have two references to the
>> object c:
>>
>> - The this-pointer of the object itself which is not allowed to change
>> the object in the const-call.
>> - The reference from within main which is allowed to change it and can
>> be reached via the frame pointer of the delegate.
>>
>> I see this as perfectly valid code. Of course, opinions may differ here.
>>
>> Matthias
>
> The hidden parameter of the delegate is stored in c. This hidden
> parameter must be qualified with const when c is made const, for
> transitivity. However, it isn't.
>
> In short :
> - c is made const
> - the frame pointer is stored in c
> - the frame pointer must be made const for transitivity.
>
> => The type system is broken. You'll find many examples of this behavior
> with delegates.

The type system is not broken. You cannot modify an immutable object
using this behaviour. Delegates are type checked once and for all when
they are declared. Transitive const does not necessarily need to
apply to their context pointers. I think it is useful to reason about
delegates at a higher abstraction level than function pointer and
context pointer.




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