clear() and UFCS

[Alex Rønne Petersen]

On 25-05-2012 15:17, deadalnix wrote:
> Le 25/05/2012 15:04, Alex Rønne Petersen a écrit :
>> So I was writing a container class and in some test code, I called
>> container.clear(). Reasonable enough, right? Hell, it even compiled!
>>
>> Turns out, my program completely broke at runtime. Apparently, I'd
>> forgotten to implement clear() on my container class, and
>> *object.clear() was being called instead*.
>>
>> I don't blame UFCS for this. It just happened to be the reason this
>> compiled at all. But, what I do think is: clear is the *ABSOLUTELY MOST
>> HORRIBLE NAME EVER* for a function that actually finalizes and zeroes an
>> object. Did it not seem obvious to call it, I don't know, *finalize*?
>> And even ignoring the naming, having a symbol called clear in the
>> 'global' namespace is absolute insanity.
>>
>> Am I the only person with this opinion?
>>
>
> Why is UFCS involved here ?

Since the clear method didn't exist on the type, the call was mapped to 
the clear function in the global scope. This is UFCS.

-- 
Alex Rønne Petersen
alex at lycus.org
http://lycus.org