DIP25 draft available for destruction

[Regan Heath]

On Wed, 06 Feb 2013 17:36:24 -0000, Andrei Alexandrescu  
<SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org> wrote:
> A good part of that is the recent debate on what &func should do (take  
> the address of the function vs. the address of its result). With the  
> unsafe meaning out of the way, only the safe one is eligible.

&X takes the address of X.

If X is a symbol which represents an 'int' you get the address of the int  
itself, not the address of the int's value.

If X is a symbol which represents a 'function' you should get the address  
of the function itself, not the address of that functions value (AKA the  
result).

That seems the most logical thing to implement, to me.  I think the  
confusion arises because ppl conflate the symbol/variable/thing and that  
thing's value.

If we implement this we then have to ask how to get the address of the  
value.  I reckon; if you want the address of the value of the function  
then call the function and take the address of that i.e. &func().  Here,  
brackets are not optional because they indicate the function is being  
called.

Alternately if you don't like that, perhaps &*func.  So, if func is "ref  
int func()" then this syntax makes it analogous to an int* e.g.

int i = 5;
int *p = &i;

&p  // takes the address of the variable 'p'
&*p // takes the address of the variable 'i'

int i = 5;
ref int func() { return i; }

&func   // takes the address of func
&*func  // takes the address of i

I prefer:

&func() // takes the address of i

because to me that is clearer and nicer looking.

This seems the most logical thing to do, and seems the most flexible to  
me.  If &func were to take the address of the value of func (result) then  
we'd need to invent a new syntax to take the address of func itself and  
why do that when we don't really need to. IMO.

R

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