Proposal for SentinelInputRange

Walter Bright newshound2 at digitalmars.com
Wed Feb 27 17:11:49 PST 2013


A SentinelInputRange is an InputRange with the following additions:

1. a compile time property 'sentinel' that is the terminating value of the range
2. empty is defined as: empty = (front == sentinel)
3. it is not necessary for empty to be called before front

A C style 0-terminated string is an example of a SentinelInputRange.

The additions to std.range would be:

1. isSentinelInputRange(T) which returns true if T is a SentinelInputRange
2. a unittest
3. documentation of this

An addition to std.string would be a function that takes a char* and returns a 
SentinelInputRange.

Motivation:
1. easy conversion of C strings to ranges
2. necessary for a fast implementation of a lexer

Any takers?


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