[:] as empty associative array literal, plus warning for null

[Dmitry Olshansky]

05-Jul-2013 13:01, TommiT пишет:
> On Thursday, 4 July 2013 at 19:15:09 UTC, Dmitry Olshansky wrote:
>> 04-Jul-2013 19:00, Regan Heath пишет:
>>> In fact, you can generalise further.
>>>
>>> The meaning of if(x) is "compare the value of x with 0" (in C, C++,
>>> .. ).
>>>
>>> The value of x for a pointer is the address to which it points.
>>> The value of x for a class reference is the address of the class to
>>> which it refers.
>>>
>>> If D's arrays are reference types,
>>
>> They are not. It's a half-reference no wonder it has a bit of
>> schizophrenia now and then.
>
> What do you mean by D's dynamic arrays being half-reference types? And
> what kind of "schizophrenia" do exhibit?

For instance passing a slice by value means passing length by value and 
data pointed to by pointer (hence half-ref):

void messWith(int[] slice)
{
	slice[0] = 45; //changes data pointed to, reference semantics
	slice.length = 0; //doesn't, length is not part of 'reference semantic'
}

void main(){
	auto test = [1, 2, 3];
	messWith(test);
	assert(test.length == 3);
	assert(test[0] == 45);
}

-- 
Dmitry Olshansky