Forbid dynamic arrays in boolean evaluation contexts

[bearophile]

Phil Lavoie:

> IMHO, somebody coming from a C/C++ background (like me) has no 
> problem realizing that if( var ) means either if not null or if 
> not 0.

Some D programmers come from other languages, where if(arr) means 
if its len is different from zero.

D dynamic arrays are 2 words, so you can have a length zero with 
a not-null pointer. So there is space for some semantic confusion.


> There was talk about changing the behavior of if( arr ) to mean 
> if( !arr.empty ) but I believe this is the worst thing to do, 
> since it would incorporate some inconsistencies with usual 
> pointers.

D dynamic arrays aren't pointers, they are composed of two words, 
so you can't assume the semantics is exactly the same.

I think assuming if(arr) means if(!arr.empty) is still better 
than the current situation :-)

Bye,
bearophile