Setting array length to 0 discards reserved allocation?

via Digitalmars-d digitalmars-d at puremagic.com
Tue Jul 29 01:41:46 PDT 2014


On Tuesday, 29 July 2014 at 07:46:34 UTC, Andrew Godfrey wrote:
> On Sunday, 27 July 2014 at 05:51:46 UTC, Jakob Ovrum wrote:
>> On Saturday, 26 July 2014 at 23:06:02 UTC, Andrew Godfrey 
>> wrote:
>>> Thereafter can come sub-slice examples and so on.
>>> Does this make sense?
>>
>> Yes, the reference documentation is pretty terrible with 
>> naming of various array concepts.
>>
>> IIRC, when this was discussed in the past, a majority seemed 
>> to be in favour of using "slice" and "dynamic array" for their 
>> respective concepts instead of the current situation, but I 
>> also remember there was some opposition (for reason I can't 
>> remember). A pull request updating the documentation to use 
>> slice/dynamic array might weed them out ;)
>
> I gave this a try, and overall it looks like an improvement, 
> but I think we need another name than "slice". The reason is 
> that the slice operator is a distinct thing and interacts with 
> the "slice" in strange ways. When I next get time I'll try 
> updating it to use the term "array reference". That is:
>
> int[] a; // defines an array reference, a
> int[3] b;
> a = b[1..3]; // updates the array reference a to refer to a 
> slice of b

IMO slice fits quite well for both. `b[1..3]` is a slice (or 
refers to one?), and `a` is, too. After the assignment, both 
slices are equal. But I see that there is an ambiguity when we 
talk about "copying a slice", which could also be interpreted as 
"copying what the slice refers to".


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