Memory safe in D

[Richard (Rikki) Andrew Cattermole]

On 11/03/2024 11:39 PM, Alex wrote:
> On Monday, 11 March 2024 at 10:31:05 UTC, Richard (Rikki) Andrew 
> Cattermole wrote:
>> On 11/03/2024 11:20 PM, Alex wrote:
>>> Oh... looks like null is also used for refs in D. It's sad :)
>>> I thought it used only for pointers in unsafe mode.
>>> I think, the null safety feature is very important in modern world 
>>> (maybe "must have" :) ). Very nice to have such feature in D like in 
>>> Kotlin for example.
>>> So, as I understand, D team have the task in TODO list about 
>>> implementation something like "null safety"?
>>
>> I'm not sure I'd call myself part of the core D team (although I have 
>> another proposal that is currently going through the DIP process that 
>> would certainly qualify me for the title!).
>>
>> However in saying that, memory safety is on the foundation's radar as 
>> needing solving.
>>
>> I'm just the weirdo that is having a go at trying to solve temporal 
>> memory safety (an unsolved problem!).
> 
> Thank you for the information!
> Maybe you know: are there some guys from D foundation here?

Yes, they are around including Walter, I'm sure he'll see it within the day.

> Also, I figured out that I can't handle uninitialized access via try/catch:
> 
> ```d
> A a;
> try {
>      a.run();
> } catch(Throwable) {
>      writeln("Error");
> }
> ```
> 
> So the catch branch not work here.

The a variable was initialized, via default initialization.

It is in a known state, null.

What you are wanting is a way to have the compiler complain when a 
nonnull type state is expected, but it is initialized.

D does not support that currently.