DMD 0.177 release

[Andrei Alexandrescu (See Website for Email)]

Lionello Lunesu wrote:
> Walter Bright wrote:
>> It is possible to force the return type of opAssign. But I'd suggest 
>> making it an S*, with the rewrite to:
>>
>>     *(a.opAssign(b))
>>
> 
> class C {
>   C* opAssign(...) {...}
> }
> struct S {
>   S* opAssign(...) {...}
> }
> 
> Seriously?? Ugh.
> 
> Why not just "C opAssign" and "S opAssign"? In the opCall discussion you 
> said yourself that the return value will be optimized.
> 
> Am I missing something?

There is no *extra* copying, in the sense that exactly one copy is done. 
But most of the time the copy obtained is not used, in which case that 
one copy is spurious.


Andrei