[Issue 23748] New: associative arrays need 2 lookups to remove and extract, should be 1
d-bugmail at puremagic.com
d-bugmail at puremagic.com
Mon Feb 27 17:02:22 UTC 2023
https://issues.dlang.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23748
Issue ID: 23748
Summary: associative arrays need 2 lookups to remove and
extract, should be 1
Product: D
Version: D2
Hardware: All
OS: All
Status: NEW
Severity: enhancement
Priority: P1
Component: druntime
Assignee: nobody at puremagic.com
Reporter: qs.il.paperinik at gmail.com
There is no way to remove a key–value pair and extract the value with one
lookup. One has to make one lookup to get the value (if any), and another to
remove the pair.
Currently, the `remove` function returns a `bool` value indicating via `true`
that a key–value pair with the passed `key` was present, and `false` when it
was not.
This could be improved by instead returning a pointer to the value if they pair
existed, and `null` otherwise, i.e. exactly what `in` does, but additionally
removing the value.
With this enhancement, extract–remove is a trivial one-liner.
Compare this:
```d
Value* v = key in aa;
aa.remove(key);
if (v != null)
{
// handle the value
// *v is valid even after removal.
}
```
with this:
```d
if (Value* v = aa.remove(key))
{
// handle the value
}
```
There should be minimal breakage because most current uses of `remove` will
ignore its result anyways, and if not, the returned pointer converts to `true`
implicitly if it is not `null` and `null` to `false` in contexts where a `bool`
is required.
If that breakage cannot be tolerated or the new implementation is deemed
considerably more expensive than current `remove`, I suggest a new function by
the name `removeAndExtract` or (cf. Scott Mayers: `takeOut`).
--
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