Reference counting questions

[Johannes Pfau]

Jesse Phillips wrote:
>I don't really think stdio is the place to see modern D ref counting.
>The container class has an Array which is built to use RefCounted. I
>had tried my and at explaining how to use it: http://stackoverflow.com/
>questions/4632355/making-a-reference-counted-object-in-d-using-
>refcountedt/4635050#4635050
>
>I'm not really sure if all the details have been worked out. Hopefully
>I explained it correctly and that it gives you an idea of how to make
>ref counting work.

Thanks, I think I understand how to use RefCounted now.
But it still leaves this issue:
Is it possible to add explicit de-referencing to allow a global
struct / struct in class to be manually dereferenced?

And it adds a new one:
RefCounted calls addRange
https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/phobos/blob/master/std/typecons.d#L2304
if the _store size is >= size_t (In fact, as _store already has a size_t
for count, addRange will always get called?). This means even if I only
want RefCounting for a simple C handle, addRange will be called.

I don't understand the use of malloc & free in
RefCounted. If addRange is called anyway, why not just use GC.malloc
and GC.free?

One more thing: The removeRange call uses a different condition:

if (hasIndirections!T && RefCounted._store)
    GC.removeRange(RefCounted._store);

if (sz >= size_t.sizeof && p.ptr)
    GC.addRange(p.ptr, sz);

Now say, I store a  single byte, wouldn't addRange get called but
removeRange not?
-- 
Johannes Pfau