opDot == alias this?

[Simen Kjaeraas]

On Wed, 18 Jul 2012 16:58:34 +0200, Namespace <rswhite4 at googlemail.com>  
wrote:

> First:
> Why is opDot not listed here: http://dlang.org/operatoroverloading.html ?
> How much other operators exists which are not listed there?

I believe it's being deprecated. As far as I know, no other operators are
unmentioned.


> Is opDot the same as alias this? I think so.

They are related, but not the same. opDot allows access to the returned  
type's
members and functions, but not the type itself.


> What are the advantages and disadvantages of both?

alias this allows implicit type conversions, opDot does not. That's about  
it,
I think.


> Which of them should i use?

Depends. Look above. If you want a type to be usable as if another type,  
use
alias this. If you just want to be able to access members of the other  
type,
use opDot.


> Will one of them disappear in the future?

As stated above, I believe opDot is scheduled for deprecation, but I'm  
unsure if
(not to mention when) it will happen.

> I think opDot is more flexible as alias this. You can have one alias  
> this for one class/struct, but various opDot's, as this example shows:

TDPL states that multiple alias this should be supported, but it has not  
yet
been implemented in the compiler.

-- 
Simen