std.algorithm.remove strange behavior (removing items for the dynamic array)

[Jacob Carlborg]

On 2012-05-11 05:18, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
>> ...and got the following output:
>>
>>
>> a before: [2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128]
>> a after : [2, 4, 8, 32, 64, 128, 128]
>> a after2: [2, 8, 32, 64, 128, 128, 128]
>>
>>
>> I'm confused.
>> Please tell me is it normal behavior of this function or is it a
>> bug?
>> Maybe i'm doing something wrong?
>> Maybe i need another "remove" or maybe it's normal to use slicing
>> to remove array's items (like a = a[0..i] ~ [i+1..$]) ?
>>
>> Thanx for attention.
>>
>> P.S. I'm sorry if my english confuses you.
>
> No. As the documentation for remove explains, this is completely expected.
> remove removes elements from _the range_, not the container. It can't remove
> elements from the container (regardless of the container or range type),
> because it doesn't understand anything about the container. It shifts the
> elements forward in the range and returns a range which is reduced in length
> by the number of elements removed, but the original range is not reduced in
> size, nor is the underlying container reduced in size (all of which is
> slightly more confusing with dynamic arrays, because the range _is_ the
> container, which is not the case in general). Also, some ranges don't even
> _have_ an underlying container, so remove _definitely_ can't remove anything
> from the container itself - only shift elements. C++'s erase function has the
> exact same problem.

Is it supposed to change the underlying array like that? It doesn't 
print the original sequence.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg