std.conv - custom string to struct conversion ?

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Friday, August 02, 2013 10:35:22 monarch_dodra wrote:
> On Friday, 2 August 2013 at 07:59:59 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> > On Friday, August 02, 2013 08:40:51 monarch_dodra wrote:
> >> There was a request for enhancement to provide a "fromString"
> >> for
> >> arbitrary types. The idea is that once we have that, then
> >> functions such as parse or to!S(string) will be generic, and
> >> work
> >> on mostly anything. Unfortunatly, (AFAIK), nobody is working on
> >> this.
> >> 
> >> Here is a discussion I opened:
> >> http://forum.dlang.org/thread/gzodptjyzpqnhxctbbuv@forum.dlang.org
> >> 
> >> ...and I just noticed it ends with me saying "I'll try to
> >> write a
> >> DIP then :)" and then not doing it :/
> > 
> > What's the point of fromString when a constructor will do the
> > job just fine?
> > 
> > - Jonathan M Davis
> 
> Really? Because it's not generic. Unless I'm missing something,
> I'm sure you can appreciate that the goal is to allow:
> 
> to!S("string")

As long as S defines a constructor which takes a string, this works just fine. 
All fromString would be doing would be to declare a function which did the 
same thing as the constructor.

> or
> myFile.readf("Entry: %s", &s);
> 
> And a simple constructor doesn't (*CAN'T*) allow that.

Really? All it would have to do wolud be to pass the string that is the user 
input into the constructor for typeof(s) and set s to that.

- Jonathan M Davis