Function to print a diamond shape

[Brad Anderson]

On Thursday, 20 March 2014 at 22:46:53 UTC, Ali Çehreli wrote:
> On 03/20/2014 03:03 PM, Brad Anderson wrote:
>
> > I'm not entirely happy with it but:
>
> I am not happy with my attempt either. :)
>
> >    void main()
> >    {
> >      import std.algorithm, std.range, std.stdio, std.conv;
> >
> >      enum length = 5;
> >      auto rng =
> >         chain(iota(length), iota(length, -1, -1))
>
> Ooh. I like that. That would have never occurred to me. :)

It felt kind of clumsy when I ended up with it. I don't think it 
shows my intent very well (repeat the range in reverse). I wish 
Phobos had something like a mirror() range (i.e. chain(rng, 
rng.retro())).

>
> >        .map!((a => " ".repeat(length-a)),
> >              (a => "#".repeat(a*2+1)))
> >        .map!(a => chain(a[0].joiner, a[1].joiner, "\n"))
> >        .joiner;
> >
> >      writeln(rng);
> >    }
>
> Does that compile for you? Failed for me with 
> v2.066-devel-d0f461a:
> [snip]
> A regression?
>


I did it on dpaste which is using 2.065 so I suspect regression.

http://dpaste.dzfl.pl/71c331960cb0


> > Had some trouble with the result coming out as integers
> instead of
> > something string-like.
>
> I had the same problem at one point. I will try to understand 
> when that happens.
>
> Ali

I was getting the integers when I was using character literals 
with repeat() rather than string literals.