refRange with non copyable struct

[Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d-learn]

On Monday, April 17, 2017 19:39:25 Stanislav Blinov via Digitalmars-d-learn 
wrote:
> On Monday, 17 April 2017 at 19:00:44 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> > Because otherwise, it's not acting like a reference to the
> > original range, which is the whole point of RefRange. The
> > correct solution would probably be to @disable opAssign in the
> > case where the original range can't be overwritten by another
> > range.
>
> This doesn't look quite right. References in D are rebindable.
> That is, assigning a reference to a reference does not copy
> referenced object, only the reference itself.
> It seems that RefRange is trying to impersonate a C++ reference.

The term reference in D is a bit overloaded. The whole point of RefRange is
to have the original range affected by everything that happens to the new
range as if it were the original range - which is what happens with ref
(which is not rebindable) except that ref only works on parameters and
return types. So, yes, it is similar to a C++ reference. It's not trying to
be a pointer, which is more like what a class reference is.

- Jonathan M Davis