auto storage class - infer or RAII?

[Walter Bright]

Sean Kelly wrote:
> Walter Bright wrote:
>> The auto storage class currently is a little fuzzy in meaning, it can 
>> mean "infer the type" and/or "destruct at end of scope".
> 
> As Don explained to me, 'auto' is a storage class in D and in C along 
> with 'const' and 'static', so type inference doesn't occur because 
> 'auto' is present so much as because a type is omitted.  The presence of 
> 'auto' merely serves to indicate that the statement is a declaration 
> (since 'auto' is the default storage class and therefore otherwise 
> optional).  Type inference occurs with the other storage classes as 
> well.  I think this is an important distinction because it seems to be a 
> common misconception that 'auto' means 'infer the type of this 
> expression' and that a specific label is necessary for this feature.

True. Consider that type inference works in these cases:

	static a = 3;	// a is an int
	const b = '3';	// b is a char

So auto doesn't actually ever mean "infer the type", it's just needed 
because one of the other storage class keywords isn't there.