V2 string

[Vladimir Panteleev]

On Thu, 05 Jul 2007 02:23:11 +0300, Derek Parnell <derek at psych.ward> wrote:

> This leads to constructs like ...
>
>    char[] result;
>
>    result = SomeTextFunc(data).dup;

Is SomeTextFunc allocating a copy of the string which it is returning? If it is, then there's no reason why it should return a "string" type. If it isn't, then modifying the data in the returned char[] could have unforeseen consequences.

> Another commonly used idiom that I had to stop using was ...
>
>    char[] text;
>    text = getvalue();
>    if (wrongvalue(text))
>        text = ""; // Reset to an empty string

Since empty string literals don't really point to data, I'd suggest that empty string and array literals shouldn't be const/invariant in favor of the above example. It breaks some consistency, but "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" ;)

-- 
Best regards,
  Vladimir                          mailto:thecybershadow at gmail.com