new principle of division between structures and classes

[Denis Koroskin]

On Tue, 13 Jan 2009 04:17:22 +0300, Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org> wrote:

> Bill Baxter wrote:
>> So it may be worth while to have a special kind construct for
>> containing data that the compiler is free to move around.  This type
>> would have a hidden pointer inside of it that can be moved around by
>> the gc, but applications would not be allowed to access that pointer.
>>  And I suppose that means all access to the data would given via
>> lvalue only.   Probably wouldn't take much on the part of the GC to
>> provide the necessary hooks.  Just some sort of "relocatable alloc"
>> call.  Rest could probably be handled in higher level libs.
>
> Interesting. (Link?) Structs in D are supposed to be location  
> transparent (it is unclear to me to what extent this should be enforced  
> vs. just assumed), so if the compiler can show the address of a struct  
> is not taken, it should be free to move it around.
>
> Andrei

If the compiler can show the address of a struct is not taken, it should recycle the memory :p