Dynamic array creation with default

[Timon Gehr]

On 08/23/2011 05:11 PM, foobar wrote:
> == Quote from Andrei Alexandrescu (SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org)'s article
>> On 8/23/11 6:15 AM, foobar wrote:
>>> == Quote from bearophile (bearophileHUGS at lycos.com)'s article
>>>> foobar:
>>>>> you raise a valid concern but this looks too complicated.
>>>>> I'd suggest to simplify into only two cases.
>>>>>
>>>>> // 1) T.INIT - as you suggested the dimension should be checked
>>>>> auto foo = new int[][](10, 20); // correct
>>>>> auto foo1 = new int[][](10); // compilation error
>>>> Keep in mind that currently this is correct and it generates a 1D dynamic array:
>>>> auto v = new int[10];
>>>
>>> Isn't this an inconsistency in the language?
>>>
>>> // Generally speaking, allocates an instance of T on the heap
>>> auto foo = new T;
>>>
>>> However, "int[10]" and "new int[10]" are different types.
>> I hate that, too. Walter hates it, too, but we both reckon it's too late
>> now to change things. It makes it impossible to create an instance of
>> the type "int[10]" dynamically because of an gratuitous syntactic
>> special case. It comes from C++, where it was an unforced error.
>> Andrei
>
> Is it possible to deprecate/disallow "new T[size]" since we have an alternate
> syntax for it? At least until D3 comes along when we could change this. This also
> aligns with your goal of moving built-in types from the compiler/runtime to the
> library (AAs..) which I think is an important goal.
> I'd like to see dynamic arrays as well as AAs as plain templates in phobos and D
> itself only provides a thin layer of syntax sugar for literals and such.
>
>

Dynamic arrays should stay fully built-in imo. What would be the benefit 
of having them in the library? To generate decent machine code and 
optimize away some boundary checks from safe code, compilers would still 
have to treat them specially.