VLERange: a range in between BidirectionalRange and RandomAccessRange

[Michel Fortin]

On 2011-01-16 02:11:14 -0500, foobar <foo at bar.com> said:

> I Understand your concern regarding a simpler implementation. You want 
> to minimize the disruption caused by the proposed change.
> 
> I'd argue that creating a specialized string type as Steve suggests 
> makes integration *easier*. Your suggestion requires that foreach will 
> be changed to default to grapheme. I agree that this can be done 
> because it will not break silently but with Steve's string type this is 
> unnecessary since the type itself would provide a grapheme range 
> interface and the compiler doesn't need to know about this type at all. 
> string becomes a regular library type.
> 
> Of course, the type should support:
> string foo = "bar";
> by making an implicit conversion from current arrays (to minimize 
> compiler changes)

It should also work for:

	auto foo = "bar";


> The only disruption as far as I can tell would be using 'a' type 
> literals instead of "a" but that will come up in compilation after 
> string defaults to the new type.

You say "after string defaults to the new type", but I don't think this 
change to the language will pass. It'll break TDPL for one thing, so 
it's surely out for D2. And I somewhat doubt it's low-level enough for 
Walter's taste.

I don't care much if the default type is an array or not, I just want 
the default type to work properly as a Unicode string. The very small 
participation to this thread from the key decision makers (Andrei and 
Walter) worries me however. I'm not even sure we'll achieve that goal.


-- 
Michel Fortin
michel.fortin at michelf.com
http://michelf.com/