Stream Proposal

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 3/14/11 10:32 AM, Kagamin wrote:
> Andrei Alexandrescu Wrote:
>
>> A simple input buffered stream of T would be a range of T[] that has two
>> extra primitives:
>>
>> T[] lookAhead(size_t n);
>> void leaveBehind(size_t n);
>
> T front();
> T[] front(size_t n); // bulk front
> void popFront(size_t n=1); // bulk popFront

I think such an interface would be confusing. In particular, if T is 
int, the overload of front looks awfully close to a property writer.

>> I'm not sure there's a need for formalizing a buffered output interface
>> (we could simply make buffering transparent, in which case there's only
>> need for primitives that get and set the size of the buffer).
>>
>> In case we do want to formalize an output buffer, it would need
>> primitives such as:
>>
>> T[] getBuffer(size_t n);
>> void commitBuffer(size_t n);
>
> void put(T); // as usual
> void put(T[]); // bulk put; can pass a slice of the buffer from getBuffer

This is already implemented but doesn't allow someone to play with the 
buffer and then commit it. Arguably there might be no such need.


Andrei