Make std.container.Array an output range

[monarch_dodra via Digitalmars-d]

On Thursday, 5 June 2014 at 13:51:35 UTC, Rene Zwanenburg wrote:
> I depend heavily on RAII in a project I'm working on. Since 
> structs in dynamic arrays never have their destructors called 
> I'm using Array!T instead. A pattern that comes up often is 
> that I have some input range of T's which need to be stored in 
> a member Array!T. However Array is not an output range so I 
> can't use
>
> inputRange.copy(someArray);
>
> I understand the difference between a container and a range 
> iterating over that container. However I do think a container 
> is an output range.
>
> Should I file an enhancement request or is there something 
> fundamentally wrong with this idea? For Array it should be as 
> simple as adding
>
> alias doPut = insertBack;

Well, one issue is that for a "Range", "put" really just means 
overwrite the front element, and pop it. So...

Array!int myArray = ...:
copy([1, 2, 3], myArray);   //(1)
copy([1, 2, 3], myArray[]); //(2)

In this situation, (1) and (2) would have different meaning.

This whole mess comes from "Writeable InputRange" being 
considered an  OutputRange... Arguably, an OutputRange should be 
nothing more than a "sink", which an InputRange is not.