On Wednesday, 10 April 2024 at 11:34:06 UTC, Richard (Rikki)
Andrew Cattermole wrote:
Place your attributes on the right hand side of the function,
not the left side.
Use the left side for attributes/type qualifiers that go on the
return type.
Just a word of warning, this explanation suggests putting
qualifiers on the left side would affect the return type, this is
not the case.
Attributes apply to the *declaration*. In some cases this
effectively applies to the return type, in some cases it applies
to the function, in some cases it applies to the context pointer.
In order to apply type constructors to the return type, you need
to use parentheses:
```d
const int foo(); // const applies to the context pointer of
`foo`, not `int`
const(int) bar(); // const applies to `int` return type
ref int baz(); // ref applies to `baz`, which in turn means "ref
returning function"
```
Where this becomes tricky is return types that are function
pointers/delegates. Then using the right side of the
function/delegate *type* is the only way.
```d
@safe void function() foo(); // `foo` is safe, the function
pointer it returns is not
void function() @safe bar(); // `bar` is not safe, the function
pointer returned is
void function() @safe baz() @safe; // both are safe
```
-Steve
