Paul D. Anderson:
> Or is this a distinction without a difference?
For POD structs like this one I suggest to implement nothing, and just let the
compiler copy the struct by itself.
If the struct is not a POD then I like the dup property. Each of those other
ways can be OK, according to the syntax you prefer to use :-) The free copy
function is probably not necessary.
If the struct has alignment "holes", like:
struct Foo { double x; short y; }
Then different copying methods are not the same. The holes are meant to be
filled with bytes set to zero, but there can be situations where this can be
false. So in those situations copying the whole memory block of a struct or
copying just the members is not the same thing. The default D copy copies the
whole block of memory. You can see the situation with this (D2 code, but I
think it's the same in D1):
import std.c.string: memset;
import std.c.stdio: printf;
struct Foo {
double d;
short s;
static if (1) {
void opAssign(Foo other) {
this.d = other.d;
this.s = other.s;
}
}
}
void showStruct(T)(T s) if (is(T == struct)) {
foreach (b; cast(ubyte[T.sizeof])s)
printf("%d ", b);
printf("\n");
}
void fillStruct(T)(ref T s, ubyte value) if (is(T == struct)) {
memset(&s, value, T.sizeof);
}
void main() {
Foo f, g;
showStruct(f);
showStruct(g);
fillStruct(f, ubyte.min);
fillStruct(g, ubyte.max);
showStruct(f);
showStruct(g);
g = f;
showStruct(f);
showStruct(g);
}
/*
Without opAssign:
0 0 0 0 0 0 252 127 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 252 127 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
lea ESI,-020h[EBP]
lea EDI,-010h[EBP]
movsd
movsd
movsd
movsd
-----------------------------
With opAssign:
0 0 0 0 0 0 252 127 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 252 127 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255 255
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 255 255 255 255 255 255
Inside the Dmain_:
...
lea EAX,-010h[EBP]
call near ptr _D4bug23Foo8opAssignMFS4bug23FooZv
...
_D4bug23Foo8opAssignMFS4bug23FooZv comdat
L0: enter 4,0
mov -4[EBP],EAX
cmp dword ptr -4[EBP],0
jne L2C
push 9
push dword ptr _D4bug23Foo6__initZ[01Ch]
push dword ptr _D4bug23Foo6__initZ[018h]
push dword ptr _D4bug23Foo6__initZ[034h]
push dword ptr _D4bug23Foo6__initZ[030h]
call near ptr __d_assert_msg
L2C: fld qword ptr 8[EBP]
mov EAX,-4[EBP]
fstp qword ptr [EAX]
mov CX,010h[EBP]
mov 8[EAX],CX
leave
ret 010h
opAssign compiled with dmd -O -release:
_D4bug23Foo8opAssignMFS4bug23FooZv comdat
push EAX
fld qword ptr 8[ESP]
mov CX,010h[ESP]
mov 8[EAX],CX
fstp qword ptr [EAX]
pop EAX
ret 010h
*/
The performance too is not the same, the built-in copy is probably a little
faster (you can see it from the asm too). If you want to be sure you can write
a little benchmark.
Bye,
bearophile
