On Mon, 12 Apr 2010 00:40:44 -0400, Ali Çehreli <[email protected]> wrote:
Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> On Sun, 11 Apr 2010 15:33:09 -0400, Ali Çehreli <[email protected]>
wrote:
>
>> This is a bug, right? I've been assuming that unqualified string
>> literals were immutable char arrays, but the behavior is different
>> between "hello" vs. "hello"c.
>>
>> Am I missing something?
>
> "hello" is typed as a string *only* if you are using at a string. If
> you are using it as a wstring or a dstring, then it is typed that way.
> You can even use it as a const(char) * and it becomes an ASCII C-style
> string with a zero terminator!
I did not know that. :)
Could you please share some guidelines about chosing the type of the
D-string to use at the interface...
Should applications stick to one of these types and require callers to
convert explicitly if needed? Should the common type be dstring? On the
other hand, string seems to be a better choice because classes have the
common toString member functions that return string.
In my case, I have a set of classes that represent alphabet letters and
alphabet strings. The motivation is to provide logical sorting and
capitalization. (To me, even for the English alphabet, â should be
sorted between a and b.)
Since I want these types to be used as seamlessly as possibly, I wanted
to provide opEquals overloads for char[], wchar[], and dchar[]. Should I
not bother doing that? In fact, I really shouldn't due to this compiler
error.
Should my classes only interface with dchar and dstring?
If you had to choose, I'd suggest choosing string. The reason is simple:
auto s = "hello";
yourFunc(s);
Because the compiler must choose a type when declaring s, it chooses
string.
I think perhaps the compiler should use the same rules when calling an
overloaded function with a literal. You should file an enhancement
request with bugzilla, see what Walter thinks. If he doesn't like the
idea, he usually shoots it down pretty quick :)
-Steve
