I would like to propose a change in the behavior of out and inout parameters on
functions declared without the D linkage type so they behave just like they
would in their native language, and the keywords are kept as compiler hints
rather than automatically handling the pointer. So for example, it wouldn't be
necessary for the compiler to initialize the value to a out parameter but yet
allow explicit dereference in the call.
Here's an example to illustrate the syntax:
---
extern(Windows) void GetLocalTime(out LPSYSTEMTIME lpSystemTime);
unittest {
/// D linkage, normal out behavior
void MyGetLocalTime(out SYSTEMTIME st) {
/// stdcall linkage, native out behavior
GetLocalTime(&st);
}
SYSTEMTIME st; /// Should not get initialized here
MyGetLocalTime(st);
}
---
The main rationale behind it is to keep native behavior to functions we've
already been using for years while not having to modify the parameters
declaration for D functions. So it wouldn't break existing code to add out and
inout to imported functions, it would just allow for better optimizations and
documentations.