On 07/29/2016 03:55 PM, Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d wrote: > On Friday, July 29, 2016 14:14:49 Dicebot via Digitalmars-d wrote: >> What you want it contradictory to the concept of "storage class". > > Why? I thought the the whole idea of "storage class" was that it was an > attribute that was applied to a type that wasn't actually part of the type. > Certainly, based on past discussions on the topic, it seems to be that the > term is used for pretty much anything that gets applied to a type that isn't > actually part of the type. And that's definitely what happens with ref. > > - Jonathan M Davis
Storage class has to attach to some symbol to modify its semantics without affecting the type, it doesn't apply to type at all. Usually it is a variable and that comes naturally but in case of function return value / parameters the only available symbol is function itself - contrary to variables, parameters are not available as independent symbols AFAIK. That said, `ref` isn't a 100% storage class, otherwise `alias Foo = ref int function ( )` wouldn't work. Judging by only observable semantics I'd say it is more akin to type qualifier contrary to what spec says - but qualifier of function type.
