Re: Hidden allocations (Was: Array literals REALLY should be immutable )

[Denis Koroskin]

On Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:26:44 +0300, Bill Baxter <wbax...@gmail.com> wrote:
2009/11/12 Denis Koroskin <2kor...@gmail.com>:

// untested
void mkdirRecurse(string path) {
   char* buffer = alloca(path.length);
   memcpy(buffer, path);

   foreach (i, c; buffer[0..path.length]) {
       if (c == '/') {
           buffer[i] = 0;
           mkdir(buffer);
           buffer[i] = '/';
       }
   }
}

There are a lot of functions that allocate without a clear reason.)

I'm pretty sure the reason is that it means library code that's easier
to write, understand and maintain.

But yeh, if you give me the choice of two different functions, one
that allocates and one that doesn't, otherwise identical, I'll pick
the non-allocating version.

--bb

It also means that the former function can't be used in programs that  
disable GC (kernels, embedded development etc). Quality is in the details  
like that.

Java/C# don't follow this rule, but they are not systems programming  
languages, and their GCs are a lot better that D's one.