On Tuesday, 17 July 2018 at 15:21:30 UTC, Seb wrote:
So we managed to revive the rcstring project and it's already a
PR for Phobos:
https://github.com/dlang/phobos/pull/6631 (still WIP though)
The current approach in short:
- uses the new @nogc, @safe and nothrow Array from the
collections library (check Eduardo's DConf18 talk)
- uses reference counting
- _no_ range by default (it needs an explicit `.by!{d,w,}char`)
(as in no auto-decoding by default)
[snip]
What do you think about this approach? Do you have a better
idea?
I don't know the goals/role rcstring is expected to play,
especially wrt existing string/character facilities. Perhaps you
could describe more?
Strings are central to many applications, so I'm wondering about
things like whether rcstring is intended as a replacement for
string that would be used by most new programs, and whether
applications would use arrays and ranges of char together with
rcstring, or rcstring would be used for everything.
Perhaps its too early for these questions, and the current goal
is simpler. For example, adding a meaningful collection class
that is @nogc, @safe and ref-counted that be used as a proving
ground for the newer memory management facilities being developed.
Such simpler goals would be quite reasonable. What's got me
wondering about the larger questions are the comments about
ranges and autodecoding. If rcstring is intended as a vehicle for
general @nogc handling of character data and/or for reducing the
impact of autodecoding, then it makes sense to consider from
those perspectives.
--Jon
