I am toying with more ideas to strengthen D type system a bit in few spots. This is a minor thing, I don't know if this is a common enough situation to deserve compiler support, maybe not.
If I want to use a C function from D code, and such C function has as arguments both a pointer that represents an array and int value that represents its length, is it possible to use a compact syntax that tells the compiler how to pack or unpack the contents of the fat D pointer that represents a D array? Something like this: extern(C) void foo(int[].ptr, int, int[].length); If the function needs two or more arrays the compiler asks you to give names to tell apart their parts in the signature: extern(C) void bar(int[].ptr a1, int[].length a1, int[].ptr a2, int[].length a2); This is supposed to avoid some bugs in using from D with dynamic arrays those functions foo() and bar(). So you have to call foo() like this: foo(v.ptr, n, v.length); While this generates a compile-time error because here the D code calls this function with parts from different arrays: foo(v1.ptr, n, v2.length); This too generates compile-time errors because m isn't the length of v1 and p isn't the ptr of v2: foo(v1.ptr, n, m); foo(p, n, v2.length); (This idea was born from reading about Deputy, a system to build safer Linux drivers.) I am trying to invent ideas better than this one. Bye, bearophile
