On Thu, 02 Dec 2010 11:31:49 -0500, Bruno Medeiros
<[email protected]> wrote:
On 21/11/2010 17:21, Don wrote:
spir wrote:
On Sun, 21 Nov 2010 03:17:57 -0800
Jonathan M Davis <[email protected]> wrote:
You're not losing _anything_ out of the deal except that you wouldn't
do obj.toString(). Instead you'd do to!string(obj).
I'm usually not using toString(), it's supported by the language. What
about format("%s:%s", a,b)? Will it still call toString implicitely,
or writeTo a buffer, or what else?
Anyway, I cannot see any advantage in deprecating toString() for every
programmer in every use case, just for hypothetical efficiency issues
The efficiency issues are important, but are not the primary motivation.
toString() is just wrong. The idea that there is ONE AND ONLY ONE
textual representation of an object, is, frankly, idiotic.
That idea is quite idiotic indeed, no question about it. However, that
is not toString() 's idea! The point of toString (at least across
languages, not D specifically) is to provide a *default* representation
of a type.
It doesn't preclude other representations, and if format&friends
(writef, etc.), don't provide an integrated way to create/write a string
using custom formats for a given object/struct, that is format's
problem, it is not toString's fault.
to!string(x) will handle what toString does now.
In fact, I think that coding only a default toString for a type may be
more common than otherwise (coding a toString that actually uses the
format specifiers). The string based format specifier is just not that
common outside of numerical types.
You can ignore the format specifier if you want to.
-Steve
