On 3/26/11 9:59 PM, David Nadlinger wrote:
On 3/26/11 9:16 PM, Don wrote:
The basic problem with the current implementation of CTFE is that it
uses copy-on-write. This means that references (including dynamic
arrays) don't work properly -- they just copy a snapshot of the thing
they are referencing. This is bug 1330. It also means it burns up memory
like you wouldn't believe.
I'm changing CTFE to use in-place modification. This fixes all those
issues. But this is obviously a fairly intense change, and will take
quite a lot of time to iron out all the corner cases. So that's all I'm
planning on doing right now.
But once that's done, it will be straightforward to implement other
reference types, such as classes and pointers (pointer arithmetic will
be restricted to pointers which point to array members). Once classes
are implemented, it's straightforward to do exceptions. So, pretty much
everything.
[…]
Do I understand correctly that your changes wouldn't introduce some form
of real compile-time memory management, but alleviate the need for it by
fixing bug 1330 and related ones, thus cutting down on the ridiculous
amount of copying going on today?
Ah, forget that part, I wasn't aware of David's post asking the same
question (and your answer to it) when I wrote this message.
David
