Re: string is rarely useful as a function argument

[Adam D. Ruppe]

On Wednesday, 28 December 2011 at 19:30:04 UTC, Andrei 
Alexandrescu wrote:
Implementation would entail a change in the compiler.

I don't think I agree. Wouldn't something like this work?

===

struct string {
       immutable(char)[] rep;
       alias rep this;
       auto opAssign(immutable(char)[] rhs) {
               rep = rhs;
               return this;
       }

       this(immutable(char)[] rhs) {
               rep = rhs;
       }
       // disable these here so it isn't passed on to .rep
       @disable void opSlice(){  assert(0);  };
       @disable size_t length() {  assert(0);  };
}

===

I did some quick tests and the basics seemed ok:

/* paste impl from above */

import std.string : replace;

void main() {
       string a = "test"; // works

       a = a.replace("test", "mang"); // works
       // a = a[0..1]; // correctly fails to compile
       assert(0, a); // works
}