Hello Steven,
On Mon, 09 Aug 2010 10:53:48 -0400, BCS <n...@anon.com> wrote:
C's api can be modified at declaration. It has no mangling, so you
can type it how it should be (if C had const). For example:
extern(C) int strlen(const(char)* str);
I find that much more pleasant than having to cast away const.
OTOH that is effectively a hidden cast and has 100% of the same
issues (re undefined behavior) as casting away const while being
slightly harder to find.
But you just said that casting and reading is not undefined? Isn't
this the same thing?
Casting away const or tacking const into a extern(C) prototype is safe under
exactly the same conditions. The gains a savings of a few keystrokes and
looses some degree of findability, aside from that, there is effectively
no difference between them.
if you are sure
a const or immutable piece of data is on the heap/stack, it should be
reasonable to be able to modify it for performance gains.
A conforming compiler can be implemented in such a way that you can never
be sure of that without looking at the generated asm or even in such a way
that it can't be know till runtime.
--
... <IXOYE><
