On Thursday, 24 June 2021 at 07:28:56 UTC, kinke wrote:
Yes, class *refs* are always pointers. *scope* classes are deprecated (I don't think I've ever seen one); with `scope c = new Object`, you can have the compiler allocate a class *instance* on the stack for you, but `c` is still a *ref*.
But the user code cannot depend on it being stack allocated? So I could replace the Object reference with a reference counting pointer and put the counter at a negative offset?
`emplace` doesn't allocate, you have to pass the memory explicitly.
This is more of a problem. I was thinking about arrays that provide an emplace method, then one could replace emplace with heap allocation. I guess it isn't really possible to make `emplace` with custom memory work gracefully with reference counting with ref count at negative offset.
A class *instance* can also live in the static data segment (`static immutable myStaticObject = new Object;`);
But it isn't required to? It certainly wouldn't work with reference counting if it is stored in read only memory...
`extern(C++)` class instances can also live on the C++ heap/stack etc. etc.
Yes, that cannot be avoided.
