Dear Dlang experts,
up until now I was perfectly happy with implementing `(override)
string toString() const` or something to get nicely formatted
(mostly debug) output for my structs, classes and exceptions.
But recently I stumbled upon
https://wiki.dlang.org/Defining_custom_print_format_specifiers
and additionally
https://github.com/dlang/dmd/blob/4ff1eec2ce7d990dcd58e5b641ef3d0a1676b9bb/druntime/src/object.d#L2637 which at first sight is great, because it provides the same customization of an objects representation with less memory allocations.
When grepping through phobos, there are a bunch of "different"
signatures implemented for this, e.g.
```d
...
phobos/std/typecons.d: void toString(DG)(scope DG sink)
const
...
phobos/std/typecons.d: void toString(DG, Char)(scope DG
sink, scope const ref FormatSpec!Char fmt) const
...
phobos/std/typecons.d: void toString()(scope void
delegate(const(char)[]) sink, scope const ref FormatSpec!char fmt)
...
phobos/std/sumtype.d: void toString(this This, Sink,
Char)(ref Sink sink, const ref FormatSpec!Char fmt);
...
```
to just show a few.
Furthermore, when one works with instances of struct, objects or
exceptions a `aInstance.toString()` does not "work" when one only
implements the sink interface (which is to be expected), whereas
a `std.conv.to!string` or a formatted write with `%s` always
works (no matter what was used to implement the toString).
So I wonder, what is best practice in the community and would it
make sense to add something to dscanner, that "warns" on usages
of `aInstance.toString()`?
Kind regards,
Christian
