On 04/01/2011 12:38 PM, Regan Heath wrote:
On Mon, 28 Mar 2011 17:54:29 +0100, bearophile <bearophileh...@lycps.com> wrote:
Steven Schveighoffer:
So essentially, you are getting the same thing, but using [] is slower.
It seems I was right then, thank you and Kagamin for the answers.
This may be slightly OT but I just wanted to raise the point that conceptually
it's nice to be able to express (exists but is empty) and (does not exist).
Pointers/references have null as a (does not exist) "value" and this is
incredibly useful. Try doing the same thing with 'int' .. it requires you
either use int* or pass an additional boolean to indicate existence.. yuck.
I'd suggest if someone types '[]' they mean (exists but is empty) and if they
type 'null' they mean (does not exist) and they may be relying on the .ptr
value to differentiate these cases, which is useful. If you're not interested
in the difference, and you need performance, you simply use 'null'. Everybody
is happy. :)
That's the way I understand this distinction. Unfortunately, D does not really
allow this, by semantically treating both indifferently (eg one can put a new
element into an null array).
Denis
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