On 06/23/13 13:23, Timon Gehr wrote: > On 06/23/2013 12:19 PM, Artur Skawina wrote: >> On 06/22/13 21:52, Timothee Cour wrote: >>> Is there a reason the language spec disallows this? >>> >>> ---- >>> void main(){ >>> auto a=mixin("1");//OK >>> alias b=a;//OK >>> mixin("alias c=a;");//OK >>> // alias c=mixin("a");//NG : Error: basic type expected, not mixin >>> } >> >> How would that be different from "auto c=mixin("a");"? >> >> It's probably clear, but that error message is misleading, so i'll say >> it anyway - the reason why your 'alias' line does not work is because >> alias requires a symbol, but 'mixin()' is an expression. >> Special-casing mixin-expressions (so that they propagate the symbol when >> that is possible would be a bad idea); the other possibility is to allow >> aliasing /expressions/. But that's a bad idea too, and would likely not >> do what you expect it to do. A mixin-less version could be made to work, >> but there are already other ways to get the same effect. >> Hence the above question. > > mixin template T(alias x){ } > > void foo(){ import std.stdio; writeln("foo"); } > > void main(){ > auto a=mixin("1"); > mixin T!a; // ok > mixin T!(mixin("a")); // ok > mixin T!1; // ok (!) > mixin T!(mixin("foo")); // ok (no implicit call) > }
Yes, template parms and literals are special (literals are useful as template parms, obviously). What would be the arguments for allowing these two: > mixin T!(mixin("a")); // ok > mixin T!(mixin("foo")); // ok (no implicit call) ? I didn't realize they were currently accepted. Is this actually documented somewhere? The fact that `mixin("foo")` and `mixin("foo+1")` mean subtly different things when used as a template parameter is a problem. artur