On Wednesday, 21 September 2016 at 12:07:31 UTC, Johan Engelen
wrote:
string a = toHexString(hash);
This is a pretty common pitfall (and IMO one of the most
egregious design flaws in the language), I see it all the time.
toHexString, when given a static array, returns a static array,
but the language allows you to implicitly slice that into a
pointer (mistaken design in any case, doubly so since it a stack
pointer)... and moreover it is implicitly cast to immutable!
So it will implicitly cast that char[x] to string in a LOT of
places... and it is almost always wrong.
If you passed `hash[]` it should then do what you want... so
arguably the implicit slice rule is confusing you here too, I'd
LOVE to kill that rule entirely.
I don't know whether this is a compiler bug (choosing the wrong
overload) or a Phobos bug (overloads don't work like that).
It is neither, the compiler chose the right overload (remember,
overloads are chosen based on the arguments alone, the type you
specify for the variable holding the return value isn't a
consideration there) and the implementation of each overload is
correct.
But the horribly wrong implicit slice and cast rules make it do
the totally wrong thing while looking fine at first glance.
