Am Fri, 28 Mar 2014 19:23:29 -0700 schrieb Walter Bright <newshou...@digitalmars.com>:
> On 3/28/2014 3:42 AM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote: > >> I'm also curious what a generic read() should do when the stream is empty. > > > > Returns 0 elements read. I guess we all have a clear concept of streams in our mind from all kinds of programming languages. They typically operate on bytes, have an EOF flag and offer read/write methods that you pass a byte pointer and a length into. The result is the count of bytes read or written. Optionally they have an "available" property and handle any combination of the following: o all basic data types of the programming language o POD structs o formatted strings o bitwise operations o seeking after calculating offsets They are used for I/O on heterogeneous data like binary file formats or network protocols. Ranges on the other hand work on sequences of items of the same type, which is a small subset of what streams are supposed to support. While there should be a connection between both worlds, one cannot replace the other. There will always be a separate raw stream type in Phobos. > Meaning it must also write through a pointer if it did read something. > > How is that faster than a 1 element buffer? You can write your stream in such a way that you "map" a memory area. E.g. you call "stream.waitForSoManyBytes(123);" and then "ubyte[] arr = stream.mapMemory(123);" where arr is then a slice into the stream's internal buffer. (This also requires a mechanism to release the buffer after use, so the stream can reuse it: stream.doneWithSoManyBytes(123);) -- Marco
