On Tuesday, 29 July 2014 at 07:46:34 UTC, Andrew Godfrey wrote:
On Sunday, 27 July 2014 at 05:51:46 UTC, Jakob Ovrum wrote:
On Saturday, 26 July 2014 at 23:06:02 UTC, Andrew Godfrey
wrote:
Thereafter can come sub-slice examples and so on.
Does this make sense?
Yes, the reference documentation is pretty terrible with
naming of various array concepts.
IIRC, when this was discussed in the past, a majority seemed
to be in favour of using "slice" and "dynamic array" for their
respective concepts instead of the current situation, but I
also remember there was some opposition (for reason I can't
remember). A pull request updating the documentation to use
slice/dynamic array might weed them out ;)
I gave this a try, and overall it looks like an improvement,
but I think we need another name than "slice". The reason is
that the slice operator is a distinct thing and interacts with
the "slice" in strange ways. When I next get time I'll try
updating it to use the term "array reference". That is:
int[] a; // defines an array reference, a
int[3] b;
a = b[1..3]; // updates the array reference a to refer to a
slice of b
IMO slice fits quite well for both. `b[1..3]` is a slice (or
refers to one?), and `a` is, too. After the assignment, both
slices are equal. But I see that there is an ambiguity when we
talk about "copying a slice", which could also be interpreted as
"copying what the slice refers to".
