On Fri, 21 Jan 2011 14:54:53 -0500, spir <denis.s...@gmail.com> wrote:
On 01/21/2011 05:27 PM, Robert Jacques wrote:
On Fri, 21 Jan 2011 08:16:24 -0500, spir <denis.s...@gmail.com> wrote:
On 01/21/2011 06:28 AM, Robert Jacques wrote:
void copyMembers(A)(A src, A tgt) if (is(A == class)) { tgt.tupleof =
src.tupleof; }
What about this feature in Object under name "copy" or "dup"? Sure,
it's not to be used evereday; but it's typcally the kind of routine
that, when needed, we're very happy to find. And as shown by this
thread the solution is clearly non-obvious (lol).
By the way, why "dup" in D, instead of most common "copy" or "clone"?
Is it also a legacy name? (Don't tell me we got this one from
stack-based languages like Forth ;-) Anyway the semantics are totally
different (*)).
Denis
(*) for very curious people: concatenative languages:
http://concatenative.org/wiki/view/Concatenative%20language
_________________
vita es estrany
spir.wikidot.com
".dup" comes from arrays, which already have a ".dup" property which
copies/clones them.
Yes. I was in fact (unclearly) wondering where .dup for arrays comes
from. I mean, the obvious term --and short enough to not even look for
an abbreviation possibly making it obscure-- is "copy", isn't it? (*)
Not sure where it comes from, but dup also is a system call in Linux:
dup, dup2, dup3 - duplicate a file descriptor
The terminology isn't really important as long as its relevant. Perhaps
dup was chosen to avoid confusion with STL's std::copy (which copies data
into an already-allocated area)? The difference is subtle.
In any case, dup is clearly here to stay as the way to copy arrays, I'd
agree that it makes sense to re-use it as the way to duplicate objects as
well. I use it in dcollections.
(*)
Or do people really speak like:
<< Would you please make a duplicate of the guest list? >>
in the US?
They might, it doesn't sound that odd to me, though copy sounds more
common.
-Steve
