Ali Çehreli wrote:
> (This must have been discussed before, but I couldn't come up with a way
> to search in the archives.)
>
> There is a hidden danger with two uses of slices:
>
> double[] slice1 = [ 1, 1, 1];
> double[] slice2 = [ 2, 2, 2];
> double[] slice3 = [ 3, 3, 3];
>
> slice2 = slice1; // (1)
> slice3[] = slice1; // (2)
>
> The last two lines mean very different things:
>
> (1) start sharing elements with slice1
>
> (2) copy slice1's elements
>
> If either gets used by accident, the difference may not be noticed until
> the elements are modified in the future.
>
> Could we limit the syntax to reduce the chances of such a risk? e.g.
> "When two slices are involved, both sides must use the array-wise
> syntax".
Oy! :( I meant the above only in the array-wise semantics. Both of these
should be valid with their different meanings:
slice2 = slice1;
slice3[] = slice1[];
This is still ok:
slice2 = slice1[]; // a slice to "all of" slice1
This should be illegal:
slice3[] = slice1;
Should it be?
Ali
