On Sunday, 19 August 2012 at 19:42:20 UTC, Peter Alexander wrote:
On Sunday, 19 August 2012 at 19:26:58 UTC, Jesse Phillips wrote:
While in context with the original question this is fine, but
I do not like this use of guarantee.
What I mean is, const does provide guarantees by itself. And
it provides more than C++ because it is transitive and
modifying a const reference is undefined.
What guarantees does const provide on its own?
If you don't circumvent the language by casting/forcing it, then
const (and immutable) items cannot be changed by the functions
called with them, nor them nor anything they contain or reference.
In cases of methods to classes/structs, const ensures the object
(allocated separately in each variable/heap location) won't
change in any way.
Isn't that good enough?
It's like asking what guarantees a book contains it's data. It's
entirely guaranteed as long you don't use a permenant marker, rip
the pages out, burn it, soak it in a bath tub full of water or
acid, run it over, throw it in lava, bleach it, or send it
through a trans-dimensional portal to another universe. or any
number of other things, but that's outside the scope of the
publisher's ability to after providing the book; when left
untouched the book should always contain the data.
Isn't that good enough?
