On Wednesday, 29 August 2012 at 01:42:36 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:
Not exactly the same thing (what you propose would have
different
IFTI behaviour), but works quite well:
import std.stdio;
struct Ref(T){
private T* _payload;
this(ref T i){_payload = &i; }
@property ref T deref(){ return *_payload; }
alias deref this;
}
auto ref_(T)(ref T arg){return Ref!T(arg);}
void main(){
int i,j;
auto r = i.ref_;
r++;
auto q = r;
writeln(r," ",q);
q++;
writeln(r," ",q);
q = j.ref_;
q++;
writeln(r," ",q.deref);
}
I did figure that that's possible. But, to me, having reference
variables be implemented in a library instead of them being a
core language feature, is like having pointers implemented as a
library. I'd like to have a good answer when some newcomer asks
me: "why, oh why is this so?".
