On Fri, Nov 08, 2013 at 07:32:02AM +0800, Liigo Zhuang wrote: > It's so confusing. If it's not owned box, why not remove ~? Make "str" > default be dynamic should OK.
I am not sure why Daniel says that a `~str` or `~[]` is not an "owned box". I guess he's using the term in some specific way. I consider `~str` and `~[]` to be exactly the same as any other `~T` value in usage and semantics. They are allocated on the same heap, moved from place to place, and freed at the same time, etc. The difference between a type like `str` or `[T]` and other types is that `str` and `[T]` are actually a series of values: `u8` bytes and `T` values respectively. This entails a change in representation and is also the reason that one *must* use a pointer to refer to them, because the number of values is not known and hence the compiler can't calculate the size of the value. Note that we are to some extent evolving how we handle dynamically sized types like `str` and `[]`. Right now they are quite second class (you can't impl them etc) but that will change. Nonetheless, it will remain true that you can never have a *value* of type `str` or `[]`, but most always use a pointer (either `~[]` or `&[]`). Also note that a type like `~[T]` is in fact going to be represented not as a single pointer but rather three pointers, thanks to work by Daniel in fact. Niko _______________________________________________ Rust-dev mailing list Rust-dev@mozilla.org https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/rust-dev
