• Justin Johansson <no spam.com> Nov 11 2009

Justin Johansson <no spam.com> writes:

rmcguire Wrote:

 Justin Johansson <no spam.com> wrote:
  
 Walter Bright Wrote:
 
 When I originally worked out ideas for D, there were many requests from 
 the C and C++ community for a 'strong' typedef, and so I put one in D. I 
 didn't think about it too much, just assumed that it was a good idea.
 
 Now I'm not so sure. Maybe it should be removed for D2.
 
 Does anyone use typedef's?
 
 What do you use them for?
 
 Do you need them?


 Early on (2 months ago) when I was just getting into D I asked about typedefs 


 and some discussion transpired.
 
 http://www.digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/


 
 (btw. There are a few responses from blasts from recent pasts in that thread.)
 
 Anyway, grepping for typedef over my current "scripting-language in D" project 


 shows only old versions of my project using typedefs.  Accordingly it looks 


 since managed to convert *all* of my previous typedef incarnations to structs 


 take advantage of struct's support for static opCall so as to synthesize 


 (as well enabling use of struct methods).
 
 Maybe I didn't know enough about D back then, but the big problem with D 


 (for me at least) was there was no support for typedef constructors and code 


 blotted with cast-to-typedef-type is yuk in my way of thinking.
 
 I think there are only two sensible courses of action for D:  support typedef 


 (and methods???) or remove 'em.  I'm not sure which option I prefer (is the 


 an option?)
 
 Cheers
 Justin Johansson
 
 


 I like typedef for making header files for c libraries.
 For example, so that you can't just pass an int to a function expecting 
 an id.



Yep; I agree that's a good use for typedefs too .. but in the current D
formulation, you still need to use a cast don't you?