• Sean Kelly (3/3) Jun 11 2014 It's the only function in std.string that takes a string by ref
• w0rp (2/5) Jun 11 2014 munch modifies the string you give it.
• Sean Kelly (4/9) Jun 11 2014 Yes, but why does it do this when it could leave the string as-is
• monarch_dodra (9/19) Jun 11 2014 I think it's because it "returns" both the munched data, and the
• Sean Kelly (5/13) Jun 11 2014 Right. The problem I ran into was that because munch takes a
• Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d (9/12) Jun 11 2014 It looks like it's trying to act like std.conv.parse, though that behavi...

"Sean Kelly" <sean invisibleduck.org> writes:

It's the only function in std.string that takes a string by ref 
instead of by value, and this screws up call chaining.  What's 
the reason for this?

"w0rp" <devw0rp gmail.com> writes:

On Wednesday, 11 June 2014 at 20:27:41 UTC, Sean Kelly wrote:
 It's the only function in std.string that takes a string by ref 
 instead of by value, and this screws up call chaining.  What's 
 the reason for this?

munch modifies the string you give it.

"Sean Kelly" <sean invisibleduck.org> writes:

On Wednesday, 11 June 2014 at 21:07:18 UTC, w0rp wrote:
 On Wednesday, 11 June 2014 at 20:27:41 UTC, Sean Kelly wrote:
 It's the only function in std.string that takes a string by 
 ref instead of by value, and this screws up call chaining.  
 What's the reason for this?

 munch modifies the string you give it.

Yes, but why does it do this when it could leave the string as-is 
and return a modified slice instead, like all the other routines 
in std.string?

"monarch_dodra" <monarchdodra gmail.com> writes:

On Wednesday, 11 June 2014 at 21:10:42 UTC, Sean Kelly wrote:
 On Wednesday, 11 June 2014 at 21:07:18 UTC, w0rp wrote:
 On Wednesday, 11 June 2014 at 20:27:41 UTC, Sean Kelly wrote:
 It's the only function in std.string that takes a string by 
 ref instead of by value, and this screws up call chaining.  
 What's the reason for this?

 munch modifies the string you give it.

 Yes, but why does it do this when it could leave the string 
 as-is and return a modified slice instead, like all the other 
 routines in std.string?

I think it's because it "returns" both the munched data, and the 
modified string:

string s = "123abc";
string t = munch(s, "0123456789");
assert(t == "123" && s == "abc");

But it would indeed be more natural to simply return the updated 
"s". It's what things like "find" or "stripLeft" do anyways, and 
that works fine.

"Sean Kelly" <sean invisibleduck.org> writes:

On Wednesday, 11 June 2014 at 21:18:29 UTC, monarch_dodra wrote:
 I think it's because it "returns" both the munched data, and 
 the modified string:

 string s = "123abc";
 string t = munch(s, "0123456789");
 assert(t == "123" && s == "abc");

 But it would indeed be more natural to simply return the 
 updated "s". It's what things like "find" or "stripLeft" do 
 anyways, and that works fine.

Right.  The problem I ran into was that because munch takes a 
reference, I can't chain it with other functions in std.string 
because they all return rvalues.  So it makes for some 
unnecessarily awkward code.

Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> writes:

On Wed, 11 Jun 2014 20:27:40 +0000
Sean Kelly via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:

 It's the only function in std.string that takes a string by ref
 instead of by value, and this screws up call chaining.  What's
 the reason for this?

It looks like it's trying to act like std.conv.parse, though that behavior
isn't useful in quite the same way when what's being returned is a string.

However, it _is_ among the std.string functions which take patterns and
would ideally be changed to take regexes, so if that ever/finally gets done,
then that would be a prime time to change the function's behavior if its
current behavior is undesirable.

- Jonathan M Davis