• Piotr Szturmaj (16/16) Jan 13 2012 Is there a plan to replace streams with byte ranges? Or should I just
• Jonathan M Davis (11/31) Jan 13 2012 At some point, std.stream will be replace with a range-based API. There ...
• Piotr Szturmaj (9/39) Jan 13 2012 Thanks for clarifying this. Btw. I find those endian conversions little

Piotr Szturmaj <bncrbme jadamspam.pl> writes:

Is there a plan to replace streams with byte ranges? Or should I just 
use streams?

I need to do some binary parsing and I found using ranges is not very 
comfortable. For example to read an uint I need to:

version (LittleEndian)
     auto r = retro(takeExactly(range, 4));
else
     auto r = takeExactly(range, 4);

uint u;
auto ar = (cast(ubyte*)&u)[0 .. 4];
replaceInPlace(ar, 0, 4, r);

while with streams its easier:

uint u;
stream.read(u);
version (LittleEndian)
     u = swapEndian(u);

Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> writes:

On Friday, January 13, 2012 12:17:06 Piotr Szturmaj wrote:
 Is there a plan to replace streams with byte ranges? Or should I just
 use streams?

At some point, std.stream will be replace with a range-based API. There has 
been some discussion on the design, but it hasn't been fully fleshed out, let 
alone implemented yet.

 I need to do some binary parsing and I found using ranges is not very
 comfortable. For example to read an uint I need to:
 
 version (LittleEndian)
      auto r = retro(takeExactly(range, 4));
 else
      auto r = takeExactly(range, 4);
 
 uint u;
 auto ar = (cast(ubyte*)&u)[0 .. 4];
 replaceInPlace(ar, 0, 4, r);
 
 while with streams its easier:
 
 uint u;
 stream.read(u);
 version (LittleEndian)
      u = swapEndian(u);

Just because it's a range doesn't mean that there won't be a function allowing 
you to do something something more like

auto val = read!int(range);

That sort of thing will have to be discussed and sorted out when the stream 
API is overhauled. Unfortunately, it's one of those things that seems to be 
forever on the TODO list.

- Jonathan M Davis

Piotr Szturmaj <bncrbme jadamspam.pl> writes:

Jonathan M Davis wrote:
 On Friday, January 13, 2012 12:17:06 Piotr Szturmaj wrote:
 Is there a plan to replace streams with byte ranges? Or should I just
 use streams?

 At some point, std.stream will be replace with a range-based API. There has
 been some discussion on the design, but it hasn't been fully fleshed out, let
 alone implemented yet.

 I need to do some binary parsing and I found using ranges is not very
 comfortable. For example to read an uint I need to:

 version (LittleEndian)
       auto r = retro(takeExactly(range, 4));
 else
       auto r = takeExactly(range, 4);

 uint u;
 auto ar = (cast(ubyte*)&u)[0 .. 4];
 replaceInPlace(ar, 0, 4, r);

 while with streams its easier:

 uint u;
 stream.read(u);
 version (LittleEndian)
       u = swapEndian(u);

 Just because it's a range doesn't mean that there won't be a function allowing
 you to do something something more like

 auto val = read!int(range);

 That sort of thing will have to be discussed and sorted out when the stream
 API is overhauled. Unfortunately, it's one of those things that seems to be
 forever on the TODO list.

Thanks for clarifying this. Btw. I find those endian conversions little 
uncomfortable. I'm talking about:

version(LittleEndian) swapEndian()

instead of directly calling bigEndianToNative() on uint. I know ubyte[4] 
param is to avoid mistakes, but I think most of the time programmers 
know what they do, so IMHO these preventions are unnecessary if we 
convert integers only. I would leave ubyte[4] params as they are and 
create overloads for integers using regular int params.