• Philippe Sigaud (7/7) Nov 10 2013 OK, maybe I'm slow today. Is there an easy way to write a dchar
• Jonathan M Davis (24/36) Nov 10 2013 I always do the cast, though honestly, I think that character literals s...
• bearophile (5/11) Nov 10 2013 I have added your idea to the bug report that I opened time ago:
• Philippe Sigaud (5/16) Nov 11 2013 OK, thanks. I'll go with the cast, as this way anyone reading the code w...
• bearophile (7/10) Nov 11 2013 99% of my char literals need to be of type char.
• Kenji Hara (8/18) Nov 12 2013 Or, uniform construction for built-in types would be another
• Jonathan M Davis (6/29) Nov 12 2013 That's more verbose, but it's something that I think we need anyway, an=
• bearophile (6/12) Nov 12 2013 Yes, uniform construction syntax for all types seems a good idea.

"Philippe Sigaud" <philippe.sigaud gmail.com> writes:

OK, maybe I'm slow today. Is there an easy way to write a dchar 
literal?

I tend to use either:

"a"d[0]

or:

cast(dchar)'a'

Because 'a'd does not work...

Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> writes:

On Sunday, November 10, 2013 22:13:04 Philippe Sigaud wrote:
 OK, maybe I'm slow today. Is there an easy way to write a dchar
 literal?
 
 I tend to use either:
 
 "a"d[0]
 
 or:
 
 cast(dchar)'a'
 
 Because 'a'd does not work...

I always do the cast, though honestly, I think that character literals should 
default to dchar rather than char. I'm not sure that we could ever talk Walter 
into that though, particularly if he thought that doing so would break code 
(I'm not sure whether it would or not, but using char for a character is 
almost always a bad idea, so defaulting to char for character literals just 
doesn't make sense to me).

I'm not aware of there being a shorter way to get character literal to be 
dchar, though I suppose that if you had to do it a lot, you could create a 
function with a short name. e.g.

dchar toDC(dchar d)
{
    return d;
}

and end up with

toDC('a')

instead of

cast(dchar)'a';

but I'd probably just use the cast. It certainly sounds like a nice 
enhancement though to be able to do

'a'd

especially if the c and w versions gave errors when the character wouldn't fit 
in a char or wchar, which isn't the case with a cast.

- Jonathan M Davis

"bearophile" <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> writes:

Jonathan M Davis:

 It certainly sounds like a nice enhancement though to be able 
 to do

 'a'd

 especially if the c and w versions gave errors when the 
 character wouldn't fit
 in a char or wchar, which isn't the case with a cast.

I have added your idea to the bug report that I opened time ago:
https://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=11103

Bye,
bearophile

Philippe Sigaud <philippe.sigaud gmail.com> writes:

On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 10:42 PM, Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com>wrote:
 I always do the cast, though honestly, I think that character literals
 should
 default to dchar rather than char. I'm not sure that we could ever talk
 Walter
 into that though, particularly if he thought that doing so would break code
 (I'm not sure whether it would or not, but using char for a character is
 almost always a bad idea, so defaulting to char for character literals just
 doesn't make sense to me).

 I'm not aware of there being a shorter way to get character literal to be
 dchar, though I suppose that if you had to do it a lot, you could create a
 function with a short name. e.g.


OK, thanks. I'll go with the cast, as this way anyone reading the code will
be clear on what is happening there.

And I agree with you than character literals should default to dchar. It's
a perpetual source of friction for me.

"bearophile" <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> writes:

Philippe Sigaud:

 And I agree with you than character literals should default to 
 dchar. It's
 a perpetual source of friction for me.

99% of my char literals need to be of type char.

On the other hand once you have suffixes to specify the char 
type, most of that problem vanishes, because writing 'x'c or 
'x'w, 'x'd is good.

Bye,
bearophile

"Kenji Hara" <k.hara.pg gmail.com> writes:

On Monday, 11 November 2013 at 13:20:04 UTC, bearophile wrote:
 Philippe Sigaud:

 And I agree with you than character literals should default to 
 dchar. It's
 a perpetual source of friction for me.

 99% of my char literals need to be of type char.

 On the other hand once you have suffixes to specify the char 
 type, most of that problem vanishes, because writing 'x'c or 
 'x'w, 'x'd is good.

 Bye,
 bearophile

Or, uniform construction for built-in types would be another 
better way.

auto c = char('a');
auto w = wchar('a');
auto d = dchar('a');

auto x = char('à');   // compile-time error

Kenji Hara

Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> writes:

On Tuesday, November 12, 2013 09:14:54 Kenji Hara wrote:
 On Monday, 11 November 2013 at 13:20:04 UTC, bearophile wrote:
 Philippe Sigaud:
 And I agree with you than character literals should default to
 dchar. It's
 a perpetual source of friction for me.

=20
 99% of my char literals need to be of type char.
=20
 On the other hand once you have suffixes to specify the char
 type, most of that problem vanishes, because writing 'x'c or
 'x'w, 'x'd is good.
=20
 Bye,
 bearophile

=20
 Or, uniform construction for built-in types would be another
 better way.
=20
 auto c =3D char('a');
 auto w =3D wchar('a');
 auto d =3D dchar('a');
=20
 auto x =3D char('=C3=A0');   // compile-time error

That's more verbose, but it's something that I think we need anyway, an=
d it=20
might be enough to make it not worth adding the suffixes to character l=
iterals.

- Jonathan M Davis

"bearophile" <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> writes:

Kenji Hara:

 Or, uniform construction for built-in types would be another 
 better way.

 auto c = char('a');
 auto w = wchar('a');
 auto d = dchar('a');

 auto x = char('à');   // compile-time error

Yes, uniform construction syntax for all types seems a good idea. 
But the suffixes for chars, as the strings, could be a good idea 
any way, it's shorter, and it's symmetric with strings.

Bye,
bearophile