I'm seeing a recently-added overload of array() that spells:

==========
ElementType!(String)[] array(String)(String str);

     Convert a narrow string to an array type that fully supports random
access. This is handled as a special case and always returns a dchar[],
const(dchar)[], or immutable(dchar)[] depending on the constness of the
input.
==========

What are some good use cases for it?


Andrei

I wrote this when I was cleaning up array().  The use case for it is that, in generic code, you generally assume that calling array() on a range will result in you receiving a random access range.  This makes that assumption valid even for narrow strings.  In other words, it eliminates an ugly special case.

On 1/20/2011 10:59 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> I'm seeing a recently-added overload of array() that spells:
>
> ==========
> ElementType!(String)[] array(String)(String str);
>
>     Convert a narrow string to an array type that fully supports
> random access. This is handled as a special case and always returns a
> dchar[], const(dchar)[], or immutable(dchar)[] depending on the
> constness of the input.
> ==========
>
> What are some good use cases for it?
>
>
> Andrei
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