April 19, 2004
Idea 1:

Hi guy's   just looking over the speck's for D
wonder if you would allow a fuction to return, more than one
item,  I know in and out or inout dos it, but still not very clean
as you sill have to make a return value some where.

as a example...  using out.

int frednerd( in int som_value, out int wast_of_space_and_time );

main()
{
int error_status, wast_of_space_and_time;

error_status = frednerd( som_value, wast_of_space_and_time );

if( error_status == ERROR || wast_of_space_and_time > TOBIG )
fixproblem( wast_of_space_and_time );

read( wast_of_space_and_time ); }

// Compair with this so much simpler.

int, int frednerd( in int some_value );
main()
{
if( r1.frednerd( some_value ) == ERROR ||  r2.frednerd > TOBIG )
fixproblem( r2.frednerd );

read( r2.frednerd );

}

is not that some much better to read ?  and easy to code ?
r1... r2 to be the return value's  and r1.fuction_name to access them,
what could be simpler ?  you could use some other opterator.

you also add return value name's  in fuction decration's like..

int error, int read_value frednerd( in int some_value );

so it become's

if( error.frednerd( some_value ) == ERROR ||  read_value.frednerd > TOBIG )
fixproblem( read_value.frednerd );

the compiler can hanle the life of the return value, in most case it's a int or pionter, etc..  and will end up being returned in a register.

Idea 2:

expose the Carry flag's on int opertions so you easy check for over flow

if( (a + b).Carry )         // or some way of access the C,process flags.
printf("over flow")

also be nice for bit shifing... for   a rowtate.

a  = (a << 1) | .Carry;

or perhaps

a =  a <<C 1;


Just my two cent's of idea.

Lachlan Audas
laudas@cosmosc.com






April 19, 2004
laudas@cosmosc.com schrieb:

> Idea 1:
> 
> Hi guy's   just looking over the speck's for D
> wonder if you would allow a fuction to return, more than one
> item,  I know in and out or inout dos it, but still not very clean
> as you sill have to make a return value some where.

It has been put off till a later version of the spec, it's just not the time to think of it because 1.0 is coming near, and it's important to freeze a spec which would not make feel sorry later. So new features are probably not getting in. Now is the last chance to correct already in-spec features, should they be faulty anywhere.

So far someone did a very simple set of tuple templates. Members can be acessed by .a, .b, .c and so on in order. If you can't figure it out how to write one, i shall write one again and post up.

> Idea 2:
> 
> expose the Carry flag's on int opertions so you easy check for over flow
> 
> if( (a + b).Carry )         // or some way of access the C,process flags.
> printf("over flow")

Ah, this is interesting. Let's wait to see what Walter says about it. Since all back-ends are based on C compilers, it might not be possible or easy to implement this now, so it is likely to be postponed.

-eye