Maybe hex strings were invented in D1 when strings were convertible to char[]. But today strings are an array of immutable UFT-8, so I think this default type is now less useful:

void main() {
    string data1 = x"A1 B2 C3 D4"; // OK
    immutable(ubyte)[] data2 = x"A1 B2 C3 D4"; // error
}


Gives:
test.d(3): Error: cannot implicitly convert expression ("\xa1\xb2\xc3\xd4") of type string to ubyte[]


Generally I'd like to use hex literals to put binary data nicely in a program, so usually I need an ubyte[] or uint[]. So I have to use something like:

auto data3 = cast(ubyte[])(x"A1 B2 C3 D4".dup);


So maybe the following literals are more useful in D2:

ubyte[]  data4a = x[A1 B2 C3 D4];
ubyte[4] data4b = x[A1 B2 C3 D4];
uint[]   data5a = x[A1 B2 C3 D4];
uint[2]  data5b = x[A1 B2 C3 D4];
ulong[]  data6a = x[A1 B2 C3 D4 A1 B2 C3 D4];
ulong[1] data6b = x[A1 B2 C3 D4 A1 B2 C3 D4];

Bye,
bearophile

On Thursday, October 18, 2012 01:58:25 bearophile wrote: [snip]

You posted to the wrong list.

- Jonathan M Davis

Jonathan M Davis:

> You posted to the wrong list.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis

Right Jonathan, I am sorry :-) I will try again in the main D newsgroup.

Bye,
bearophile