General Category > Ideas

Array types

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kyle:
Well, it depends  :)

If you want to do things exactly the same way as C (conversion from array to pointer), then there isn't much you can do.   

However, if you are willing to extend things a bit, then you could pass array bounds in either fat pointers, or via metadata that can be retrieved via the pointer.

Personally, I would like to be able to pass


--- Code: ---int a[14] = {0,};

foo(a);

--- End code ---

and have
--- Code: ---foo()
--- End code ---
be defined:


--- Code: ---void foo(int an_array[])

--- End code ---

And have the passed array get copied.  If I want to share it, I'll explicitly pass a pointer.

Of course, if you did that, then to call C libraries, you would need to make sure that you explicitly passed a pointer to the first element of the array.

I'll think about this more...  It isn't that clear.

bas:
It would indeed be nice to let caller choose calling by value (thus copy) or by reference.
External C libraries would make this decision hard indeed. It seems simple but has
many consequences as you already stated...

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