[swift-dev] Implementation of Existential Collection (AnySequence and co.)

[Pavol Vaskovic]

On Wednesday, 5 April 2017 at 14:56, Pavol Vaskovic wrote:
> Thanks Ole! This explanation of type erasure makes total sense. I have overlooked they are generic over different axis.
>  
> But I think I have confirmed the performance implications of this design and created https://bugs.swift.org/browse/SR-4499 to track the issue.
> As is, all elements that get vended through this are being created using virtual dispatch on generic protocol - super slow.
>  
> If I recall correctly, there is alternative approach to type erasure using closures, but its possible it has similar performance characteristics?
Why exactly isn’t `AnyIterator` implemented like this?  

public struct AnyIterator<Element> : IteratorProtocol, Sequence {
let _next: () -> Element?
public init<I : IteratorProtocol>(_ base: I) where I.Element == Element {
var _base = base
_next = { return _base.next() }
}
public init(_ next: @escaping () -> Element?) {
_next = next
}
public func next() -> Element? {
return _next()
}
}


It seems to me this is using the same "Methods Constructed in Initializers” pattern I was asking about Re: `_ClosureBasedIterator`.

Best regards
Pavol Vaskovic