[swift-evolution] [Draft proposal] Faster/lower-level external String initialization

[Guillaume Lessard]

> On 15 janv. 2016, at 15:56, Max Moiseev <moiseev at apple.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Guillaume,
> 
> If we squash initializer with a default Bool = false, it will mean that the most common use case (i.e. repairing a cstring) will result in String? and will have to be (most of the time blindly) unwrapped.
> 
> As for passing nil, there are plans to make UnsafePointer non nil (and represent a nil case by Optional<UnsafePointer>.None), so an explicit nullness check is preferred before the call.

With pointers, there some kind of nullness check either way; I would personally prefer to do it on an optional String than a probable Pointer. I guess it’s just a matter of picking a poison.

As an aside, is the planned non-nilness also to become a rule for UnsafeMutablePointer?

Guillaume Lessard