[swift-evolution] [Idea] Passing an Array to Variadic Functions

[Tony Allevato]

Part of me regrets using String(format:) as my go to example of a varargs
invocation now. :)

But while the train is off the rails, why introduce a special syntax at
all? Since interpolation can include any expression, users can just write
small formatting functions and call them there.

Pros: We can standardize a few in stdlib, and it would be more extensible
than learning yet another string formatting language.
Cons: Likely to be more verbose than printf-like descriptors.


On Mon, Apr 18, 2016 at 12:27 PM Erica Sadun via swift-evolution <
swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:

> This is why god gave us bike sheds.
>
> Maybe "My earned interest rate this year is \({02.2}theRate)%!"
>
> -- E
>
>
> > On Apr 18, 2016, at 1:23 PM, Ricardo Parada <rparada at mac.com> wrote:
> >
> > What would that look like?
> >
> >
> >
> >> On Apr 18, 2016, at 3:06 PM, Erica Sadun via swift-evolution <
> swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>> On Apr 18, 2016, at 1:01 PM, Tony Allevato via swift-evolution <
> swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> I would also be supportive of removing varargs for now, in favor of a
> rethought design when generics are completed.
> >>>
> >>> In their current form, varargs are fairly limited—because they're
> mapped onto an array, the argument types must be homogeneous, so either
> your function can only usefully take a single type of argument, or you
> potentially lose information because they have to be upcast to a common
> supertype or Any in order to build the array.
> >>>
> >>> I'm not convinced that varargs produce code that is much cleaner than
> the array version. Is this:
> >>>
> >>> String(format: "%@ is %d years old", name, age)
> >>>
> >>> that much cleaner than:
> >>>
> >>> String(format: "%@ is %d years old", arguments: [name, age])
> >>
> >> I would like to see format strings go away and be replace with safer
> inline annotations.
> >>
> >> -- E, somewhat agnostic on variadics
> >>
> >>
> >>
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