[swift-evolution] [Proposal] Safer half-open range operator

Vladimir.S svabox at gmail.com
Sun Apr 24 01:10:00 CDT 2016


We already have this feature(to append labels for substiption), so I 
believe it is possible to implement this proposal:

class A {
     subscript(safe range: Range<Int>) -> [Int] {
         get { return [1,2,3] } set { print(newValue) }
     }

     subscript(truncate range: Range<Int>) -> [Int] {
         get { return [1,2,3] } set { print(newValue) }
     }
}

var a = A()

var arr = a[safe: 0...10]
print(arr)
arr = a[truncate: 0...10]
print(arr)


On 23.04.2016 12:25, Luis Henrique B. Sousa via swift-evolution wrote:
> No, I got the half-joke on the python-like example. :-)
>
> I meant the label as part of the brackets content, right before the range
> itself. E.g. [truncate: Range<Index>]
> where "truncate" is the label I'm referring to.
>
> Thanks
>
> - Luis
>
> On Friday, April 22, 2016, Dave Abrahams via swift-evolution
> <swift-evolution at swift.org <mailto:swift-evolution at swift.org>> wrote:
>
>
>     on Fri Apr 22 2016, "Luis Henrique B. Sousa via swift-evolution"
>     <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>
>     > is this syntax reasonably simple to implement?
>
>     If you mean a syntax that allows 0..<-2, it's implementable but I'd be
>     opposed to it.  You'd have to introduce a new overload of ..< that
>     produced something other than a Range or CountableRange, because those
>     have a precondition that the LHS is <= the RHS.
>
>     > Or is there another solution that would work with less impact in terms
>     > of design?  I mean the subscript with a label on it,
>     > i.e. collection[label: Range<Index>]
>
>     I'm sure there are lots of other possibilities :-)
>
>     >
>     > It's been a while since the last feedback, so I'm doing some rewriting
>     > on this proposal and still considering to submit it for review.
>     >
>     > - Luis
>     >
>     > On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 10:29 PM, Dave Abrahams via swift-evolution
>     > <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>     >
>     >     on Wed Apr 13 2016, Maximilian Hünenberger
>     >     <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>     >
>     >     > Should this new operator form a new range? How can this range
>     know about
>     >     the
>     >     > array's indices?
>     >     >
>     >     > A while ago there was a proposal (unfortunately it was not
>     discussed
>     >     enough)
>     >     > which introduced safe array indexing:
>     >     >
>     >     > array[safe: 3] // returns nil if index out of bounds
>     >
>     >     Wrong label, but I wouldn't be opposed to adding such an operator for
>     >     all Collections.
>     >
>     >     > So another way to handle this issue would be to make another
>     subscript
>     >     like:
>     >     >
>     >     > array[truncate: -1...6]
>     >
>     >     That approach makes sense too. But then do we add
>     >
>     >     x[python: 0..<-2] // all but the last two elements?
>     >
>     >     ;^)
>     >
>     >     > Best regards
>     >     > - Maximilian
>     >     >
>     >     > Am 12.04.2016 um 01:21 schrieb Luis Henrique B. Sousa via
>     swift-evolution
>     >     > <swift-evolution at swift.org>:
>     >     >
>     >     > The idea of having a new operator following the principles of
>     overflow
>     >     > operators looks great. Two distinct operators doing implicit and
>     >     explicitly
>     >     > might really be a good way to go; it would be concise and
>     wouldn't look
>     >     like
>     >     > some magic happened behind the scenes. I'd like to hear more
>     opinions
>     >     about
>     >     > it.
>     >     >
>     >     > > what we'll have in case a[-1 &..< 5]? should this raise error
>     or become
>     >     [0
>     >     > ..< 3] ? I think, the latter.
>     >     > I agree here, I'd choose the latter.
>     >     >
>     >     > From my perspective, the behaviour I'm proposing is what a
>     considerable
>     >     > number of users expect, especially if coming from other
>     languages that
>     >     > follow that path. Of course I'm not comparing languages here, but
>     >     > considering the Swift principles of being a safer language, in
>     my opinion
>     >     > we'd rather have a partial slice than a crash in execution time
>     (when the
>     >     > user is not totally aware of it).
>     >     >
>     >     > Many thanks for all your additions so far. It's really good to
>     see that
>     >     > these things are not set in stone yet.
>     >     >
>     >     > - Luis
>     >     >
>     >     > On Apr 11, 2016 4:21 PM, "Vladimir.S via swift-evolution"
>     >     > <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>     >     >
>     >     > +1 for the idea "in general". But I also think that explicit is
>     better
>     >     than
>     >     > implicit, especially if we deal with possible errors. Just like
>     we work
>     >     > in Swift with integer overflow : '+' will generate run time
>     error, but
>     >     > saying &+ we point Swift that we know what we do.
>     >     >
>     >     > but.. what we'll have in case a[-1 &..< 5]? should this raise
>     error or
>     >     > become [0 ..< 3] ? I think, the latter.
>     >     >
>     >     > On 11.04.2016 17:02, Haravikk via swift-evolution wrote:
>     >     >
>     >     > I like the idea in theory, but the question is; is it really
>     safer to
>     >     > return a result that the developer may not have wanted, versus an
>     >     > error
>     >     > indicating that a mistake may have been made? I wonder if perhaps
>     >     > there
>     >     > could be an alternative, such as a variation of the operator like
>     >     > so:
>     >     >
>     >     > let b = a [0 &..< 5]// Equivalent to let b = a[0 ..< min(5,
>     >     > a.endIndex)],
>     >     > becomes let b = a[0 ..< 3]
>     >     >
>     >     > I’m just not sure that we can assume that an array index out of
>     >     > range error
>     >     > is okay without some kind of indication from the developer, as
>     >     > otherwise we
>     >     > could end up returning a partial slice, which could end up causing
>     >     > an error
>     >     > elsewhere where the size of the slice is assumed to be 5 but isn’t.
>     >     >
>     >     > On 11 Apr 2016, at 13:23, Luis Henrique B. Sousa via
>     >     > swift-evolution
>     >     > <swift-evolution at swift.org
>     >     > <mailto:swift-evolution at swift.org>>
>     >     > wrote:
>     >     >
>     >     > This proposal seeks to provide a safer ..< (aka half-open range
>     >     > operator)
>     >     > in order to avoid **Array index out of range** errors in
>     >     > execution time.
>     >     >
>     >     > Here is my first draft for this proposal:
>     >     >
>     >
>      https://github.com/luish/swift-evolution/blob/half-open-range-operator/proposals/nnnn-safer-half-open-range-operator.md
>     >
>     >     >
>     >     > In short, doing that in Swift causes a runtime error:
>     >     >
>     >     > leta =[1,2,3]
>     >     > letb =a[0..<5]
>     >     > print(b)
>     >     >
>     >     > > Error running code:
>     >     > > fatal error: Array index out of range
>     >     >
>     >     > The proposed solution is to slice the array returning all
>     >     > elements that
>     >     > are below the half-open operator, even though the number of
>     >     > elements is
>     >     > lesser than the ending of the half-open operator. So the example
>     >     > above
>     >     > would return [1,2,3].
>     >     > We can see this very behaviour in other languages, such as
>     >     > Python and
>     >     > Ruby as shown in the proposal draft.
>     >     >
>     >     > This would eliminate the need for verifications on the array
>     >     > size before
>     >     > slicing it -- and consequently runtime errors in cases when the
>     >     > programmer didn't.
>     >     >
>     >     > Viewing that it is my very first proposal, any feedback will be
>     >     > helpful.
>     >     >
>     >     > Thanks!
>     >     >
>     >     > Luis Henrique Borges
>     >     > @luishborges
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>     >     --
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> --
>
>
> ---
>
> *Luís Henrique Borges*
> iOS Developer at IBM <http://ibm.com>
> Dublin, Ireland - luish.github.com <http://luish.github.com>
>
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