[swift-evolution] [Proposal Draft] Provide Custom Collections for Dictionary Keys and Values

[Russ Bishop]

> On Oct 11, 2016, at 2:28 PM, Nate Cook via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>  <https://gist.github.com/natecook1000/473720ba072fa5a0cd5e6c913de75fe1#inefficient-value-mutation>Inefficient Value Mutation
> 
> Dictionary values can be modified through the keyed subscript by direct reassignment or by using optional chaining. Both of these statements append 1 to the array stored by the key "one":
> 
> // Direct re-assignment
> dict["one"] = (dict["one"] ?? []) + [1]
> 
> // Optional chaining
> dict["one"]?.append(1)
> Both approaches present problems. The first is complex and hard to read. The second ignores the case where "one" is not a key in the dictionary. It forces its check into a higher branch and encourages forced unwrapping. Furthermore, neither approach allows the array to grow in place. They introduce an unnecessary copy of the array's contents even though dict is the sole holder of its storage.
> 
I’m not commenting on this proposal directly but shouldn’t this optimization be something the compiler can resolve? I suppose it requires something akin to the Rust borrow checker to determine that ownership passes from a local to the Optional and then to the setter, or in the case of write-back that references don’t escape the current scope except through the setter. 

In other words this is a significant problem in many places and it would be a huge win to solve it in the compiler. I’m not sure changing types here and there to work around it is worth the trouble (though some of the issues you point out with Dictionary apply regardless).



Russ
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