[swift-evolution] SE-1084 (B): buffer pointer partial initialization API

[Xiaodi Wu]

On Mon, Oct 9, 2017 at 19:47 Kelvin Ma via swift-evolution <
swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:

> Hi guys, after passing SE 184 (A)
> <https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposals/0184-unsafe-pointers-add-missing.md>,
> I want to get some community feedback on the next phase of our Swift
> pointer overhaul which is a partial initialization/deinitialization API for
> UnsafeMutableBufferPointer and UnsafeMutableRawBufferPointer.
>
> You can read about the originally proposed API in the original SE 184
> document
> <https://github.com/apple/swift-evolution/blob/master/proposals/0184-unsafe-pointers-add-missing.md>,
> basically we use an at:from: system for binary memory state operations
> where the at: argument supplies the start position in the destination
> buffer, and the from: source argument supplies the number of elements to
> copy/move into the destination.
>
> newBuffer.moveInitialize(at: 0, from: self.buffer[self.zero... ])
> newBuffer.moveInitialize(at: self.zero, from: self.buffer[0 ..< self.zero])
>
> Some other proposed APIs include using subscript notation, and writing a
> special buffer slice type and a corresponding protocol to handle this.
>
> newBuffer[0...                        ].moveInitialize(from:
> self.buffer[self.zero...   ])
> newBuffer[self.zero ... self.zero << 1].moveInitialize(from: self.buffer[0
> ..< self.zero])
>

Fully embracing slice notation and SwiftLint style, this could be:

newBuffer[...].moveInitialize(from: buffer[zero...])
newBuffer[zero...].moveInitialize(from: buffer[..<zero])

A hypothetical comparison of this API, the at:from: API, and the existing
> plain pointer API can be found in this basic Swift queue implementation
> here <https://gist.github.com/kelvin13/0860334278aeab5c1cbaefbefb050268>
> if anyone wants to see how this would look in “real” code. I’m interested
> in seeing which syntax and which API is preferred as well as what people
> would like to do with an expanded Swift buffer pointer toolbox.
>

Would you mind rewriting these examples in a more common Swift style (for
instance, SwiftLint/GitHub style)? Everyone is entitled to write code how
they please, but it’s much easier to compare how things “look” when the
overall formatting is more familiar.


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