<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Just having getters and setters doesn’t allow this (unless the optimiser is really smart about it). All the current API allows is grabbing whatever the `get` clause returns, mutating it, and then passing it into the `set` clause, whatever that does. The `set` clause might not do anything, or what it does could be seemingly unrelated to the `get` clause, so it’s not a trivial task to optimise this.<br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On 11 Oct 2016, at 06:35, Erica Sadun <<a href="mailto:erica@ericasadun.com" class="">erica@ericasadun.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii" class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><br class=""><div class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Oct 10, 2016, at 9:53 PM, Tim Vermeulen via swift-evolution <<a href="mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org" class="">swift-evolution@swift.org</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii" class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">There have been many instances where unexpected bad performance was caused by the interplay between getters, setters, mutations and the copy-on-write mechanism. For example:<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: Menlo;" class=""><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #ba2da2" class="">struct</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class=""> Foo {</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: Menlo;" class=""><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class=""> </span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #ba2da2" class="">private</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class=""> </span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #ba2da2" class="">var</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class=""> _array: [</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #703daa" class="">Int</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class="">] = [</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #272ad8" class="">1</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class="">, </span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #272ad8" class="">2</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class="">, </span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #272ad8" class="">3</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class="">, </span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #272ad8" class="">4</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class="">, </span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #272ad8" class="">5</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class="">]</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: Menlo; min-height: 13px;" class=""><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class=""> </span><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: Menlo;" class=""><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class=""> </span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #ba2da2" class="">var</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class=""> array: [</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #703daa" class="">Int</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class="">] {</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: Menlo;" class=""><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class=""> </span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #ba2da2" class="">get</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class=""> { </span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #ba2da2" class="">return</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class=""> </span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #4f8187" class="">_array</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class=""> }</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: Menlo;" class=""><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class=""> </span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #ba2da2" class="">set</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class=""> { </span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #4f8187" class="">_array</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class=""> = newValue }</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: Menlo;" class=""><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class=""> }</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: Menlo;" class=""><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class="">}</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: Menlo; min-height: 13px;" class=""><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class=""></span><br class=""></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: Menlo;" class=""><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #ba2da2" class="">var</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class=""> foo = </span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #4f8187" class="">Foo</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class="">()</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: Menlo; color: rgb(0, 132, 0);" class=""><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #4f8187" class="">foo</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures;" class="">.</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #4f8187" class="">array</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures;" class="">.</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #3e1e81" class="">append</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures;" class="">(</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #272ad8" class="">6</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures;" class="">) </span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class="">// an O(n) operation</span></div></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I propose a `mutate` clause which provides a `mutate` function with a single inout parameter (similar to how `set` provides `newValue`), which can be used instead of a setter:</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: Menlo;" class=""><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #ba2da2" class="">var</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class=""> array: [</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #703daa" class="">Int</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class="">] {</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: Menlo;" class=""><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class=""> </span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #ba2da2" class="">get</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class=""> { </span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #ba2da2" class="">return</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class=""> </span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures; color: #4f8187" class="">_array</span><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class=""> }</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: Menlo;" class=""><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class=""> <span style="color: rgb(186, 45, 162);" class="">mutate</span> { <span style="color: rgb(49, 89, 93);" class="">mutate</span>(&<span style="color: rgb(79, 129, 135);" class="">_array</span>) }</span></div><div style="margin: 0px; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; font-family: Menlo;" class=""><span style="font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures" class="">}</span></div></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">The compiler could then translate each mutation of `foo.array` to a closure with an inout parameter, which is then passed into the `mutate` clause (which in turn is executed with `_array` as its argument, as per the snippet above). For example, for `foo.array.append(6)`, the compiler would internally generate the closure `{ (arr: inout [Int]) in arr.append(6) }` and pass it into the `mutate` clause, `_array` is then passed as its parameter and the array is updated in constant time.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">I apologise if that was too hard to follow.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">No setter would be needed if a mutation clause is provided, but I see no good reason to do away with setters altogether, so this proposal would be purely additive.</div></div></div></blockquote><br class=""></div><div class="">If this is computationally better, why is it not the default behavior rather than an API change?</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">-- E</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><br class=""></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></body></html>