<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=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Aug 9, 2017, at 12:19 PM, Taylor Swift <<a href="mailto:kelvin13ma@gmail.com" class="">kelvin13ma@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><div class=""><div class="gmail_extra" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><br class=""><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Aug 9, 2017 at 10:43 AM, Daryle Walker via swift-evolution<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span dir="ltr" class=""><<a href="mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org" target="_blank" class="">swift-evolution@swift.org</a>></span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>wrote:<br class=""><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;"><div style="overflow-wrap: break-word;" class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="gmail-"><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Aug 8, 2017, at 6:45 PM, Geordie Jay <<a href="mailto:geojay@gmail.com" target="_blank" class="">geojay@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><div class=""><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class=""><br class="gmail-m_-1735349579321745381Apple-interchange-newline">Daryle Walker via swift-evolution <<a href="mailto:swift-evolution@swift.org" target="_blank" class="">swift-evolution@swift.org</a>> schrieb am Di. 8. Aug. 2017 um 21:25:<br class=""></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;"><div style="overflow-wrap: break-word;" class=""><div class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Aug 8, 2017, at 12:35 AM, Félix Cloutier <<a href="mailto:felixcloutier@icloud.com" target="_blank" class="">felixcloutier@icloud.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="gmail-m_-1735349579321745381m_5940453953046347490Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div style="overflow-wrap: break-word;" class=""><div class="">All this means is that `joined()` does not create an array that contains the new result. It's only as magic as the COW semantics on arrays.</div></div></div></blockquote><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></div><div style="overflow-wrap: break-word;" class=""><div class=""><div class="">So you’re saying the COW semantics for Array and other standard library types have secret references/pointers that work even for “let”-mode objects, and the Sequence variants the various forms of “joined” need use a Sequence/Collection of those secret references?</div></div></div></blockquote><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class="">I know nothing about this specific type under the hood and your question stumped me when I first saw it as well, so take this with a grain of salt:</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class="">I think it's basically just storing the arrays internally (as let) and when you iterate through the collection it just goes through the subsequences one by one, when the last index of the first is reached it begins with the next subsequence.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class="">As for how it avoids creating new storage, simple. As someone else mentioned, this is no more magic than Copy On Write for normal arrays.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class="">let a = [1,2,3]</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class="">let b = a // this doesn't produce a copy of the underlying buffer.. I.e. value semantics but only one buffer needed</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class="">^^^ This is the take-home message. And your intuition about COW is correct: its internal storage is a reference type containing a buffer pointer. When (and only when) a mutation occurs, the buffer is copied and the new storage becomes the backing for the resulting struct. Any existing copies remain unchanged (and truly immutable) because they keep their original storage.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class=""><a href="https://github.com/apple/swift/blob/master/stdlib/public/core/ContiguousArrayBuffer.swift" target="_blank" class="">https://github.com/apple/<wbr class="">swift/blob/master/stdlib/<wbr class="">public/core/<wbr class="">ContiguousArrayBuffer.swift</a></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class="">So with that understanding of COW, it becomes easy to imagine all sorts of containers that don't require additional storage for their contents:</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class="">struct JoinedSequenceOfThreeArrays<T> {</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class=""> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>let array1: [T]</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class=""> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>let array2: [T]</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class=""> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>let array3: [T]</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class="">}</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class="">// still only one array buffer storage is required for all of this:</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class="">let c = JoinedSequenceOfThreeArrays(<wbr class="">array1: a, array2: a, array3: b)</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class=""><br class=""></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" class="">Does that make sense?</div></div></blockquote><div class=""><br class=""></div></span><div class="">Mostly, then I realized a flaw with this explanation. Your theory implies that “joined” avoids creating new storage by betraying that and actually copying the containers, but said containers use-COW/reference-remote-<wbr class="">storage themselves. Then what happens when a Sequence uses scoped storage for its items? (Example: the mythical “just slap Collection on a tuple and call it an array” type.) Either “joined” uses a different no-copy technique or it’s lying about saving on storage (and the lack of scoped-storage Sequences means no one has called them on it yet).</div><span class="gmail-"></span></div><span class="gmail-"></span></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div><div class="gmail_extra" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">I don’t see any contradiction here. A tuple is a value type; it has no concept of copy-on-write because it’s copy-on-read. So JoinedSequence will store a copy of the tuple instead of a buffer reference</div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""><div class="">Besides meaning the explanation for “joined” is lying, what if the value type is large enough that copies should be minimized?</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Hmm, it seems that there’s a hole in the language in that value-type “let”-mode instances cannot be aliased/referenced.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">— </div><div class="">Daryle Walker<br class="">Mac, Internet, and Video Game Junkie<br class="">darylew AT mac DOT com </div></div></div><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""></blockquote></div></body></html>