These functions are currently footgunny when working with pointers to
arrays and slices. They just return the stated length of the array/slice
without iterating and looking for the first sentinel, even if the
array/slice is a sentinel terminated type.
From looking at the quite small list of places in the standard
library/compiler that this change breaks existing code, the new code
looks to be more readable in all cases.
The usage of std.mem.span/len was totally unneeded in most of the cases
affected by this breaking change.
We could remove these functions entirely in favor of other existing
functions in std.mem such as std.mem.sliceTo(), but that would be a
somewhat nasty breaking change as std.mem.span() is very widely used for
converting sentinel terminated pointers to slices. It is however not at
all widely used for anything else.
Therefore I think it is better to break these few non-standard and
potentially incorrect usages of these functions now and at some later
time, if deemed worthwhile, finally remove these functions.
If we wait for at least a full release cycle so that everyone adapts to
this change first, updating for the removal could be a simple find and
replace without needing to worry about the semantics.
* std.BoundedArray: return explicit errors
Makes it easier to mark explicit errors when using BoundedArray
downstream.
* std.BoundedArray.insert() returns Overflow only
Since `BoundedArray.insert` internally reserves space for the element
to be inserted, it can support inserting at the position that is
the current length of the array. Change the check for the insertion position
to allow this.
Because `.buffer` is an inline array field, we actually require `self` to be passed as a pointer.
If the compiler decided to pass the object by copying, we would return a pointer to to-be-destroyed stack memory.
We already have a LICENSE file that covers the Zig Standard Library. We
no longer need to remind everyone that the license is MIT in every single
file.
Previously this was introduced to clarify the situation for a fork of
Zig that made Zig's LICENSE file harder to find, and replaced it with
their own license that required annual payments to their company.
However that fork now appears to be dead. So there is no need to
reinforce the copyright notice in every single file.
This is a simple structure containing an array and a length, that can be viewed as a slice.
It is useful to pass-by-copy small data whose exact size is known at runtime, but whose maximum size is known at comptime. This greatly simplifies code that otherwise would require an allocator, or reimplementing what this type does.
