| 26 | | So how does D improve things? In many ways, D's arrays are similar to C's arrays. In fact, D supports C's array syntax using pointers. However, D provides a new type that builds on C array syntax called a slice. A slice is a segment of an array (dynamic or otherwise) that tracks both the pointer ''and'' the length of the segment. With the combined protection of having the length of the data, and the garbage collector to manage the memory backing the data, slices are an extremely powerful, dynamic concept that is safe from most memory corruption issues. |
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| | 26 | So how does D improve things? In many ways, D's arrays are similar to C's arrays. In fact, D supports C's array syntax using pointers. However, D provides a new type that builds on C array syntax called a slice. A slice is a segment of an array (dynamic or otherwise) that tracks both the pointer ''and'' the length of the segment. With the combined protection of having the length of the data, and the garbage collector to manage the memory backing the data, slices are an extremely powerful, dynamic concept that is safe from most memory corruption issues. In addition, D slices support extending with simple functions which take a slice as the first parameter. This allows one to add any functionality you want to a built-in type via properties or methods. With D slices, one can write high-performance code with elegant and concise syntax that is awkward or inefficient in almost any other language. |
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