Re: [sv-bc] Mantis 2380: array assignment compatibility

From: <jonathan.bromley_at_.....>
Date: Fri May 22 2009 - 01:44:50 PDT
Greg:

> Only casts to variable length unpacked arrays are impacted.

That is my understanding too.

> incompatibility can be avoided by excluding them from you proposal

But they were not part of the proposal, which addresses only
the assignment compatibility of various array types.

However, one could widen the proposal to forbid bit-stream
casting to a variable-sized target.  Its existing uses
can always be replaced (with more flexibility) by streaming 
concatenation {>>{...}}.

As I see it there are three possible outcomes here:

1) Previous decisions (Manti 1447, 1702) relaxing array
   assignment compatibility could be revoked.  I really
   don't like this; those changes met some important user
   needs, and also fixed a number of internal contradictions
   in the 2005 LRM, so undoing them would be not only 
   undesirable but also far from trivial.
2) Continue with approximately the current suggestion for 2380,
   and accept that the semantics of bit-stream casting to
   queues and dynamic arrays will be incompatible between 2005 
   and 2009.
3) Make it illegal to do a bit-stream cast to a variable-length
   array, and expect users to change existing code to use
   streaming concatenation or some other substitute.

I am willing to act as scribe for either (2) or (3), but
I'm not qualified to decide which option is preferred.

There's also option (0), do nothing and leave the present
internal contradictions about array assignment compatibility,
but I sincerely hope that would be vetoed by some balloting
entity!
-- 
Jonathan Bromley
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