Re: [9fans] Typestr usage (inspired by libgeometry)

["sirjofri via 9fans" <9fans@9fans.net>]

16.12.2025 17:19:26 ori@eigenstate.org:
> Quoth sirjofri via 9fans <9fans@9fans.net>:
> It's a subtly wrong feature -- it looks cute, but doesn't
> generalize well in C. Finishing it would imply garbage
> collection (or at least destructors), which have their
> own disadvantages.
>
> It may work for some things. This, for example, is fine:
>
>         typestr mpint ...;
>
>         mpint *x = mpnew(42);
>         mpint *y = mpnew(123);
>         mpint *z = x * y; //ok, fine
>         mpfree(x);
>         mpfree(y);
>
> but what about:
>
>         mpint *x = mpnew(42);
>         mpint *y = mpnew(123);
>         mpint *z = x * (y - x) * (y - x);
>         mpfree(x);
>         mpfree(y);
>
> There are intermediate expressions along the way
> which would need to be allocated; who frees them?

Well, that makes a lot of sense. I guess I never encountered these issues because I only used it with smaller structures that I can easily copy (by value). A feature like that should accommodate for the whole language though, which it can't. Thanks for clarifying that.

sirjofri

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