Zig: question about copy elision

[schroffl]

Hey guys,

I have a question about the newly introduced copy elision. Is the compiler able to determine that it should immediately write into first_set.data in the unionize function?

const std = @import("std");

fn getByte(n: usize) usize {
    return n >> 3;
}

fn getBitOffset(n: usize) u3 {
    return @intCast(u3, n & 7);
}

fn setBit(bytes: var, bit: usize) void {
    const offset = getByte(bit);
    const idx = getBitOffset(bit);

    bytes[offset] |= (u8(1) << idx);
}

pub fn Set(comptime capacity: usize) type {
    const data_size = capacity / 8;

    return struct {
        const Self = @This();

        data: [data_size]u8,

        pub fn init() Self {
            return Self{ .data = [_]u8{0} ** data_size };
        }

        pub fn add(self: *Self, bit: usize) void {
            setBit(&self.data, bit);
        }

        pub fn unionize(a: Self, b: Self) Self {
            var result: Self = Self.init();
            var i: usize = 0;

            while (i < data_size) : (i += 1) {
                // Is this effectively equal to `a` being of type `*Self` and doing
                //     a.data[i] |= b.data[i];

                result.data[i] = a.data[i] | b.data[i];
            }

            return result;
        }
    };
}

pub fn main() anyerror!void {
    const MySet = Set(100);

    var first_set = MySet.init();
    var second_set = MySet.init();

    second_set.add(10);

    first_set = first_set.unionize(second_set);
}

Edit: I'm sorry if this seems like a code-dump, but I wanted to provide a running example :)

[andrewrk]

This is #2765.

[schroffl]

Awesome, thank you very much :)

Related question: Do you advise against designing an API around this feature? Would it be more reliable to have my function still take a pointer to *Self, because the elision can be fooled in some cases?

[schroffl]

Bump – You upvoted my comment just before I made the edit, which makes me think you're never going to see it otherwise. I'm sorry if that's not the case ^^

[andrewrk]

If the semantics of your application depend on elision, you can't write the code this way, you'll have to take a pointer. But I fully intend on making #2765 a reality, which means that when the issue is implemented, you could then improve your API to not need to take a pointer anymore. There are a bunch of places in the std lib that are affected in this way.

[schroffl]

Oh... didn't notice the issue is still open. I'll wait it out then.

Thanks for your (and every other contributors) work by the way. I never really used Zig for something productive, but it got me into low-level programming and is amazingly fun to work with :)