CODEWITHSUNDEEP
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Colonel Thirty Two
Colonel Thirty Two

Reputation: 26589

What is void[]?

I've seen the type void[] used in a few places in the D documentation and function signatures. What does it mean?

I've searched the array section in the documentation as well as Google, but didn't turn up anything conclusive. All I found is that all arrays are implicitly convertible to the void[] type. Is it just an untyped array?

Upvotes: 12

Views: 1880

Answers (1)

Adam D. Ruppe
Adam D. Ruppe

Reputation: 25605

void[] is just an array of anything. in void[] is a convenient signature for a function that just writes bytes to a file or something because it will accept any kind of array - void meaning the type isn't important and in meaning you aren't meaning to modify or store it, thus allowing you to accept const or immutable arrays too.

To use a void[], you must first cast it to something else, typically, ubyte[], so the elements have a concrete size allowing you to index it. void[].length is given as the total number of bytes in the array, so if you are just passing a pointer and length of data to a function (like an operating system level file write, e.g. Linux's write syscall), passing arr.ptr, arr.length will get those bytes written without caring about what they represent.

Upvotes: 14

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