[Vala] Array slicing?

["Mikkel Kamstrup Erlandsen" <mikkel kamstrup gmail com>]

Hi Valists,

I am very much enjoying array slicing[1] in Python and I am contemplating having a stab at implementing it for Vala. However I would like a bit of feedback before I start spending too much time on it. It looks like it may require a lot of work.

I see three cases where it can be applied, each probably having to be handled separately...

 * Libgee collections. This may require a new interface for libgee, fx Slicable?

 * Strings and GStrings

 * GLib collection types, GArray, GPtrList etc.

Is this feasible at all, considering ref counting issues, collections of simple types etc. etc. ?


Cheers,
Mikkel

[1]: If you have the array A = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd'] then there are three ways to slice it (this is the Pythonic interpretation btw):
  - A[1:3] is ['b', 'c']
  - A[1:] is ['b', 'c', 'd']
  - A[:1] is ['a']

The invariant is A = A[:n] + A[n:]