Idea 11125137: Expand support for byref to match C# 7
Status : planned
Submitted by Keith Battocchi on 12/17/2015 12:00:00 AM
14 votes
C# is adding support for byref locals and returns (see https://github.com/dotnet/roslyn/issues/118, slated for milestone 1.3). This will result in many libraries that expose these features (which the CLR already supports), but methods with such return types aren't currently usable from F#. F# already supports byref locals, but doesn't support implementing byref-returning methods nor does it support calling byref-returning methods.
At a minimum, F# should support calling byref-returning-methods (e.g. SomeRefReturningMethod(x,y,z) <- w), since C# users will be creating methods like these and being unable to call them will limit F#'s reach.
It would be nice if on top of that base level of support F# also supported declaring such methods, using the same safety rules that C# is using (e.g. the only refs that are safe to return are those that point to values stored on the heap or existing refs that are passed into the method).
Idea 11125137: Expand support for byref to match C# 7
Status : planned
Submitted by Keith Battocchi on 12/17/2015 12:00:00 AM
14 votes
C# is adding support for byref locals and returns (see https://github.com/dotnet/roslyn/issues/118, slated for milestone 1.3). This will result in many libraries that expose these features (which the CLR already supports), but methods with such return types aren't currently usable from F#. F# already supports byref locals, but doesn't support implementing byref-returning methods nor does it support calling byref-returning methods. At a minimum, F# should support calling byref-returning-methods (e.g. SomeRefReturningMethod(x,y,z) <- w), since C# users will be creating methods like these and being unable to call them will limit F#'s reach. It would be nice if on top of that base level of support F# also supported declaring such methods, using the same safety rules that C# is using (e.g. the only refs that are safe to return are those that point to values stored on the heap or existing refs that are passed into the method).