[BioCocoa-dev] Peptides...

[Charles PARNOT]

>The original issue for the Peptides example is not the difference between immutable and mutable. Instead, the issue was that the accessor symbolArray returned a copy of the symbolArray, instead of just a pointer to that array, which is usual the case with accessors. Copying the array highly slowed down the Peptides calculation, while it was not necessary at all to create a copy. Therefore I suggested that we have the standard accessor:
>
>- (NSArray *)symbolArray
>{
>	return symbolArray;
>}
>
>
>If the user really needs a copy of the array, there are at least two possibilities: 1. we supply an additional accessor that returns a copy (using [[symbolArray copy] autorelease]) 2. the user uses the standard accessor, and creates the copy herself.
>
>The mutable/immutable question is unrelated to this.
>
>- Koen.

OK, sorry I was still confusing. I will try to make it shorter and more to the point this time ;-)

I am completely aware of the optimization issue, coming from the copy (this is the kind of issue that immutable objects are supposed to address, actually, but I will keep that for later!).

The problem is that in the proposed implementation, you return an NSArray, when in fact, it is a disguised NSMutableArray. This can easily bite us or the user back, for instance:

  BCSequence *seq=[BCSequence sequenceWithString:@"ATGT"];
  NSArray *symbols=[seq symbolArray];
  int n=[symbols count];
  [seq removeSymbolAtIndex:1];
  BCSymbol *last=[symbols objectAtIndex:n]; //UNEXPECTED EXCEPTION

Don't you guys think this is an issue? Sorry if I am insisting, but you have not answered that particular point yet :-)

charles
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Charles Parnot
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