Don´t worry Jeff, it´s just thinking about and discussing concepts. Feel free to move this topic and corresponding posts elsewhere, because it´s not really about wiki improvments
Maybe a cookie (var/fix length array flag) could be stored just before the descriptor structure:
- a "hidden" Integer at address = @Cptr(Integer Ptr, @descriptor)[-1]
This is better than my proposal."Old" code (e.g. a dll) would definitely get into trouble with my "new" descriptor, even if the size didn´t change, because it would still interpret the bitmask as a value and therefore read wrong values.
Taking a closer look at the RTL i can see that the descriptor isn´t saved to disk when saving an array, it´s only the array´s data. So the only remaining case i can think of when "new" code is confronted with an "old" descriptor, would be a call (an "old" dll calls an exported sub/function of a "new" executable, passing an array) from "old" code (do you agree, or did i miss something?). This could be a problem, because how can we be sure, that the integer before the descriptor is valid memory? And if it is valid, how can we decide, if it´s our hidden flag or something else (random)?
The other way round ("old" code receiving a "new" descriptor) it should work quite well, because the "old" code gets exactly, what it expects. It doesn´t know and it doesn´t care about the hidden flag.
JK