Bug 5683 – Calling .clear on a fresh associative array causes subsequent segfault

In DMD 2.051 and 2.052 the following code doesn't run: void main() { int[char] test; test.clear; // <- this provokes the bug test['x'] = 42; } This happens independently of the key type (int, char, struct). It seems like associative arrays are not in the 'clear' state when they are created. A typical use case is a field of a class that gets filled with values by a method that needs to clear out old content if any. I considered this a major bug, because it happens with a core feature.

This is a horrible bug with .init, and nothing to do with .clear. Same code but without the external call: void main() { int[char] test; test = typeof(test).init; test['x'] = 42; } What seems to be happening is that the address of the constructor is being assigned (ie: test = &test_init) when it should *really* be a direct assignment.

*** Issue 5816 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

A quickfix if urgently needed by anybody is to add a static init method to the template AA structure. struct AssociativeArray(Key, Value) { static Value[Key] init() @property { void* p; return *cast(Value[Key]*)(&p); } }

*** This issue has been marked as a duplicate of issue 6433 ***