Error when trying to iterate a distinct type based array

[dawkot]

type Id = distinct range[0..1_000]

var xs: array[Id, bool]

for x in xs: discard # type mismatch: got (T) but expected 'bool'

[Araq]

Why should it work? The distinct type means arithmetic operations are not available.

[GULPF]

@Araq I disagree. Since all ordinal types are allowed as array indices, they should work with the items iterator even if they are distinct. Is there a reason why the iterator can't be implemented like this?

iterator items*[IX, T](a: array[IX, T]): T {.inline.} =
  ## iterates over each item of `a`.
  var i = low(IX).IX
  if ord(i) <= ord(high(IX)):
    while true:
      yield a[i]
      if ord(i) >= ord(high(IX)): break
      inc(i)

Having to borrow >= to use a distinct type as array indexer just seems like a leaky abstraction.

[Araq]

The real problem here is that distinct T is an ordinal if T is ordinal but that makes no sense. A distinct type should not be an ordinal. I tried to fix that in the compiler but times.nim now depends on it. -.-

[GULPF]

Agreed that distinct T shouldn't automatically be ordinal if T is ordinal, but imo there should be a way to explicitly inherit the "ordinalness" since it can be useful. Fwiw I don't think times depends on it after #6978, since it changes the Time type to be an object (which will undoubtedly break a lot of code...).