`ReferenceType::equals(ReferenceType const& _other)` name is misleading.

[rodiazet]

Description

In this fragment of the code someone probably tried to compare types ignoring location and isPointer, but looking at the equals function implementation it does not compare full type, but only location and isPointer. So this assert is useless.

It was changed by this commit. Previously it equals was == operator and it did the same.

This function usage should be verified and the name should be changed. It’s used in a couple of places in YulUtilFunctions.cpp.

[cameel]

@nikola-matic Do you have context for 3bab147? It does not seem to be attached to any PR.

EDIT: Ah wait, now it is. When I visit it shows me #14201. Looks like I wasn't showing up because I was looking at it in a fork.

[cameel]

Looking at 258b1a7, where it was introduced (BTW, this is a part of #1 so the initial history migrated from cpp-ethereum repo), it seems to me that the intention was for it to represent partial ==, only for the fields that are stored in ReferenceType. And that in normal use it should be combined with comparisons for the rest:

bool ArrayType::operator==(Type const& _other) const
{
	if (_other.getCategory() != getCategory())
		return false;
	ArrayType const& other = dynamic_cast<ArrayType const&>(_other);
	if (
-		other.m_location != m_location ||
+		!ReferenceType::operator==(other) ||
		other.isByteArray() != isByteArray() ||
		other.isString() != isString() ||
		other.isDynamicallySized() != isDynamicallySized()
	)
		return false;
	return isDynamicallySized() || getLength()  == other.getLength();
}

It's clearly dangerous though given the examples @rodiazet found. People will naturally assume that it compares the whole thing.