decodetime and decodelocaltime return Array

[whiteknight]

the decodetime and decodelocaltime ops return an Array PMC, not a FixedIntegerArray or even a ResizableIntegerArray like somebody might expect. Since these two ops always return an array with a fixed size (9 items) and those items are always integers, I think returning a FixedIntegerArray would be better in this case.

I would like to deprecate this feature and fix it after 2.0. Any objections?

[coke]

+0 from me. While I appreciate the desire to use the most restrictive type here, I'm not convinced that the way in which the result is used is worth the hassle of the change. (The *Array types are supposed to be smaller/faster/better - I don't think we have any benchmarks to demonstrate this)

On the other hand, I don't think changing the return type here warrants a deprecation notice. If we return something that 'does array', I think we're fine.

[coke]

Additionally, whatever core type we use here, we need to use an HLL-mapped type if one exists. {{[Parrot_get_ctx_HLL_type}}}

[whiteknight]

Array PMC is removed in r43695. decodetime and decodelocaltime now return FixedIntegerArray PMCs instead. Closing ticket.