Re: Automatic function result type adaption depending on arg?

From:
Anthony Delroy <anthony.delroy@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Sun, 7 Mar 2010 17:43:36 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID:
<da9e5917-f744-4612-b597-97bd7b743516@a10g2000pri.googlegroups.com>
On Mar 7, 9:33 am, "Alf P. Steinbach" <al...@start.no> wrote:

I have e.g.

     template< typename T >
     inline typename T::iterator startOf( T& c )
     {
         return c.begin();
     }

     template< typename T >
     inline typename T::const_iterator startOf( T const& c )
     {
         return c.begin();
     }

     template< typename T, Size N >
     inline T* startOf( T (&a)[N] )
     {
         return a;
     }

Types from the standard library use 'iterator' and 'const_iterator', but =

imagine

some other large set of types TheirOwnWay with e.g. 'Iter' and 'ConstIter=

', and

that those types are in numeruous different namespaces.

How can the functions above be modified so that it's simple to make them =

work

also with TheirOwnWay types, e.g. by defining some type trait thing?

I tried the to me "obvious" customization hook, like

     template< typename T >
     inline typename IterTrait<T>::T startOf( T& c ) ...

keeping the last overload above as-is, but this failed spectacularly when
calling startOf(a) where a is a raw array.

I'd rather avoid using Boost enable_if (or any Boost dependency).


Is there some reason not to overload startOf as below? This is
similar to the way I tend to add operator<<()...

Cheers,
Tony

#include <cassert>
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>

template< typename T >
inline typename T::iterator startOf( T& c )
{
    std::cout << "startOf(T& c) returning T::iterator\n";
    return c.begin();
}

template< typename T >
inline typename T::const_iterator startOf( T const& c )
{
    std::cout << "startOf(const T& c) returning T::const_iterator\n";
    return c.begin();
}

template< typename T, size_t N >
inline T* startOf( T (&a)[N] )
{
    std::cout << "startOf(T (&a)[N]) returning a\n";
    return a;
}

struct X
{
    typedef const int* Const_Iterator;
    typedef int* Iterator;

    X(int a, int b) { a_[0] = a; a_[1] = b; }

    Const_Iterator first() const { return a_; }
    Iterator first() { return a_; }

    friend Const_Iterator startOf(const X& x) {
        std::cout << "startOf(const X&) returning X::Const_Iterator
\n";
        return x.first();
    }
    friend Iterator startOf(X& x) {
        std::cout << "startOf(X&) returning X::Iterator\n";
        return x.first();
    }

    int a_[2];
};

int main()
{
    std::vector<int> i;
    i.push_back(4);
    i.push_back(10);
    assert(*startOf(i) == 4);
    const std::vector<int>& ci = i;
    assert(*startOf(ci) == 4);

    int ai[2] = { 4, 10 };
    assert(*startOf(ai) == 4);

    X x(4, 10);
    assert(*startOf(x) == 4);
    const X& cx = x;
    assert(*startOf(cx) == 4);
}

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