Re: Trying to apply SFINAE

From:
James Kanze <james.kanze@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Wed, 1 Oct 2008 01:15:42 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID:
<3c48b804-9dd7-4987-bbe6-fd5dec11d736@a1g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>
On Sep 30, 11:58 am, Hendrik Schober <spamt...@gmx.de> wrote:

James Kanze wrote:

On Sep 29, 6:20 pm, Hendrik Schober <spamt...@gmx.de> wrote:

I'm having two overloaded function templates,

     #include <iterator>

     template< typename T >
     void test( T /*a1*/, T /*a2*/ ) {}

     template< typename Iter >
     void test( Iter /*b*/, Iter /*e*/ ) {}

which I need to call. (In reality, these are constructors,
in case that matters.)


It could be critical, if you need the initialization list.


  The problem is more with your below idea: I cannot
  (easily) forward calls.


That's why I raised the issue of initialization lists. That's
the main reason I can think of why you might not be able to
forward calls. (It is, in fact, the only reason I can think of
why you might not be able to forward calls.)

[...]
But of course, since it's undefined behavior to instantiate
iterator_trais with anything that is neither an iterator nor a
pointer, you couldn't count on this even if the type deduction
trick worked.


  Is it?


I think so. In =A717.4.3.6/2, it says:

    In particular, the effects are undefined in the
    following cases:
    [...]
     -- for types used as template arguments when
        instantiating a template component, if the
        operations on the type do not implement the
        semantics of the applicable Requirements
        subclause.[...]

I'm not sure, of course, because the description of Iterator
traits (=A724.3.1) doesn't actually contain a Requirements
subclause. It does require a specific implementation, however
(with a partial specialization for pointers), and that
implementation uses typename Iterator::difference_type, etc. So
the presence of those types in the instantiation type would seem
to be a requirement. (In this regared, the definition of
iterator_category is probably the most significant; I can't
imagine anything but an iterator defining it.)

In practice, what I would expect is that the code would fail to
compile *IF* you use such an instantiation in a context which
requires a complete definition. Or, if that failure occured
during template type deduction, SFINAE. But I couldn't get it
to work.

  I thought std lib implementors must have faced this,
  but now I see that this

     #include <vector>

     int main()
     {
         const unsigned int ua[] = { 255, 255, 255, 255 };

         std::vector<int> v1(0u,1u);
         std::vector<int> v2(ua, ua+4);

         return 0;
     }

  fails spectacularly with Dinkumware (both call the ctor
  taking iterators), so I must be wrong.


The second is required to call the constructor taking iterators.
The first shouldn't, however; the standard says that if the
iterator type (determined by type deduction) is an integral
type, the constructor shall has the same effect as:

    X( static_cast< typename X::size_type >( f ),
        static_cast< typename X::value_type >( l ) ) ;

(This leads to some interesting, and possibly unintentional
effects, due to the fact that static_cast is an explicit
conversion. Thus:

    std::vector< std::vector< int > > v( 10, 30 ) ;

works, although there is no implicit conversion of 30 to
std::vector< int >.)

The version of VC++ (which uses Dinkumware) which I have access
to gets this right. Some older implementations of the library
(Dinkumware or others), designed for compilers which didn't
support member templates, may have problems, however.

--
James Kanze (GABI Software) email:james.kanze@gmail.com
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