Re: Perfect Forwarding + static_assert [C++0x]

From:
SG <s.gesemann@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Sat, 4 Dec 2010 04:56:28 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID:
<ca186bd1-c436-47dc-9bbb-0fd94e667c53@r40g2000prh.googlegroups.com>
On 4 Dez., 07:07, Scott Meyers wrote:

[...]
I really want to forward only a std::string. I came up with this:

  template<typename T>
  void setName(T&& newName)
  {
     static_assert(
        std::is_same<
           std::remove_cv<
              std::remove_reference<T>::type
           >::type,
           std::string
        >::value, "T must be a [const] std::string
     );

     name = std::forward<T>(newName);
   };


As Marc said already, a "typename" appears to be missing. In addition,
I'll like to mention that std::decay typically works as a shortcut for
remove_cv<remove_refernence<...>>

VC10 swallows it and seems to behave the way I want.
gcc 4.5 doesn't compile


I guess that's because VC10 doesn't do a proper two-phase lookup.

 2. Assuming I want to do what I say I want to do, is there a
    better way to do it? I assume I could also play games with
    enable_if, but I think the incantation would be no simpler
    than the static_assert.


I was just about to suggest enable_if here. That's seems (at least for
function templates) like a good way to constrain them in order to
reduce the size of the overload resolution set. With a failing
enable_if a function doesn't make it into the overload resolution set
while a static_assert would only be checked after overload resolution.
Instead of restricting the parameter to std::string (or references to
string), you should consider conversion, so that you can also pass
string literals:

   template<class T>
   enable_if< is_convertible<T,string>::value,
   void>::type setName(T&& newName)
   {
      name_ = forward<T>(newName);
   }

To hide the template stuff one could use a wrapper that remembers the
address of the argument object and its value category so it can later
perform the corresponding assignment:

  template<class T>
  class epa // ep = efficient passing / assignment
  {
  public:
    epa(T const& x) : p(&x), q(0) {}
    epa(T && x) : p(0), q(&x) {}
    void assign_to(T & target) {
      if (p) target = *p;
      else target = move(*q);
    }
  private:
    T const* p;
    T * q;
  };

  void YourClass:setName(epa<string> newName)
  {
      newName.assign_to(this->name);
  }

Cheers!
Sebastian

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