Re: How to default an undefined operation?

From:
=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Daniel_Kr=FCgler?= <daniel.kruegler@googlemail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++.moderated
Date:
Wed, 5 Sep 2012 16:50:24 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID:
<k28ia2$akg$1@dont-email.me>
Am 05.09.2012 23:53, schrieb Casey Carter:

On 2012-09-05 02:48, Ivan Godard wrote:

I have a template class taking a typename T argument, and need to
define a differenceType representing the abstract "distance" between
any pair of values. The template is instantiated with enums,
built-in types, and random user classes that define
operator-(T, T). This difference type was initially declared as:
     typedef typeof(T() - T()) differenceType;

I recently converted an existing enum to a C++11 "enum class", and
the above broke because operator- was not defined for enum classes
and there is no conversion to something that defines it.


This is exactly the use case for std::declval<T>(): "creating" an
expression of type T for use in non-evaluated contexts - e.g.,
decltype(), sizeof() - without needing a valid constructor
expression. Try:

    typedef
      decltype(std::declval<T>() - std::declval<T>()) differenceType;


You have misunderstood the OP, I think. The problem he is stumbling
accross is not related to the expression T() versus your recommended
std::declval<T>(). Instead, the problem is that the expression

T() - T()

is not well-formed for T equal to a scoped enum type, because these
types have no operator - nor do they participate in promotion to
integral types. Using std::declval<T>() instead won't solve this problem.

HTH & Greetings from Bremen,

Daniel Kr?gler

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