Re: std::max(unsigned, size_t), amd64 and C++0x
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
Pete Becker wrote:
On 2008-08-28 18:42:06 -0400, Andrei Alexandrescu
<SeeWebsiteForEmail@erdani.org> said:
Pete Becker wrote:
On 2008-08-27 22:14:08 -0400, Nick Hounsome
<nick.hounsome@googlemail.com> said:
Secondly I read somewhere recently a rant about the STL implementation
of max and why it was so complicated - It appears that for such an
intuitively simple function, max is actually extremely difficult, if
not impossible to get right in all cases.
The implementation of max is not complicated at all:
template <class T> T max(const T& t1, const T& t2) { return t1 < t2
? t2 : t2; }
Well the return type is a const T&, which already causes a host of
problems, such as returning a dangling reference when called with two
rvalues. Besides I'm pretty sure max wants to returns t1 once in a while
:o).
The point is that the implementation of max is not complicated,
despite the fact that I can't type it right. <g>
My point was that even after leaving the typos aside, the simple
implementation is unsatisfactory.
int a = 42, b = 43;
int c = max(a, b); // fine
int d = max(max(a + 1, c), b - 1); // have a nice day
Rats. I don't know why I made this so complicated. Even this is illegal:
int d = max(a + 1, b - 1);
Andrei
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