Re: [boost] is_range metafunction

Subject: Re: [boost] is_range metafunction
From: Daniel Walker (daniel.j.walker_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-10-05 18:06:43

On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 5:59 PM, Steven Watanabe <watanabesj_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> AMDG
>
> Mathias Gaunard wrote:
>>
>> This concept checking isn't really done at compile-time, so you cannot use
>> its result with SFINAE.
>> That's one of the major drawbacks of the concept checking library.
>
> It is done at compile time.  It just gives a compiles/doesn't compile answer
> rather than a boolean result that can be tested.

Is there any other option? I mean if t<x> is ill-formed, because the
type x doesn't support some expression used in the template t, then is
there some context where t could be instantiated with x without making
the whole program ill-formed? I can't think of one.

If there were such a context, then you might be able associate t<x>'s
ill-formation with some boolean constant, and you would have a way to
implement tests based on concept checking templates - a sort of
concept-based type introspection for C++03, which would be way cool.
However, without such a context, the best you can do is fail
gracefully with informative compilation errors, which is the purpose
of the concept checking library.

This brings up an interesting question regarding the proposed concept
language extensions for C++0x: If a function in an overload set
requires a concept that its argument doesn't model but some other
function in the set accepts the argument, does overload resolution
succeed? In other words, does the proposal support Concept Requirement
Failure Is Not An Error? CRFINAE. ;-)

Daniel Walker