Re: [boost] [integer] Type-safe and bounded integers with compile-time checking

Subject: Re: [boost] [integer] Type-safe and bounded integers with compile-time checking
From: Mathias Gaunard (mathias.gaunard_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-09-06 04:30:34

On 05/09/2011 21:27, Leif Linderstam wrote:

> My first go at this was that if the result range cannot be represented by
> any fundamental int type a compile time error is issued. My latest
> thoughts though are that the library should instead allow for multi-sized
> integers, which then of course touches on the current work of Christopher
> Kormanyos. In the original post I said that the range type should accept
> types as bounds instead of integers; this is the reason. With types there
> we can specify really big ranges.

A typed approach prevents iterative programming somewhat, since each 
operation would yield an object of a different type.

You can't write
a = 0;
while(some_cond)
   a += something;

You have to write it as a fold.

If it's just to ensure overflow doesn't happen, wouldn't it be better to 
make all of the checking happen at runtime, and disable it in NDEBUG builds?