Re: [boost] [contract] concept error messages

Subject: Re: [boost] [contract] concept error messages
From: Matt Calabrese (rivorus_at_[hidden])
Date: 2012-10-07 13:33:07

On Sun, Oct 7, 2012 at 1:08 PM, Lorenzo Caminiti <lorcaminiti_at_[hidden]>wrote:

> On Sat, Oct 6, 2012 at 5:06 PM, Matt Calabrese <rivorus_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> > On Sat, Oct 6, 2012 at 2:29 PM, Andrew Sutton <asutton.list_at_[hidden]
> >wrote:
> >
> >> Lots of reasons, but mostly it clearly delineates what is required
> >> from what is returned.
> >>
> >
> > I agree with you that requires is important, particularly for
> concept-based
> > overloads where one overload has more refined concepts than another
>
> Can you guys give me an example of this?

std::advance, even in the C++98 standard library, is overloaded differently
for input iterators than it is from bidirectional and random access
iterators. With random access iterators, advance operates in constant time.
With input iterators, advance operates linearly. The way this is currently
implemented is via tag-dispatching -- on a call to std::advance, the
iterator category is taken from iterator traits of the iterator argument
and is used as an argument to a function with multiple overloads based on
the iterator category that is passed (iterator_categories are related by
inheritance, so even if you make an entirely new iterator category that is
derived from the random access iterator category, the random access
overload will still be picked). You can't simply emulate this behavior with
enable_if by having a single enabler for random access iterators and a
single enabler_for input iterators, etc. because a random access iterator
IS an input iterator. The overload would be ambiguous. With a
language-level concepts feature, you can get concept-based overloading to
work entirely in the expected manner with no need for iterator categories,
no need for tag dispatching, and the implementation works fine in the
presence of user-provided concepts that refine standard iterator concepts.

-- 
-Matt Calabrese