Re: [container] static_string ?

From: Andrey Semashev (andrey.semashev_at_[hidden])
Date: 2019-09-14 06:15:43

On 2019-09-14 02:19, Vinnie Falco via Boost wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 3:58 PM Ion Gaztañaga via Boost <boost_at_[hidden]>
> wrote:
> 
>> On 13/09/2019 14:43, Vinnie Falco via Boost wrote:
>>> On Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 3:28 AM <julien.blanc_at_tgcm.eu> wrote:
>>>> Why not use a static_vector<char> ?
>>>
>>> static_vector is missing all of the string-oriented algorithms.
>>>
>>>> There is a cost associated with maintaining the null termination of
>> strings
>>>
>>> Yeah, that's easily fixed. We can add the function
>>> fixed_capacity_string::c_str() which will put the terminator on and
>>> return a pointer, this way the mutating operations do not need to
>>> always leave the string in a null terminated state.
>>
>> But then c_str() would not be "const noexcept".
>>
> Is that a big deal? I dont think so
> ...

It is. Obtaining C-style string without exceptions is important e.g. in 
exception::what(). It is also not uncommon to want to process strings in 
a non-throwing fashion involving C standard library, and it requires 
null-terminated strings. Also note that c_str() is an observer, which is 
supposed to not modify the string (IOW must be callable on a const 
string). In general, I see throwing and mutating c_str() as a major 
hinderance. C-style strings are still wide-spead, regardless of how much 
we love string_view.