158 lines
6.4 KiB
HTML
Executable File
158 lines
6.4 KiB
HTML
Executable File
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
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"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
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<!-- Copyright (c) Jeremy Siek and Andrew Lumsdaine 2000 -->
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<!-- Distributed under the Boost -->
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<!-- Software License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying -->
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<!-- file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt) -->
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<head>
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<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
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<meta name="generator" content=
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"HTML Tidy for Linux/x86 (vers 1 September 2005), see www.w3.org" />
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<title>Creating Concept Checking Classes</title>
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<link rel="stylesheet" href="../../rst.css" type="text/css" />
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</head>
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<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" link="#0000EE" text="#000000" vlink="#551A8B" alink=
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"#FF0000">
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<img src="../../boost.png" alt="C++ Boost" width="277" height=
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"86" /><br clear="none" />
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<h2><a name="creating-concept-checks" id="creating-concept-checks">Creating
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Concept Checking Classes</a></h2>
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<p>As an example of how to create a concept checking class template, we
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look at how to create the corresponding checks for the <a href=
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"http://www.boost.org/sgi/stl/InputIterator.html">InputIterator</a> concept.
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The complete definition is here:</p>
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<pre>
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template <class X>
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struct InputIterator
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: Assignable<X>, EqualityComparable<X>
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{
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private:
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typedef std::iterator_traits<X> t;
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public:
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typedef typename t::value_type value_type;
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typedef typename t::difference_type difference_type;
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typedef typename t::reference reference;
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typedef typename t::pointer pointer;
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typedef typename t::iterator_category iterator_category;
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BOOST_CONCEPT_ASSERT((SignedInteger<difference_type>));
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BOOST_CONCEPT_ASSERT((Convertible<iterator_category, std::input_iterator_tag>));
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BOOST_CONCEPT_USAGE(InputIterator)
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{
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X j(i); <font color=
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"green">// require copy construction</font>
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same_type(*i++,v); <font color=
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"green">// require postincrement-dereference returning value_type</font>
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X& x = ++j; <font color=
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"green">// require preincrement returning X&</font>
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}
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private:
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X i;
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value_type v;
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<font color=
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"green">// Type deduction will fail unless the arguments have the same type.</font>
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template <typename T>
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void same_type(T const&, T const&);
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};
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</pre>
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<h3>Walkthrough</h3>
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<p>First, as a convention we name the concept checking class after the
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concept. Next, since InputIterator is a refinement of Assignable and
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EqualityComparable, we derive its concept checking class from the checking
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classes for those other concepts. The library will automatically check for
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conformance to Assignable and EqualityComparable whenever it checks the
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InputIterator concept.</p>
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<p>Next, we declare the concept's <a href=
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"http://www.boost.org/more/generic_programming.html#associated_type">associated types</a>
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as member typedefs. The associated difference type is required to be a
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signed integer, and the iterator category has to be convertible to
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std::input_iterator_tag, so we assert those relationships. The syntax for
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accessing associated types through the concept-checking template mirrors
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the <a href=
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"http://www.generic-programming.org/languages/conceptcpp/">proposed</a>
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syntax for associated type access in C++0x Finally, we use the
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<code>BOOST_CONCEPT_USAGE</code> macro to declare the function that
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exercises all the concept's valid expressions. Note that at this point you
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may sometimes need to be a little creative: for example, to check that
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<code>*i++</code> returns the iterator's value type, we pass both values to
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the <code>same_type</code> member function template, which requires both
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arguments to have the same type, modulo references and cv-qualification.
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It's an imperfect check, but it's better than nothing.</p>
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<h3>Values for Usage Patterns Should Be Data Members</h3>
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<p>You may be wondering why we declared <code>i</code> and <code>v</code>
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as data members in the example above. Why didn't we simply write the
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following?</p>
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<pre>
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BOOST_CONCEPT_USAGE(InputIterator)
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{
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X i; <font color=
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"green">// create the values we need</font>
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value_type v;
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X j(i); <font color=
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"green">// require copy construction</font>
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same_type(*i++,v); <font color=
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"green">// require postincrement-dereference returning value_type</font>
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X& x = ++j; <font color=
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"green">// require preincrement returning X&</font>
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}
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</pre>
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<p>Unfortunately, that code wouldn't have worked out so well, because it
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unintentionally imposes the requirement that <code>X</code> and its value
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type are both default-constructible. On the other hand, since instances of
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the <code>InputIterator</code> template will never be constructed, the
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compiler never has to check how its data members will be constructed (C++
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Standard Section 14.7.1 9). For that reason you should <strong>always
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declare values needed for usage patterns as data members</strong>.</p>
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<p>These sorts of errors in concept definitions can be detected by the use
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of <a href="concept_covering.htm">Concept Archetypes</a>, but it's always
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better to avoid them pre-emptively.</p>
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<h3>Similarity to Proposed C++0x Language Support for Concepts</h3>
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<p>This library's syntaxes for concept refinement and for access of
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associated types mirrors the corresponding <a href=
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"http://www.generic-programming.org/languages/conceptcpp/">proposed</a>
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syntaxes in C++0x. However, C++0x will use
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“signatures” rather than usage patterns to
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describe the valid operations on types participating in a concept, so when
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converting your concept checking classes into language-supported concepts,
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you'll need to translate your usage function into a series of
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signatures.</p>
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<p><a href="./concept_covering.htm">Next: Concept Covering and
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Archetypes</a><br />
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<a href="./using_concept_check.htm">Prev: Using Concept
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Checks</a><br /></p>
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<hr />
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<table>
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<tr valign="top">
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<td nowrap="nowrap">Copyright © 2000</td>
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<td><a href="http://www.boost.org/people/jeremy_siek.htm">Jeremy Siek</a>(<a href=
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"mailto:jsiek@osl.iu.edu">jsiek@osl.iu.edu</a>) Andrew
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Lumsdaine(<a href="mailto:lums@osl.iu.edu">lums@osl.iu.edu</a>),
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2007 <a href="mailto:dave@boost-consulting.com">David Abrahams</a>.
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</tr>
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</table>
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</body>
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</html>
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