Applied Bjarne's and Neil's feedback

This commit is contained in:
hsutter 2017-05-24 11:51:39 -07:00
parent a0137d587d
commit 444f7040e3

View File

@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
by Herb Sutter
updated 2017-04-17
updated 2017-05-24
## Overview: "Is this document a tutorial or a FAQ?"
@ -21,10 +21,16 @@ First look at the [C++ Core Guidelines](https://github.com/isocpp/CppCoreGuideli
You can try out the examples in this document on all major compilers and platforms using [this GSL reference implementation](https://github.com/microsoft/gsl).
# gsl::span: "What is gsl::span for?"
# gsl::span: "What is gsl::span, and what is it for?"
`gsl::span` is a replacement for `(pointer, length)` pairs to refer to a sequence of contiguous objects. It can be thought of as a pointer to an array, but that knows its bounds.
For example, a `span<int,7>` refers to a sequence of seven contiguous `int`s.
A `span` does not own the elements it points to. It is not a container like an `array` or a `vector`, it is a view into the contents of such a container.
## span parameters: "How should I choose between span and traditional (ptr, length) parameters?"
In new code, prefer the bounds-checkable `span<T>` instead of separate pointer and length parameters. In older code, adopt `span` where reasonable as you maintain the code.
@ -103,11 +109,6 @@ void dangerous_process_ints(int* p, size_t n) {
for (auto i = 0; i < n; ++i) {
p[i] = next_character();
}
// or:
// while (n--) {
// *p = next_character();
//}
}
~~~
@ -121,6 +122,14 @@ void process_ints(span<int> s) {
}
~~~
Note that this is bounds-safe with zero overhead, because there is no range check needed -- the range-`for` loop is known by construction to not exceed the range's bounds.
## Element access: "How do I access a single element in a span?"
Use `myspan[offset]` to subscript, or equivalently use `iter + offset` wheren `iter` is a `span<T>::iterator`. Both are range-checked.
## Sub-spans: "What if I need a subrange of a span?"
@ -254,7 +263,7 @@ void serialize(span<const byte>); // can't forget const, the first test call sit
void f(span<widget> s) {
// ...
// serialize one object's bytes (incl. padding)
serialize(s.as_bytes()); // ok
serialize(as_bytes(s)); // ok
}
~~~