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2 Interoperability Revisited
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4
5:date: $Date$
6:copyright: Copyright Thomas Witt 2004.
7
8.. Distributed under the Boost
9.. Software License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying
10.. file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt)
11
12Problem
13=======
14
15The current iterator_facade specification makes it unneccessarily tedious to
16implement interoperable iterators.
17
18In the following text a simplified example of the current iterator_facade specification is used to
19illustrate the problem.
20
21In the current specification binary operators are implemented in the following way::
22
23  template <class Derived>
24  struct Facade
25  {
26  };
27
28  template <class T1, T2>
29  struct is_interoperable :
30    or_<
31         is_convertible<T1, T2>
32       , is_convertible<T2, T1>
33    >
34  {};
35
36  template<
37      class Derived1
38    , class Derived2
39  >
40  enable_if<is_interoperable<Derived1, Derived2>, bool> operator==(
41      Derived1 const& lhs
42    , Derived2 const& rhs
43  )
44  {
45    return static_cast<Derived1 const&>(lhs).equal_to(static_cast<Derived2 const&(rhs));
46  }
47
48The problem with this is that operator== always forwards to Derived1::equal_to. The net effect is that the
49following "obvious" implementation of to interoperable types does
50not quite work. ::
51
52  struct Mutable : Facade<Mutable>
53  {
54    bool equal_to(Mutable const&);
55  };
56
57  struct Constant : Facade<Constant>
58  {
59    Constant();
60    Constant(Constant const&);
61    Constant(Mutable const&);
62
63    ...
64
65    bool equal_to(Constant const&);
66  };
67
68  Constant c;
69  Mutable  m;
70
71  c == m; // ok, dispatched to Constant::equal_to
72  m == c; // !! error, dispatched to Mutable::equal_to
73
74  Instead the following "slightly" more complicated implementation is necessary
75
76  struct Mutable : Facade<Mutable>
77  {
78    template <class T>
79    enable_if<is_convertible<Mutable, T> || is_convertible<T, Mutable>, bool>::type equal_to(T const&);
80  };
81
82  struct Constant : Tag<Constant>
83  {
84    Constant();
85    Constant(Constant const&);
86    Constant(Mutable const&);
87
88    template <class T>
89    enable_if<is_convertible<Constant, T> || is_convertible<T, Constant>, bool>::type equal_to(T const&);
90  };
91
92Beside the fact that the code is significantly more complex to understand and to teach there is
93a major design problem lurking here. Note that in both types equal_to is a function template with
94an unconstrained argument T. This is necessary so that further types can be made interoperable with
95Mutable or Constant. Would Mutable be defined as   ::
96
97  struct Mutable : Facade<Mutable>
98  {
99    bool equal_to(Mutable const&);
100    bool equal_to(Constant const&);
101  };
102
103Constant and Mutable would still be interoperable but no further interoperable could be added
104without changing Mutable. Even if this would be considered acceptable the current specification forces
105a two way dependency between interoperable types. Note in the templated equal_to case this dependency
106is implicitly created when specializing equal_to.
107
108Solution
109========
110
111The two way dependency can be avoided by enabling type conversion in the binary operator
112implementation. Note that this is the usual way interoperability betwween types is achieved
113for binary operators and one reason why binary operators are usually implemented as non-members.
114
115A simple implementation of this strategy would look like this ::
116
117  template<
118      class T1
119    , class T2
120  >
121  struct interoperable_base :
122      if_<
123          is_convertible<
124              T2
125            , T1
126          >
127        , T1
128        , T2>
129  {};
130
131
132  template<
133      class Derived1
134    , class Derived2
135  >
136  enable_if<is_interoperable<Derived1, Derived2>, bool> operator==(
137      Derived1 const& lhs
138    , Derived2 const& rhs
139  )
140  {
141    typedef interoperable_base<
142                Derived1
143              , Derived2
144            >::type Base;
145
146    return static_cast<Base const&>(lhs).equal_to(static_cast<Derived2 const&(rhs));
147  }
148
149This way our original simple and "obvious" implementation would
150work again. ::
151
152  c == m; // ok, dispatched to Constant::equal_to
153  m == c; // ok, dispatched to Constant::equal_to, m converted to Constant
154
155The backdraw of this approach is that a possibly costly conversion of iterator objects
156is forced on the user even in cases where direct comparison could be implemented
157in a much more efficient way. This problem arises especially for iterator_adaptor
158specializations and can be significantly slow down the iteration over ranges. Given the fact
159that iteration is a very basic operation this possible performance degradation is not
160acceptable.
161
162Luckily whe can have our cake and eat it by a slightly more clever implementation of the binary
163operators. ::
164
165  template<
166      class Derived1
167    , class Derived2
168  >
169  enable_if<is_convertible<Derived2, Derived1>, bool> operator==(
170      Derived1 const& lhs
171    , Derived2 const& rhs
172  )
173  {
174    return static_cast<Derived1 const&>(lhs).equal_to(static_cast<Derived2 const&(rhs));
175  }
176
177  template<
178      class Derived1
179    , class Derived2
180  >
181  enable_if<is_convertible<Derived1, Derived2>, bool> operator==(
182      Derived1 const& lhs
183    , Derived2 const& rhs
184  )
185  {
186    return static_cast<Derived2 const&>(rhs).equal_to(static_cast<Derived1 const&(lhs));
187  }
188
189Given our simple and obvious definition of Mutable and Constant nothing has changed yet. ::
190
191  c == m; // ok, dispatched to Constant::equal_to, m converted to Constant
192  m == c; // ok, dispatched to Constant::equal_to, m converted to Constant
193
194But now the user can avoid the type conversion by supplying the
195appropriate overload in Constant ::
196
197  struct Constant : Facade<Constant>
198  {
199    Constant();
200    Constant(Constant const&);
201    Constant(Mutable const&);
202
203    ...
204
205    bool equal_to(Constant const&);
206    bool equal_to(Mutable const&);
207  };
208
209  c == m; // ok, dispatched to Constant::equal_to(Mutable const&), no conversion
210  m == c; // ok, dispatched to Constant::equal_to(Mutable const&), no conversion
211
212This definition of operator== introduces a possible ambiguity when both types are convertible
213to each other. I don't think this is a problem as this behaviour is the same with concrete types.
214I.e.  ::
215
216  struct A {};
217
218  bool operator==(A, A);
219
220  struct B { B(A); };
221
222  bool operator==(B, B);
223
224  A a;
225  B b(a);
226
227  a == b; // error, ambiguous overload
228
229Effect
230======
231
232Iterator implementations using iterator_facade look exactly as if they were
233"hand-implemented" (I am working on better wording).
234
235a) Less burden for the user
236
237b) The definition (standardese) of specialized adpters might be easier
238   (This has to be proved yet)
239