Peter Dimov wrote:
Do not give much weight to such char_traits definitions, issue 6.17 notwithstanding. The proposed extensions treat std::string as a container, not as... whatever the other aspect of std::string is supposed to be. That is, the hash value of a string s is defined as the hash value of the range s.begin(), s.end().
If you look at the container requirements table, you'll see that container equality is defined in terms of operator== on the elements.
The (bold enough) author of a string that is not a container can provide an overload of hash_value (in the namespace of the corresponding traits class) with the appropriate semantics.
Well, partly I just feel like I should go along with the current opinion of the standards comittee. But here I do agree with them. 'std::equal_to<std::string>' is defined as using char_traits. And if the hash function doesn't match std::equal_to, then I believe it's broken. Regardless of whether using char_traits was a bad idea in the first place. Having said that, it is your design, so your opinion is very important.