Jonathan Turkanis wrote:
4. Thorsten asks why the widening and narrowing functions shouldn't be non-member functions. One answer is that code conversion can be (slightly) more efficient if a large buffer is used. Making the core conversion functions member functions allows buffers to be used for several string conversions.
Hmmm ... This is true, but unfortunately doesn't apply to the version I posted. To take advantage of a large buffer, the input would have to be presented in a manner that gives the implementaion access to underlying characters arrays. (This would be the case if, e.g., the input were basic_strings, so that data() could be used, or if there were a standard iterator category 'Contiguous Traversal': http://tinyurl.com/4wynl.) I think the added flexibility of the overloads taking iterators is more significant than the ability to buffer. Jonathan