I tend to disagree. In my opinion even this: hash.update( as_bytes( span{st} ) ); Is better than this: hash.update( v.data(), v.size() ); Something like as_byte_span is just an extra nicety, but I think it is easy to underestimate how you can avoid mistakes with the first example as opposed to the second. On Wed, Dec 4, 2024 at 2:38 PM Peter Dimov via Boost <boost@lists.boost.org> wrote:
Claudio DeSouza wrote:
So I switched `update` back to void const*. The "type safety" gains aren't worth the substantial decrease in usability.
In my experience, the usability/readability gains are on the side of using span. This may involve providing extensions, but at the end of the day you get more C++-friendly constructs.
Well... no, they aren't.
Suppose you have the data in `std::vector<unsigned char> v`. With the current `update` that's
hash.update( v.data(), v.size() );
And if you have the data in `std::string st`, that's
hash.update( st.data(), st.size() );
Now suppose `update` takes `span<unsigned char const>`. For `v`, this is
hash.update( v );
which is nice; but for `st`, that would be (assuming C++17)
hash.update( as_bytes( span{st} ) );
which is not so nice.
In Chromium you have as_byte_span, which does as_bytes(span(x)), so it'd be better.
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