On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 5:00 AM, Mathias Gaunard < mathias.gaunard@ens-lyon.org> wrote:
On 16/11/12 06:30, Jeffrey Lee Hellrung, Jr. wrote:
How is this different from (say) contiguous_range< char > /
contiguous_range< char const > ? I can imagine a contiguous_range<T> that wraps a pair of T*s, which would seem to be a simple generalization of your proposed string_ref.
It isn't. The only difference is that string_ref provides an interface for substring operations, similar to std::string but without returning copies of the data, hence the string in the name.
Nothing here sounds specific to strings other than naming. That's why it seems like unnecessary specificity to me. IMHO, I would think typedef contiguous_range< char > string_ref; typedef contiguous_range< char const > string_cref; would be better, and if you want an interface with names specifically tailored to strings, make then free functions. (And, no, contiguous_range does not exist in Boost, but given we already have a model of it in the proposed string_ref, it seems like a simple matter to provide it.) - Jeff