Improve the std::span section.

This commit is contained in:
Anthony Calandra
2023-02-17 19:58:05 -05:00
parent b6c4515108
commit 8183b4bbdb
2 changed files with 66 additions and 50 deletions

View File

@@ -482,40 +482,48 @@ std::osyncstream{std::cout} << "The value of x is:" << x << std::endl;
```
### std::span
A span is a view (i.e. non-owning) of a container providing bounds-checked access to a contiguous group of elements. Since views do not own their elements they are cheap to construct and copy -- a simplified way to think about views is they are holding references to their data. Spans can be dynamically-sized or fixed-sized.
A span is a view (i.e. non-owning) of a container providing bounds-checked access to a contiguous group of elements. Since views do not own their elements they are cheap to construct and copy -- a simplified way to think about views is they are holding references to their data. As opposed to maintaining a pointer/iterator and length field, a span wraps both of those up in a single object.
Spans can be dynamically-sized or fixed-sized (known as their *extent*). Fixed-sized spans benefit from bounds-checking.
Span doesn't propogate const so to construct a read-only span use `std::span<const T>`.
Example: using a dynamically-sized span to print integers from various containers.
```c++
void f(std::span<int> ints) {
std::for_each(ints.begin(), ints.end(), [](auto i) {
// ...
});
void print_ints(std::span<const int> ints) {
for (const auto n : ints) {
std::cout << n << std::endl;
}
}
std::vector<int> v = {1, 2, 3};
f(v);
std::array<int, 3> a = {1, 2, 3};
f(a);
print_ints(std::vector{ 1, 2, 3 });
print_ints(std::array<int, 5>{ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 });
int a[10] = { 0 };
print_ints(a);
// etc.
```
Example: as opposed to maintaining a pointer and length field, a span wraps both of those up in a single container.
Example: a statically-sized span will fail to compile for containers that don't match the extent of the span.
```c++
constexpr size_t LENGTH_ELEMENTS = 3;
int* arr = new int[LENGTH_ELEMENTS]; // arr = {0, 0, 0}
void print_three_ints(std::span<const int, 3> ints) {
for (const auto n : ints) {
std::cout << n << std::endl;
}
}
// Fixed-sized span which provides a view of `arr`.
std::span<int, LENGTH_ELEMENTS> span = arr;
span[1] = 1; // arr = {0, 1, 0}
print_three_ints(std::vector{ 1, 2, 3 }); // ERROR
print_three_ints(std::array<int, 5>{ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 }); // ERROR
int a[10] = { 0 };
print_three_ints(a); // ERROR
// Dynamic-sized span which provides a view of `arr`.
std::span<int> d_span = arr;
span[0] = 1; // arr = {1, 1, 0}
```
```c++
constexpr size_t LENGTH_ELEMENTS = 3;
int* arr = new int[LENGTH_ELEMENTS];
std::array<int, 3> b = { 1, 2, 3 };
print_three_ints(b); // OK
std::span<int, LENGTH_ELEMENTS> span = arr; // OK
std::span<double, LENGTH_ELEMENTS> span2 = arr; // ERROR
std::span<int, 1> span3 = arr; // ERROR
// You can construct a span manually if required:
std::vector c{ 1, 2, 3 };
print_three_ints(std::span<const int, 3>{ c.data(), 3 }); // OK: set pointer and length field.
print_three_ints(std::span<const int, 3>{ c.cbegin(), c.cend() }); // OK: use iterator pairs.
```
### Bit operations