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  15. <td><h2>Safe Numerics</h2></td>
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  22. <a name="safe_numerics.pending_issues"></a>Pending Issues</h2></div></div></div>
  23. <div class="toc"><dl class="toc">
  24. <dt><span class="section"><a href="pending_issues.html#idm130201646352"><code class="computeroutput">safe_base</code> Only Works for Scalar Types</a></span></dt>
  25. <dt><span class="section"><a href="pending_issues.html#idm130201605904">Concepts are Defined but Not Enforced.</a></span></dt>
  26. <dt><span class="section"><a href="pending_issues.html#idm130201600176">Other Pending Issues</a></span></dt>
  27. </dl></div>
  28. <p>The library is under development. There are a number of issues still
  29. pending.</p>
  30. <div class="section">
  31. <div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
  32. <a name="idm130201646352"></a><code class="computeroutput">safe_base</code> Only Works for Scalar Types</h3></div></div></div>
  33. <p>The following is paraphrased from an issue raised by Andrzej
  34. Krzemie&#324;ski as a <a href="https://github.com/robertramey/safe_numerics/issues/44" target="_top">github
  35. issue</a>. It touches upon fundamental ideas behind the library and
  36. how these ideas as the implementation of the library collided with
  37. reality.</p>
  38. <p><span class="quote">&#8220;<span class="quote">In the current implementation safe&lt;T&gt; will only work
  39. with T being a C++ scalar type. Therefore making a general type
  40. requirements that say what operations are allowed is superfluous, and
  41. confusing (because it implies that safe&lt;&gt; is more
  42. generic.</span>&#8221;</span></p>
  43. <p>When I started out, It became clear that I wanted "safe" types to
  44. look like "numeric" types. It also became clear pretty soon that there was
  45. going to be significant template meta-programming in the implementation.
  46. Normal type traits like std::is_integer are defined in the std namespace
  47. and one is discouraged from extending it. Also I needed some compile time
  48. "max" and "lowest" values. This lead me to base the design on
  49. std::numeric_limits. But std::numeric limits is inherently extensible to
  50. any "numeric" type. For example, money is a numeric type but not an
  51. intrinsic types. So it seemed that I needed to define a "numeric" concept
  52. which required that there be an implementation of std::numeric_limits for
  53. any type T - such as money in this case. When I'm doubt - I tend to think
  54. big.</p>
  55. <p>For now though I'm not going to address it. For what it's worth, my
  56. preference would be to do something like: </p>
  57. <pre class="programlisting"><span class="keyword">template</span><span class="special">&lt;</span><span class="keyword">typename</span> <span class="identifier">T</span><span class="special">&gt;</span>
  58. <span class="keyword">struct</span> <span class="identifier">range</span> <span class="special">{</span>
  59. <span class="identifier">T</span> <span class="identifier">m_lowest</span><span class="special">;</span>
  60. <span class="identifier">T</span> <span class="identifier">m_highest</span><span class="special">;</span>
  61. <span class="comment">// default implementation</span>
  62. <span class="identifier">range</span><span class="special">(</span>
  63. <span class="keyword">const</span> <span class="special">&amp;</span> <span class="identifier">T</span> <span class="identifier">t_min</span><span class="special">,</span>
  64. <span class="keyword">const</span> <span class="special">&amp;</span> <span class="identifier">T</span> <span class="identifier">t_max</span>
  65. <span class="special">)</span> <span class="special">:</span>
  66. <span class="identifier">m_lowest</span><span class="special">(</span><span class="identifier">std</span><span class="special">::</span><span class="identifier">numeric_limits</span><span class="special">&lt;</span><span class="identifier">T</span><span class="special">&gt;</span><span class="special">::</span><span class="identifier">lowest</span><span class="special">(</span><span class="identifier">t_min</span><span class="special">)</span><span class="special">,</span>
  67. <span class="identifier">m_highest</span><span class="special">(</span><span class="identifier">std</span><span class="special">::</span><span class="identifier">numeric_limits</span><span class="special">&lt;</span><span class="identifier">T</span><span class="special">&gt;</span><span class="special">::</span><span class="identifier">max</span><span class="special">(</span><span class="identifier">t_max</span><span class="special">)</span>
  68. <span class="special">{</span><span class="special">}</span>
  69. <span class="special">}</span><span class="special">;</span></pre>
  70. <p>Then redeclare <code class="computeroutput">safe_base</code>, etc., accordingly.</p>
  71. <p>Also not that for C++20, template value parameters are no longer
  72. restricted to integer primitive types buy maybe class types as well. This
  73. means the library maybe extended to user class types without changing the
  74. current template signatures.</p>
  75. </div>
  76. <div class="section">
  77. <div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
  78. <a name="idm130201605904"></a>Concepts are Defined but Not Enforced.</h3></div></div></div>
  79. <p>The following is paraphrased from an issue raised by Andrzej
  80. Krzemie&#324;ski as a <a href="https://github.com/robertramey/safe_numerics/issues/46" target="_top">github
  81. issue</a>.</p>
  82. <p><span class="quote">&#8220;<span class="quote">You do not need a concept to constrain anything with it, in
  83. your library. Or is the purpose of the Type requirements to show in detail
  84. what it means that safe&lt;T&gt; is a 'drop-in replacement for
  85. T?</span>&#8221;</span></p>
  86. <p>Right - currently I don't use the concept to constrain anything.
  87. They are currently a purely "conceptual" tool to keep the design from
  88. getting off track. This is common with other libraries such as the C++
  89. standard library where the concepts are defined but not enforced by
  90. compile time predicates. Hopefully in future that might change - see
  91. below</p>
  92. <p><span class="quote">&#8220;<span class="quote">If you want to extend safe&lt;T&gt; for other integer types,
  93. Type requirement still need to be fixed:</span>&#8221;</span></p>
  94. <p>Hmmmm - I'm not quite sure that this is true. One thing that IS true
  95. is the the interface and implementation of the library will need to be
  96. enhanced to permit "safe" to be applied to user defined types. This is
  97. apparent now, but as my brain can only comprehend the library one piece at
  98. a time, this design feature was lost during the implementation. In
  99. implementing co-existence of floats with safe integers, I did refactor the
  100. implementation in a way which I believe my eventually permit the
  101. application to any user supplied T which implements all the required
  102. operations of Numeric types. So as it is now this is pending. If the
  103. library were to become widely used, there might be motivation to do this.
  104. Time will tell. So for now I'm leaving these in the documentation and
  105. code, even though they are not actually used.</p>
  106. </div>
  107. <div class="section">
  108. <div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
  109. <a name="idm130201600176"></a>Other Pending Issues</h3></div></div></div>
  110. <div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; ">
  111. <li class="listitem"><p>The library is currently limited to integers. If there is
  112. interest, it could be extended to floats and possible to user
  113. defined types.</p></li>
  114. <li class="listitem"><p>Although care has been taken to make the library portable, at
  115. least some parts of the implementation - particularly
  116. <code class="computeroutput">checked</code> integer arithmetic - depend upon two's
  117. complement representation of integers. Hence the library is probably
  118. not currently portable to all other possible C++ architectures.
  119. These days, this is unlikely to be a limitation in practice.
  120. Starting with C++20, integer arithmetic will be guaranteed by the
  121. C++ standard to be two's complement.</p></li>
  122. <li class="listitem"><p><code class="computeroutput">std::common_type</code> is used in a variety of generic
  123. libraries, including std::chrono. Without a specialization for
  124. <code class="computeroutput">safe&lt;T&gt;</code>s one cannot use the safe wrappers e.g. as
  125. a representation for <code class="computeroutput">std::chrono::duration</code>.</p></li>
  126. </ul></div>
  127. </div>
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  131. <td align="right"><div class="copyright-footer">Copyright &#169; 2012-2018 Robert Ramey<p><a href="http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt" target="_top">Subject to Boost
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