P0330R6
Literal Suffixes for ptrdiff_t and size_t

Published Proposal,

Authors:
Rein Halbersma
Audience:
EWG, CWG
Project:
ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG21 14882: Programming Language — C++
Latest:
https://thephd.github.io/vendor/future_cxx/papers/d0330.html

Abstract

This paper proposes core language suffixes for size_t and ptrdiff_t and their associated types.

1. Revision History

1.1. Revision 6 - June 17th, 2019

1.2. Revision 5 - February 8th, 2019

1.3. Revision 4 - January 21st, 2019

1.4. Revision 3 - November 26th, 2018

1.5. Revision 2 - October 1st, 2018

1.6. Revision 1 - October 12th, 2017

1.7. Revision 0 - November 21st, 2014

2. Feedback on Revisions

Polls are in the form Strongly in Favor | Favor | Neutral | Against | Strongly Against. The polls on Revision 1 were as follows, from an EWG meeting with joint LWG/EWG participation at the WG21 2017 Albuquerque meeting.

Proposal as presented, i.e., are we OK with the library solution going forward?

0 | 6 | 5 | 7 | 4

We translated this as strong discouragement to pursue this feature as a set of user-defined literals. A second poll was taken.

Do we want to solve this problem with a language feature?

2 | 15 | 0 | 2 | 2

We considered this overwhelming consensus for it to be a language feature instead, culminating in this paper after much feedback.

3. Motivation

Currently With Proposal
std::vector<int> v{0, 1, 2, 3};
for (auto i = 0u, s = v.size(); i < s; ++i) {
	/* use both i and v[i] */
}
⚠️ - Compiles on 32-bit, truncates (maybe with warnings) on 64-bit
std::vector<int> v{0, 1, 2, 3};
for (auto i = 0, s = v.size(); i < s; ++i) {
	/* use both i and v[i] */
}
❌ - Compilation error
 




std::vector<int> v{0, 1, 2, 3};
for (auto i = 0uz, s = v.size(); i < s; ++i) {
	/* use both i and v[i] */
}


 
✔️ - Compiles with no warnings on 32-bit or 64-bit
 
auto it = std::find(boost::counting_iterator(0), 
	boost::counting_iterator(v.size()), 3);
❌ - Compilation error
 
auto it = std::find(boost::counting_iterator(0uz), 
	boost::counting_iterator(v.size()), 3uz);
✔️ - Compiles with no warnings on 32-bit or 64-bit
std::size_t space_param = /* ... */;
std::size_t clamped_space = std::max(0, 
	std::min(54, space_param)
);
vec.reserve(clamped_space);
std::span<int> s = /* init */;
std::ptrdiff_t clamped_space = std::max(0, 
	std::min(24, std::ssize(s))
);
❌ - Compilation error; OR,
⚠️ - Compiles, but becomes excessively verbose with static_cast or (type) casts
std::size_t space_param = /* ... */;
std::size_t clamped_space = std::max(0uz, 
	std::min(54uz, space_param)
);
vec.reserve(clamped_space);
std::span<int> s = /* init */;
std::ptrdiff_t clamped_space = std::max(0t, 
	std::min(24t, std::ssize(s))
);
✔️ - Compiles with no warnings on 32-bit or 64-bit

Consider this very simple code to print an index and its value:

std::vector<int> v{0, 1, 2, 3};
for (auto i = 0; i < v.size(); ++i) {
	std::cout << i << ": " << v[i] << '\n';
}

This code can lead to the following warnings:

main.cpp: In function 'int main()':
main.cpp:warning: comparison of integer expressions 
of different signedness: 'int' and 'long unsigned int' [-Wsign-compare]
    for (auto i = 0; i < v.size(); ++i) {
                     ~~^~~~~~~~~~

It grows worse if a user wants to cache the size rather than query it per-iteration:

std::vector<int> v{0, 1, 2, 3};
for (auto i = 0, s = v.size(); i < s; ++i) {
	/* use both i and v[i] */
}

Resulting in a hard compiler error:

main.cpp: In function 'int main()':
main.cpp:8:10: error: inconsistent deduction 
for 'auto': 'int' and then 'long unsigned int'
     for (auto i = 0, s = v.size(); i < s; ++i) {
          ^~~~

This paper proposes adding a zus literal suffix that creates size_t literals, making the following warning-free:

for (auto i = 0zu; i < v.size(); ++i) {
	std::cout << i << ": " << v[i] << '\n';
}

It also makes this code compile without error: no matching function for call to 'min(int, std::vector<int>::size_type)' and similar:

#include <algorithm>
#include <vector>

int main() {
	std::vector<int> v;
	/* work with v... */

	std::size_t clamped_space = std::max(0zu, 
		std::min(54zu, v.size()) // error without suffix
	);

	return 0;
}

More generally:

4. Design

Following the feedback from §2 Feedback on Revisions, we have dropped the std::support_literals User-Defined Literals and chose a Core Language Literal Suffix. We opine that it would better serve the needs of addressing the motivation.

As a language feature, the design of the suffixes becomes much simpler. The core language only has one format for its integer literal suffixes: the letter(s), with an optional u on either side of the letter(s) to make it unsigned, with the signed variant being the default on most architectures. We did not want to use s because s might mean short to some and there are people working on the short float paper currently wherein a suffix such as sf might surface. In this case, it would make some small amount of sense for the suffix s to also work for shorts, albeit that might have unforeseen consequences with standard-defined library literals.

The literal suffixes z and uz/zu alongside t and ut/tu were chosen to represent signed/unsigned size_t and ptrdiff_t, respectively. decltype(0t) will yield ptrdiff_t and decltype(0uz)/decltype(0zu) will yield size_t. Like other case-insensitive language literal suffixes, it will accept both Z/T and z/t (and U and u alongside of it). This follows the current convention of the core language to be able to place u and z/t in any order / any case for the suffix.

4.1. Using t for ptrdiff_t and zu for size_t?

Previous invocations of this paper used only z and uz/zu, mostly because there was no named type that represented what a signed std::size_t or an unsigned std::ptrdiff_t was. This made it awkward to place into the C++ wording for the author writing this paper. However, Core Wording experts (thanks Hubert Tong and Jens Maurer!) have helped elucidate that while the type may not have a formal name or type alias in the language, it is perfectly valid to say "the unsigned/signed integer type corresponding to {X}".

4.2. Why bother making a suffix for ptrdiff_t?

With the inclusion of a ssize() free function coming to the standard, this paper advocates for keeping a literal for ptrdiff_t. As the paper was going through the Library group earlier, span's design decisions were not coming to a head and thusly the dialogue did not bring this up. With span now headed into C++20 and ssize() with it, having a modifier for ptrdiff_t is useful for consistency and helpful for success in a world where developers employ a lot of auto and decltype.

4.3. But what about {insert favorite suffix here}?

We designed the suffixes based on feedback from both EWG and Core members in the 3 mailing list posts corresponding to that discussion. We will take additional polls on the actual suffix desired by the Community before EWG.

For example, it was made clear during discussion that while some people would not lose any sleep over a suffix scheme such as z for ptrdiff_t and uz/zu for size_t, others were concerned that architectures (such as armv7-apple-darwin) produced answers such as decltype(0zu) = unsigned long for size_t and decltype(0z) = int for ptrdiff_t. They have the same range exponent on this architecture but the type disconnect would likely bother some folks. The current scheme is to avoid such a pairing of incongruent types.

4.4. What about the fixed/least/max (unsigned) int types?

This paper does not propose suffixes for the fixed size, at-least size, and max size integral types in the standard library or the language. This paper is focusing exclusively on ptrdiff_t and size_t. We have also been made aware of another paper which may handle this separately and considers all the design space necessary for such. We feel it would be best left to LEWG to handle such a paper, since they are closer to library types.

5. Impact on the Standard

This feature is purely an extension of the language and has, to the best of our knowledge, no conflict with existing or currently proposed features. z and t are currently not a literal suffix in the language. As a proof of concept, it has a patch in GCC already according to this paper by Ed Smith-Rowland.

6. Proposed wording and Feature Test Macros

The following wording is relative to [n4800].

6.1. Proposed Feature Test Macro

The recommended feature test macros are __cpp_ptrdiff_t_suffix and __cpp_size_t_suffix.

6.2. Intent

The intent of this paper is to propose 2 language suffixes for integral literals of specific types. One is for ptrdiff_t, one is for size_t. We follow the conventions set out for other literals in the standard. We define the suffix to produce types size_t and ptrdiff_t similar to how §5.13.7 Pointer Literals [lex.nullptr] introduces std::nullptr_t.

6.3. Proposed Wording

Modify §5.13.2 Integer Literals [lex.icon] with additional suffixes:

integer-suffix:
unsigned-suffix long-suffixopt
unsigned-suffix long-long-suffixopt
unsigned-suffix ptrdiff-suffixopt
unsigned-suffix size-suffixopt
long-suffix unsigned-suffixopt
long-long-suffix unsigned-suffixopt
ptrdiff-suffix unsigned-suffixopt
size-suffix unsigned-suffixopt

unsigned-suffix: one of
 u U

long-suffix: one of
 l L

long-long-suffix: one of
 ll LL

size-suffix: one of
 z Z

ptrdiff-suffix: one of
 t t

Append to §5.13.2 Integer Literals [lex.icon]'s Table 7 four additional entries:

Suffix Decimal literal Binary, octal, or hexadecimal literal
t or T ptrdiff_t ptrdiff_t
Both u or U
and t or T
the unsigned integer type corresponding to ptrdiff_t the unsigned integer type corresponding to ptrdiff_t
z or Z the signed integer type corresponding to size_t the signed integer type corresponding to size_t
Both u or U
and z or Z
size_t size_t

Append to §14.8 Predefined macro names [cpp.predefined]'s Table 17 with one additional entry:

Macro name Value
__cpp_ptrdiff_t_suffix 201902L
__cpp_size_t_suffix 201902L

7. Acknowledgements

Thank you to Rein Halbersma, who started this paper and put in the necessary work for r0 and r1. Thank you to Walter E. Brown, who acted as locum on this paper before the Committee twice and gave us valuable feedback on wording. Thank you to Lounge<C++>'s Cicada for encouraging us to write this paper. Thank you to Hubert Tong and Jens Maurer for giving us a few pointers on where in the Core Language to modify things for such a paper and what words to use. Thank you to Tim Song for wording advice.

We appreciate your guidance as we learn to be a better Committee member and represent the C++ community’s needs more more efficiently and effectively in the coming months.

References

Informative References

[GCC-IMPLEMENTATION]
Ed Smith-Rowland. [[C++ PATCH]] Implement C++2a P0330R2 - Literal Suffixes for ptrdiff_t and size_t. October 21st, 2018. URL: https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc-patches/2018-10/msg01278.html
[N4762]
ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG21 - The C++ Standards Committee; Richard Smith. N4762- Working Draft, Standard for Programming Language C++. May 10th, 2018. URL: http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2018/n4762.pdf
[N4778]
ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG21 - The C++ Standards Committee; Richard Smith. N4778 - Working Draft, Standard for Programming Language C++. November 26th, 2018. URL: http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2018/n4778.pdf
[N4800]
ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG21 - The C++ Standards Committee; Richard Smith. N4800 - Working Draft, Standard for Programming Language C++. January 21st, 2019. URL: http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2019/n4800.pdf