std::string Gotcha

· c++
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std::string has some useful features, but be careful.

std::string fill constructor

One of the features of std::string that I use a fair amount is the fill constructor. The signature looks like:

std::string(size_t count, char c)

The created string will have count copies of the character c. It is nice to create fillers for aligning output and to initialize strings you will use as buffers to a known state.

std::string one = "This is a very long string";
std::string two = "short string";

std::cout << one << "\n";
std::cout << std::string(two.size()-one.size(), ' ') 
          << two << "\n";

( Of course, with the fmt library coming our way in c++20, there will be better ways to do this. ) (Yes, you could use std::setw() and std::right() )

So, whats the catch?

Uniform Initialization

In order to support in-line initialization of aggregates (e.g. like std::vector), C++ adopted “Uniform Initialization” - a syntax that used braces to form constructor calls.


// This worked in C++03 
int arr[] = { 1, 2, 3, 4 };

// But this did not. It DOES in C++11 and above
std::vector<int> vec - { 1, 2, 3, 4};

But, the standard also made it so you can use it in just about any situation

class Foo {
    Foo(int a, int b);
}

Foo f{1, 2};
auto g = Foo{1, 2};

Using the brace format is to be preferred in most situations, if for no other reason, it does not allow you to narrow a result. So, given class Foo from above, this is an error:

// ERROR - narrowing
Foo h{1L, 2};

// Not an error though narrowing will happen
// -Wnarrowing is your friend
Foo z(1L, 2);

Fine, we’ll be all modern and change our above alignment code to say:

std::cout << std::string{two.size()-one.size(), ' '}

oops Compiler fails on that with a narrowing warning - going from unsigned long int (size_t) to char.

So, what is going on?

Initializer List

Before Uniform Initialization, there was the initializer list - a type you could use to overload your class’s constructor to take a list of objects.

std::vector, for instance has a constructor that looks like:

vector( std::initializer_list<T> init,
        const Allocator& alloc = Allocator() );

When the compiler see a line that looks like either of these two, it will roll the brace enclosed values into a std::initializer_list and hand it to the overloaded constructor.

std::vector<int> a = { 1, 2, 3 };

std::vector<int> b{1, 2, 3};

But that b contains trouble. Vector also has a constructor:

explicit vector( size_type count );

So, what does this initialization do?

std::vector<int> c{3}

Is that a call to the initializer_list overload with one item? Or a call to size_type overload with value 3?

As it turns out, it is a call to the initializer_list overload and you will end up with a vector of length one with the one entry initialized to the value 3.

So, what does that have to do with our compile error on std::string?

Same Stuff Different Type

Turns out that std::string also has an initializer_list constructor. This allows you to do things like :

std::string foo = { 'a', 'b', 'c' };

auto baz = std::string{'a', 'b'};

The baz line is our clue. When we wrote

std::cout << std::string{two.size()-one.size(), ' '}

The compiler decided that we were trying to call the initializer_list version of the constructor (with two values) since size_t can be converted to a char. But narrowing is not allowed, so failure.

Because of this odd quirk, we will have to fall back to the classic constructor syntax for this particular overload.

Lessons

  • The `std::string`` fill constructor is fun.
  • Uniform Initialization isn’t uniform.
  • Be careful out there.

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