1 Abstract

When the polymorphic allocator infrastructure was moved from the Library Fundamentals TS to the C++17 working draft, pmr::resource_adaptor was left behind. It is not clear whether this was an omission or a deliberately conservative move, but the absence of resource_adaptor in the standard is a hole that must be plugged for a smooth transition to the ubiquitous use of polymorphic_allocator, as proposed in P0339 and P0987. This paper proposes that pmr::resource_adaptor be moved from the LFTS and added to the C++20 working draft.

2 Motivation

It is expected that more and more classes, especially those that would not otherwise be templates, will use pmr::polymorphic_allocator<byte> to allocate memory. In order to pass an allocator to one of these classes, the allocator must either already be a polymorphic allocator, or must be adapted from a non-polymorphic allocator. The process of adaptation is facilitated by pmr::resource_adaptor, which is a simple class template, has been in the LFTS for a long time, and has been fully implemented. It is therefore a low-risk, high-benefit component to add to the C++ WP.

3 Impact on the standard

pmr::resource_adaptor is a pure library extension requiring no changes to the core language nor to any existing classes in the standard library.

4 Proposal

This proposal is based on the Library Fundamentals TS v2, N4617 and the July 2018 draft of the C++ WP, N4762.

In section 19.12.1 [mem.res.syn] of the C++ WD, add the following declaration immediately after the declaration of operator!=(const polymorphic_allocator...):

// 19.12.x resource adaptor
// The name resource_adaptor_imp is for exposition only.
template <class Allocator> class resource_adaptor_imp;

template <class Allocator>
  using resource_adaptor = resource_adaptor_imp<
    typename allocator_traits<Allocator>::template rebind_alloc<byte>>;

Insert between sections 19.12.3 [mem.poly.allocator.class] and 19.12.4 [mem.res.global] of the C++ WP, the whole of section 8.7 [memory.resource.adaptor] from the LFTS v2, including all of its subsections, renumbered appropriately.

5 References

N4762: Working Draft, Standard for Programming Language C++, Richard Smith, editor, 2018-07-07.

N4617: Programming Languages - C++ Extensions for Library Fundamentals, Version 2, 2016-11-28.

P0339: polymorphic_allocator<> as a vocabulary type, Pablo Halpern, 2018-04-02.

P0987: polymorphic_allocator instead of type-erasure, Pablo Halpern, 2018-04-02.