std::ranges::contains

Document #: P2302R3
Date: 2021-02-10
Project: Programming Language C++
Audience: Library Evolution Working Group
Reply-to: Christopher Di Bella
<>

1 Abstract

P2302 proposes two algorithms: one that checks whether or not a range contains an element, and one that checks whether or not a range contains a subrange.

2 Revision history

2.1 R2

2.2 R1

2.3 R0

3 Motivation

At present, it isn’t immediately possible to query whether or not any range —other than a C++23 standard string type— contains an element. [P1679R3] links basic_string[_view]::contains with basic_string[_view]::starts_with and basic_string[_view]::ends_with. Although C++ has done without a dedicated contains algorithm for over twenty years, it’d be unfortunate if we only strings had a contains algorithm.

This functionality is useful for any input range, when the user wants to know whether or not their range simply contains a value. Up until C++20, we’ve had to write stdr::find(r, value) != stdr::end(r) to determine if a single value is inside a range, and to check if a range contains a subrange of interest, we use not stdr::search(haystack, needle).empty(). While this is accurate, it isn’t necessarily convenient, and it hardly expresses intent (especially in the latter case). Being able to say stdr::contains(r, value) addresses both of these points. Further evidence for the existence of a contains algorithm is that the STL gave C++98 an obscurely-named contains algorithm called binary_search, and any_of is “contains with a predicate”, showing that there’s prior art for this contains to be an algorithm.

4 Design

The proposed usage looks like this:

if (std::ranges::contains(haystack, 'o')) {
  // ...
}

if (std::ranges::contains(haystack.begin(), haystack.end(), 'c')) {
  // ...
}

if (std::ranges::contains_subrange(haystack.begin(), haystack.end(), long_needle.begin(), long_needle.end())) {
  // ...
}

if (std::ranges::contains_subrange(haystack, long_needle)) {
  // ...
}

if (std::ranges::contains_subrange(haystack.begin(), haystack.end(), long_needle.begin(), long_needle.end(), bind_back(std::modulo(), 4))) {
  // ...
}

if (std::ranges::contains_subrange(haystack, long_needle, bind_back(std::modulo(), 4))) {
  // ...
}

Due to length, the comparison tables below only consider the range-based overloads.

Before
After 
namespace stdr = std::ranges;
stdr::find(haystack.begin(), haystack.end(), 'o') != haystack.end()
stdr::find(haystack, 'o') != stdr::end(haystack)
not stdr::search(haystack, long_needle).empty()
not stdr::search(haystack, long_needle, bind_back(std::modulo(), 4)).empty()
 
namespace stdr = std::ranges;
stdr::contains(haystack.begin(), haystack.end())
stdr::contains(haystack, 'o')
stdr::contains_subrange(haystack, long_needle)
stdr::contains_subrange(haystack, long_needle, bind_back(std::modulo(), 4))

4.1 API

As this is an algorithm, the author suggests this be placed in namespace std::ranges, where new algorithms are currently destined to go. As usual with new algorithms, these ones will also have projections.

The author notes that for an unsorted sequence, a contains algorithm is simply one of the following:

auto const haystack = "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog"sv;

stdr::find(haystack, 'o') != haystack.end(); // haystack.contains('o')
not stdr::search(haystack, "red"sv).empty(); // haystack.contains("red"sv)

// See https://godbolt.org/z/vTendW

As such, contains is a wrapper around these two algorithms:

namespace std {
  template<input_­iterator I, sentinel_­for<I> S, class T, class Proj = identity>
  requires indirect_­binary_­predicate<ranges::equal_to, projected<I, Proj>, const T*>
  constexpr bool ranges::contains(I first, S last, const T& value, Proj proj = {});

  template<input_­range R, class T, class Proj = identity>
  requires indirect_­binary_­predicate<ranges::equal_to, projected<iterator_t<R>, Proj>, const T*>
  constexpr bool ranges::contains(R&& r, const T& value, Proj proj = {});

  template<forward_­iterator I1, sentinel_­for<I1> S1, forward_­iterator I2,
           sentinel_­for<I2> S2, class Pred = ranges::equal_to,
           class Proj1 = identity, class Proj2 = identity>
    requires indirectly_­comparable<I1, I2, Pred, Proj1, Proj2>
    constexpr bool
      ranges::contains_subrange(I1 first1, S1 last1, I2 first2, S2 last2, Pred pred = {},
                                Proj1 proj1 = {}, Proj2 proj2 = {});

  template<forward_­range R1, forward_­range R2, class Pred = ranges::equal_to,
           class Proj1 = identity, class Proj2 = identity>
    requires indirectly_­comparable<iterator_t<R1>, iterator_t<R2>, Pred, Proj1, Proj2>
    constexpr bool
      ranges::contains_subrange(R1&& r1, R2&& r2, Pred pred = {},
                                Proj1 proj1 = {}, Proj2 proj2 = {});
}

4.2 Naming

The minutes from P2302R0’s discusion note that it may be more approriate to name these functions contains_element and contains_range, since it could be ambiguous as to whether or not the range-based algorithms are performing a find or a search. Worse, a programmer might intend to use the element contains while searching a range of ranges, which without care, will accidentally call the wrong overload. This is a good point, and the names should probably be different.

This paper proposes contains instead of contains_element, since that is a very common, and much complained-about missing feature in C++. It also elects to rename the suggested contains_range as contains_subrange, because the author feels it’s a more appropriate name: if the range is found, then it’s a subrange of the haystack.

4.3 (haystack, needle) or (needle, haystack)?

This issue was addressed in [P1659R3], but it bears repeating.

Concerns were outlined in all of N3609, P0457, P1679 about the ambiguity of whether we are performing starts_with(haystack, needle) or starts_with(needle, haystack). There is prior art in the algorithms library that makes the first range the subject of the operation: mismatch, equal, search, find_first_of, and lexicographical_compare all take the form algorithm(haystack, needle), so the author remains unconvinced about the ambiguity.

LEWG approved P1659 in the Cologne 2019 meeting: meaning that this working group agrees that there isn’t any ambiguity, or that LEWG is inconsistent in what it agrees upon.

5 Proposed wording

Add the following text to 25.4 [algorithm.syn]:

  // [alg.none.of], none of
  // ...

  // [alg.contains], contains
  template<input_­iterator I, sentinel_­for<I> S, class T, class Proj = identity>
    requires indirect_­binary_­predicate<ranges::equal_to, projected<I, Proj>, const T*>
    constexpr bool ranges::contains(I first, S last, const T& value, Proj proj = {});
  template<input_­range R, class T, class Proj = identity>
    requires indirect_­binary_­predicate<ranges::equal_to, projected<iterator_t<R>, Proj>, const T*>
    constexpr bool ranges::contains(R&& r, const T& value, Proj proj = {});

  template<forward_­iterator I1, sentinel_­for<I1> S1, forward_­iterator I2,
           sentinel_­for<I2> S2, class Pred = ranges::equal_to,
           class Proj1 = identity, class Proj2 = identity>
    requires indirectly_­comparable<I1, I2, Pred, Proj1, Proj2>
    constexpr bool ranges::contains_subrange(I1 first1, S1 last1, I2 first2, S2 last2,
                                             Pred pred = {}, Proj1 proj1 = {}, Proj2 proj2 = {});
  template<forward_­range R1, forward_­range R2, class Pred = ranges::equal_to,
           class Proj1 = identity, class Proj2 = identity>
    requires indirectly_­comparable<iterator_t<R1>, iterator_t<R2>, Pred, Proj1, Proj2>
    constexpr bool ranges::contains_subrange(R1&& r1, R2&& r2, Pred pred = {},
                                             Proj1 proj1 = {}, Proj2 proj2 = {});

  // [alg.foreach], for each

Add the following to 25.6 [alg.nonmodifying]:

template<input_­iterator I, sentinel_­for<I> S, class T, class Proj = identity>
  requires indirect_­binary_­predicate<ranges::equal_to, projected<I, Proj>, const T*>
  constexpr bool ranges::contains(I first, S last, const T& value, Proj proj = {});

template<input_­range R, class T, class Proj = identity>
  requires indirect_­binary_­predicate<ranges::equal_to, projected<iterator_t<R>, Proj>, const T*>
  constexpr bool ranges::contains(R&& r, const T& value, Proj proj = {});

Returns: ranges::find(std::move(first), last, value, proj) != last;

template<forward_­iterator I1, sentinel_­for<I1> S1, forward_­iterator I2,
         sentinel_­for<I2> S2, class Pred = ranges::equal_to,
         class Proj1 = identity, class Proj2 = identity>
  requires indirectly_­comparable<I1, I2, Pred, Proj1, Proj2>
  constexpr bool ranges::contains_subrange(I1 first1, S1 last1, I2 first2, S2 last2,
                                           Pred pred = {}, Proj1 proj1 = {}, Proj2 proj2 = {});
template<forward_­range R1, forward_­range R2, class Pred = ranges::equal_to,
         class Proj1 = identity, class Proj2 = identity>
  requires indirectly_­comparable<iterator_t<R1>, iterator_t<R2>, Pred, Proj1, Proj2>
  constexpr bool ranges::contains_subrange(R1&& r1, R2&& r2, Pred pred = {},
                                           Proj1 proj1 = {}, Proj2 proj2 = {});

Returns: first2 == last2 || !ranges::search(first1, last1, first2, last2, pred, proj1, proj2).empty();

5.1 Feature-test macro

Add the following macro definition to 17.3.2 [version.syn], header <version> synopsis, with the value selected by the editor to reflect the date of adoption of this paper:

#define __cpp_lib_ranges_contains 20XXXXL // also in <algorithm>

6 Implementation experience

This has been implemented in range-v3 and is available as a Pull Request.

7 Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Corentin Jabot for reviewing this proposal.

8 References

[P1659R3] Christopher Di Bella. 2021-02-19. starts_with and ends_with.
https://wg21.link/p1659r3

[P1679R3] Wim Leflere, Paul Fee. 2020-07-22. String Contains function.
https://wg21.link/p1679r3