P3103R1
More bitset operations

1. Revision history

1.1. Changes since R0

• Simplified proposed wording by defining rotl as an equivalence in terms of rotr.

• Fixed minor editorial mistakes.

2. Introduction

[P0553R4] added the bit manipulation library to C++20, which introduced many useful utility functions.

Some of these already have a counterpart in std::bitset (such as popcount as bitset::count), but not nearly all of them. This leaves bitset overall lacking in functionality, which is unfortunate because std::bitset is an undeniably useful container. At the time of writing, it is used in 73K files on GitHub; see [GitHub1].

std::bitset does not (and should not) expose the underlying integer sequence of the implementation. Therefore, it is not possible for the user to implement these operations efficiently themselves.

3. Proposed changes

For each of the functions from the bit manipulation library that are not yet available in std::bitset, add a member function. Add a small amount of further useful member functions.

The additional overloads for the counting functions allow counting from a starting position. This can be useful for iterating over all set bits:

bitset<128> bits;
for (size_t i = 0; i != 128; ++i) {
    i += bits.countr_zero(i);
    if (i == 128) break;
    // ...
}

Note: byteswap and bit_cast counterparts are not proposed, only functions solely dedicated to the manipulation of bit sequences.

4. Design considerations

The naming of the member functions is based on the naming scheme in the <bit> header.

4.1. reverse

reverse is a notable exception, which does not yet exist in <bit>. This function is added because the method for reversing integers may be tremendously faster than doing so bit by bit. ARM has a dedicated RBIT instruction for reversing bits, which could be leveraged.

I have written a not yet published proposal [Schultke1] which adds a corresponding bit-reversal function to <bit>.

4.2. Counting overloads

countl_zero, countr_zero, countl_one, and countr_one are overloaded member functions which take a size_t argument or nothing.

This is preferable to a single member function with a defaulted argument because the overloads have different noexcept specifications. The overloads which take no arguments have a wide contract and can be marked noexcept, whereas the overloads taking size_t may throw out_of_range.

5. Impact on existing code

The semantics of existing bitset member functions remain unchanged, and no existing valid code is broken.

This proposal is purely an extension of the functionality of bitset.

6. Implementation experience

[Bontus1] provides a std::bitset implementation which supports most proposed features. There are no obvious obstacles to implementing the new features in common standard library implementations.

7. Proposed wording

The proposed changes are relative to the working draft of the standard as of [N4917].

Modify the header synopsis in subclause 17.3.2 [version.syn] as follows:

#define __cpp_lib_bitset                            202306L20XXXXL // also in <bitset>

Modify the header synopsis in subclause 22.9.2.1 [template.bitset.general] as follows:

namespace std {
  template<size_t N> class bitset {
  public:
    // bit reference
    [...]

    // [bitset.members], bitset operations
    constexpr bitset& operator&=(const bitset& rhs) noexcept;
    constexpr bitset& operator|=(const bitset& rhs) noexcept;
    constexpr bitset& operator^=(const bitset& rhs) noexcept;
    constexpr bitset& operator<<=(size_t pos) noexcept;
    constexpr bitset& operator>>=(size_t pos) noexcept;
    constexpr bitset  operator<<(size_t pos) const noexcept;
    constexpr bitset  operator>>(size_t pos) const noexcept;
+   constexpr bitset& rotl(size_t pos) noexcept;
+   constexpr bitset& rotr(size_t pos) noexcept;
+   constexpr bitset& reverse() noexcept;
    constexpr bitset& set() noexcept;
    constexpr bitset& set(size_t pos, bool val = true);
    constexpr bitset& reset() noexcept;
    constexpr bitset& reset(size_t pos);
    constexpr bitset  operator~() const noexcept;
    constexpr bitset& flip() noexcept;
    constexpr bitset& flip(size_t pos);

    // element access
    [...]

    // observers
    constexpr size_t count() const noexcept;
+   constexpr size_t countl_zero() const noexcept;
+   constexpr size_t countl_zero(size_t pos) const;
+   constexpr size_t countl_one() const noexcept;
+   constexpr size_t countl_one(size_t pos) const;
+   constexpr size_t countr_zero() const noexcept;
+   constexpr size_t countr_zero(size_t pos) const;
+   constexpr size_t countr_one() const noexcept;
+   constexpr size_t countr_one(size_t pos) const;
    constexpr size_t size() const noexcept;
    constexpr bool operator==(const bitset& rhs) const noexcept;
    constexpr bool test(size_t pos) const;
    constexpr bool all() const noexcept;
    constexpr bool any() const noexcept;
    constexpr bool none() const noexcept;
+   constexpr bool one() const noexcept;
  };

  // [bitset.hash], hash support
  template<class T> struct hash;
  template<size_t N> struct hash<bitset<N>>;
}

Modify subclause 22.9.2.3 [bitset.members] as follows:

constexpr bitset operator>>(size_t pos) const noexcept;

Returns: bitset(*this) >>= pos.

constexpr bitset& rotl(size_t pos) noexcept;

Effects: Equivalent to rotr(N - pos % N).

constexpr bitset& rotr(size_t pos) noexcept;

Effects: Replaces each bit at position I in *this with the bit at position (static_cast<U>(pos) + static_cast<U>(I)) % N, where U is a hypothetical unsigned integer type whose width is greater than the width of size_t.

Returns: *this.

constexpr bitset& reverse() noexcept;

Effects: Replaces each bit at position I in *this with the bit at position N - I - 1.

Returns: *this.

[...]

constexpr size_t count() noexcept;

Returns: A count of the number of bits set in *this.

constexpr size_t countl_zero(size_t pos) const;

Returns: The number of consecutive zero-bits in *this, starting at position pos, and traversing *this in decreasing position direction.

Throws: out_of_range if pos does not correspond to a valid bit position.

constexpr size_t countl_zero() const noexcept;

Returns: countl_zero(N - 1).

constexpr size_t countl_one(size_t pos) const;

Returns: The number of consecutive one-bits in *this, starting at position pos, and traversing *this in decreasing position direction.

Throws: out_of_range if pos does not correspond to a valid bit position.

constexpr size_t countl_one() const noexcept;

Returns: countl_one(N - 1).

constexpr size_t countr_zero(size_t pos) const;

Returns: The number of consecutive zero-bits in *this, starting at position pos, and traversing *this in increasing position direction.

Throws: out_of_range if pos does not correspond to a valid bit position.

constexpr size_t countr_zero() const noexcept;

Returns: countr_zero(0).

constexpr size_t countr_one(size_t pos) const;

Returns: The number of consecutive one-bits in *this, starting at position pos, and traversing *this in increasing position direction.

Throws: out_of_range if pos does not correspond to a valid bit position.

constexpr size_t countr_one() const noexcept;

Returns: countr_one(0).

[...]

constexpr bool none() const noexcept;

Returns: count() == 0.

constexpr bool one() const noexcept;

Returns: count() == 1.

Note: The use of a hypothetical integer type in the specification of rotl and rotr is necessary because (I + pos) % N would be incorrect when I + pos wraps.