1 Revision History

R0 to R1: safe_range was renamed to borrowed_range in Prague by resolving [LWG3379]. This paper has been updated to reflect that.

2 Introduction and Motivation

Consider the following approach to trimming a std::string:

auto trim(std::string const& s) {
    auto isalpha = [](unsigned char c){ return std::isalpha(c); };
    auto b = ranges::find_if(s, isalpha);
    auto e = ranges::find_if(s | views::reverse, isalpha).base();
    return subrange(b, e);
}

This is a fairly nice and, importantly, safe way to implement trim. The iterators b and e returned from find_if will not dangle, since they point into the string s whose lifetime outlives the function.

Except this code will not compile at the moment, either in C++20 or in range-v3, failing on the declaration of e. The algorithm find_if is in 25.5.5 [alg.find] is declared as:

template<input_range R, class Proj = identity,
         indirect_unary_predicate<projected<iterator_t<R>, Proj>> Pred>
  constexpr borrowed_iterator_t<R>
    ranges::find_if(R&& r, Pred pred, Proj proj = {});

R will deduce as reverse_view<ref_view<std::string const>>, which does not satisfy borrowed_range (it is neither an lvalue reference, nor does reverse_view currently opt-in to being a borrowed_range) hence the return type borrowed_iterator_t<R> is the type dangling rather than being the type iterator_t<R>. Instead of getting the reverse iterator we might have expected, that we need to call .base() on, we get effectively nothing. We are forced to rewrite the above as:

auto trim(std::string const& s) {
    auto isalpha = [](unsigned char c){ return std::isalpha(c); };
    auto b = ranges::find_if(s, isalpha);
    auto reversed = s | views::reverse;
    auto e = ranges::find_if(reversed, isalpha).base();
    return subrange(b, e);
}

Which is an unnecessary code indirection. The goal of this paper is to make the initial example just work. We clearly have a borrowed range that is not marked as such, so I consider this to be a library defect.

3 History and Status Quo

Ranges introduced with it the concept forwarding-range. This was then renamed to safe_range by [P1870R1] in Belfast, and again to borrowed_range by resolving [LWG3379] in Prague, but the core concept remains the same. A range is a borrowed_range when you can hold onto its iterators after the range goes out of scope. There are two kinds of borrowed ranges:

• lvalue references to ranges are always borrowed ranges. It’s not the lvalue reference itself which owns the data, so if the reference dies, we’re fine.
• ranges which must necessarily opt in to being considered borrowed, by way of the new enable_borrowed_range variable template, which defaults to false for all types.

There are several borrowed ranges which do this opt in today:

• ref_view is a borrowed range. It’s basically a reference - the iterators it gives out are iterators to the range it refers to, which it has no ownership of. If the ref_view dies, the referred to range can still be around.
• string_view is a borrowed range. Like ref_view, it just refers to data - the iterators it gives out are iterators into some other containers. span and subrange are similar.
• empty_view doesn’t even have any data, so it’s trivially borrowed.
• iota_view works by having the iterators themselves own the “counter”, so having the iterators stick around is sufficient.

And that’s it. We have six, unconditionally borrowed ranges. All other ranges and views in the standard library are unconditionally not borrowed. But this is far too strict. As the opening example demonstrates, there are many more kinds of borrowed ranges you can construct than just the chosen six.

This issue was first pointed out by Johel Ernesto Guerrero Peña in [stl2.640].

3.1 Implementation Strategy

A range is going to be borrowed if its iterators do not in any way refer to it. For the ranges in the working draft which are unconditionally borrowed, this follows directly from how they actually work. But for some other ranges, it might depend on implementation strategy.

One can imagine different specifications for views like transform_view and even filter_view that might allow them to be borrowed, but that’s beyond the scope of this paper which is limited to those views that are already borrowed as specified.

4 Proposal

Several range adapters semantically behave as if they have a single member of some templated view type. If that underlying view type is a borrowed_range, the range adapter itself can be transitively borrowed. For example, s | views::reverse has the type reverse_view<ref_view<string const>>. This can be a borrowed_range because ref_view<string const> is a borrowed_range. Likewise, s | views::reverse | views::take(3) can also be a borrowed_range by extending this logic further.

Here is a table of all the range adapters and factories in the current working draft, what their current borrowed_range status is, and what this paper proposes.

5 Wording

Add six variable template specializations to 24.2 [ranges.syn]:

#include <initializer_list>
#include <iterator>

namespace std::ranges {
  // [...]
  

  // [range.take], take view
  template<view> class take_view;
  
+ template<class T>
+   inline constexpr bool enable_borrowed_range<take_view<T>> = enable_borrowed_range<T>; 

  namespace views { inline constexpr unspecified take = unspecified; }  
  
  // [...]
  
  // [range.drop], drop view
  template<view V>
    class drop_view;
    
+ template<class T>
+   inline constexpr bool enable_borrowed_range<drop_view<T>> = enable_borrowed_range<T>; 

  namespace views { inline constexpr unspecified drop = unspecified; }  
  
  // [range.drop.while], drop while view
  template<view V, class Pred>
    requires input_range<V> && is_object_v<Pred> &&
      indirect_unary_predicate<const Pred, iterator_t<V>>
    class drop_while_view;

+ template<class T, class Pred>
+   inline constexpr bool enable_borrowed_range<drop_while_view<T, Pred>> = enable_borrowed_range<T>; 

  namespace views { inline constexpr unspecified drop_while = unspecified; }

  // [...]  
  
  // [range.common], common view
  template<view V>
    requires (!common_range<V> && copyable<iterator_t<V>>)
  class common_view;
  
+ template<class T>
+   inline constexpr bool enable_borrowed_range<common_view<T>> = enable_borrowed_range<T>;   

  namespace views { inline constexpr unspecified common = unspecified; }

  // [range.reverse], reverse view
  template<view V>
    requires bidirectional_range<V>
  class reverse_view;
  
+ template<class T>
+   inline constexpr bool enable_borrowed_range<reverse_view<T>> = enable_borrowed_range<T>;    

  namespace views { inline constexpr unspecified reverse = unspecified; }

  // [range.elements], elements view
  template<input_range V, size_t N>
    requires see below;
  class elements_view;
  
+ template<class T, size_t N>
+   inline constexpr bool enable_borrowed_range<elements_view<T, N>> = enable_borrowed_range<T>;  

  template<class R>
    using keys_view = elements_view<all_view<R>, 0>;
  template<class R>
    using values_view = elements_view<all_view<R>, 1>;

  namespace views {
    template<size_t N>
      inline constexpr unspecified elements = unspecified ;
    inline constexpr unspecified keys = unspecified ;
    inline constexpr unspecified values = unspecified ;
  }
}

6 Implementation

This has been implemented in range-v3 [range-v3.1405]. The PR includes the six range adapters in this paper, along with a smattering of other range adapters from range-v3 that can also be made conditionally borrowed in this manner (const, chunk, delimit, drop_exactly, indirect, intersperse, move, slice, sliding, tail, trim, unbounded, and zip) as well as a bunch of other range adapters that can be additionally made conditionally borrowed based on both the underlying range and the shape of invocables that they rely on (group_by, all the set_algorithm_view adapters, split_when, take_while/iter_take_while, transform, and zip_view/iter_zip_view).

7 References