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<div class="titlepage"><div>
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<div><h2 class="title">
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<a name="optional"></a>Chapter<EFBFBD>1.<2E>Boost.Optional</h2></div>
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<div><div class="author"><h3 class="author">
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<span class="firstname">Fernando Luis</span> <span class="surname">Cacciola Carballal</span>
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</h3></div></div>
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<div><p class="copyright">Copyright <20> 2003 -2007 Fernando Luis Cacciola Carballal</p></div>
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<a name="id2604804"></a><p>
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Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying
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file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at <a href="http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt" target="_top">http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt</a>)
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<p><b>Table of Contents</b></p>
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<dl>
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<dt><span class="section"><a href="index.html#optional.motivation">Motivation</a></span></dt>
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<dt><span class="section"><a href="boost_optional/development.html">Development</a></span></dt>
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<dt><span class="section"><a href="boost_optional/synopsis.html">Synopsis</a></span></dt>
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<dt><span class="section"><a href="boost_optional/detailed_semantics.html">Detailed Semantics</a></span></dt>
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<dt><span class="section"><a href="boost_optional/examples.html">Examples</a></span></dt>
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<dt><span class="section"><a href="boost_optional/optional_references.html">Optional references</a></span></dt>
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<dt><span class="section"><a href="boost_optional/rebinding_semantics_for_assignment_of_optional_references.html">Rebinding
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semantics for assignment of optional references</a></span></dt>
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<dt><span class="section"><a href="boost_optional/in_place_factories.html">In-Place Factories</a></span></dt>
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<dt><span class="section"><a href="boost_optional/a_note_about_optional_bool_.html">A note about
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optional<bool></a></span></dt>
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<dt><span class="section"><a href="boost_optional/exception_safety_guarantees.html">Exception Safety
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Guarantees</a></span></dt>
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<dt><span class="section"><a href="boost_optional/type_requirements.html">Type requirements</a></span></dt>
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<dt><span class="section"><a href="boost_optional/implementation_notes.html">Implementation Notes</a></span></dt>
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<dt><span class="section"><a href="boost_optional/dependencies_and_portability.html">Dependencies
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and Portability</a></span></dt>
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<dt><span class="section"><a href="boost_optional/acknowledgments.html">Acknowledgments</a></span></dt>
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</dl>
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</div>
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<div class="section" lang="en">
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<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both">
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<a name="optional.motivation"></a><a href="index.html#optional.motivation" title="Motivation">Motivation</a>
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</h2></div></div></div>
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<p>
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Consider these functions which should return a value but which might not have
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a value to return:
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</p>
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<div class="itemizedlist"><ul type="disc">
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<li>
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(A) <code class="computeroutput"><span class="keyword">double</span> <span class="identifier">sqrt</span><span class="special">(</span><span class="keyword">double</span> <span class="identifier">n</span>
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<span class="special">);</span></code>
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</li>
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<li>
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(B) <code class="computeroutput"><span class="keyword">char</span> <span class="identifier">get_async_input</span><span class="special">();</span></code>
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</li>
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<li>
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(C) <code class="computeroutput"><span class="identifier">point</span> <span class="identifier">polygon</span><span class="special">::</span><span class="identifier">get_any_point_effectively_inside</span><span class="special">();</span></code>
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</li>
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</ul></div>
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<p>
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There are different approaches to the issue of not having a value to return.
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</p>
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<p>
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A typical approach is to consider the existence of a valid return value as
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a postcondition, so that if the function cannot compute the value to return,
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it has either undefined behavior (and can use assert in a debug build) or uses
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a runtime check and throws an exception if the postcondition is violated. This
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is a reasonable choice for example, for function (A), because the lack of a
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proper return value is directly related to an invalid parameter (out of domain
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argument), so it is appropriate to require the callee to supply only parameters
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in a valid domain for execution to continue normally.
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</p>
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<p>
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However, function (B), because of its asynchronous nature, does not fail just
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because it can't find a value to return; so it is incorrect to consider such
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a situation an error and assert or throw an exception. This function must return,
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and somehow, must tell the callee that it is not returning a meaningful value.
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</p>
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<p>
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A similar situation occurs with function (C): it is conceptually an error to
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ask a <span class="emphasis"><em>null-area</em></span> polygon to return a point inside itself,
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but in many applications, it is just impractical for performance reasons to
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treat this as an error (because detecting that the polygon has no area might
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be too expensive to be required to be tested previously), and either an arbitrary
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point (typically at infinity) is returned, or some efficient way to tell the
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callee that there is no such point is used.
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</p>
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<p>
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There are various mechanisms to let functions communicate that the returned
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value is not valid. One such mechanism, which is quite common since it has
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zero or negligible overhead, is to use a special value which is reserved to
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communicate this. Classical examples of such special values are <code class="computeroutput"><span class="identifier">EOF</span></code>, <code class="computeroutput"><span class="identifier">string</span><span class="special">::</span><span class="identifier">npos</span></code>, points
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at infinity, etc...
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</p>
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<p>
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When those values exist, i.e. the return type can hold all meaningful values
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<span class="emphasis"><em>plus</em></span> the <span class="emphasis"><em>signal</em></span> value, this mechanism
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is quite appropriate and well known. Unfortunately, there are cases when such
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values do not exist. In these cases, the usual alternative is either to use
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a wider type, such as <code class="computeroutput"><span class="keyword">int</span></code> in place
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of <code class="computeroutput"><span class="keyword">char</span></code>; or a compound type, such
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as <code class="computeroutput"><span class="identifier">std</span><span class="special">::</span><span class="identifier">pair</span><span class="special"><</span><span class="identifier">point</span><span class="special">,</span><span class="keyword">bool</span><span class="special">></span></code>.
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</p>
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<p>
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Returning a <code class="computeroutput"><span class="identifier">std</span><span class="special">::</span><span class="identifier">pair</span><span class="special"><</span><span class="identifier">T</span><span class="special">,</span><span class="keyword">bool</span><span class="special">></span></code>, thus attaching a boolean flag to the result
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which indicates if the result is meaningful, has the advantage that can be
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turned into a consistent idiom since the first element of the pair can be whatever
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the function would conceptually return. For example, the last two functions
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could have the following interface:
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</p>
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<pre class="programlisting">
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<span class="identifier">std</span><span class="special">::</span><span class="identifier">pair</span><span class="special"><</span><span class="keyword">char</span><span class="special">,</span><span class="keyword">bool</span><span class="special">></span> <span class="identifier">get_async_input</span><span class="special">();</span>
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<span class="identifier">std</span><span class="special">::</span><span class="identifier">pair</span><span class="special"><</span><span class="identifier">point</span><span class="special">,</span><span class="keyword">bool</span><span class="special">></span> <span class="identifier">polygon</span><span class="special">::</span><span class="identifier">get_any_point_effectively_inside</span><span class="special">();</span>
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</pre>
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<p>
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These functions use a consistent interface for dealing with possibly inexistent
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results:
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</p>
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<pre class="programlisting">
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<span class="identifier">std</span><span class="special">::</span><span class="identifier">pair</span><span class="special"><</span><span class="identifier">point</span><span class="special">,</span><span class="keyword">bool</span><span class="special">></span> <span class="identifier">p</span> <span class="special">=</span> <span class="identifier">poly</span><span class="special">.</span><span class="identifier">get_any_point_effectively_inside</span><span class="special">();</span>
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<span class="keyword">if</span> <span class="special">(</span> <span class="identifier">p</span><span class="special">.</span><span class="identifier">second</span> <span class="special">)</span>
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<span class="identifier">flood_fill</span><span class="special">(</span><span class="identifier">p</span><span class="special">.</span><span class="identifier">first</span><span class="special">);</span>
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</pre>
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<p>
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However, not only is this quite a burden syntactically, it is also error prone
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since the user can easily use the function result (first element of the pair)
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without ever checking if it has a valid value.
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</p>
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<p>
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Clearly, we need a better idiom.
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</p>
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</div>
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<p>
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</p>
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<a name="optional_refassign"></a><p>
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</p>
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<a name="optional_in_place_factories"></a><p>
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</p>
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<a name="optional_implementation_notes"></a><p>
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</p>
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</div>
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<table xmlns:rev="http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~gregod/boost/tools/doc/revision" width="100%"><tr>
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<td align="left"><small><p>Last revised: May 29, 2007 at 06:31:03 GMT</p></small></td>
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<td align="right"><small></small></td>
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</tr></table>
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<hr>
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<div class="spirit-nav"><a accesskey="n" href="boost_optional/development.html"><img src="images/next.png" alt="Next"></a></div>
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