C++ compile time function execution

Question

I have string tags in my code that are converted to numbers and used to search values in a tag-value structure.

I have something like this:

void foo()
{
    type value = search("SomeTag");
}

Where search is defined like this:

type search(const char* tag)
{
    return internal_search(toNumber(tag));
}

Because all the time tag is constant at compile time I want to remove the call that converts the tag to a number from search function. I know it is possible to execute some simple functions at compile time using templates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compile_time_function_execution), but I don't know exactly how to iterate through a null terminated string and keep intermediate values in the template. Can you give a simple sample that iterates a null terminated string and adds the chars in a public variable please?

Answer 1

It sounds like what you want is Boost.MPL's boost::mpl::string. It would be more-or-less trivial to write a metafunction to convert an mpl::string to an integral type at compile time using mpl::fold (or fail to compile if the string literal does not represent a valid integral value).

EDIT:

I'm not entirely sure what you're looking for, so here is effectively two different answers depending on interpretation:

---

IF what you're looking for is compile-time string-to-integral-value conversion (e.g. so "425897" could be recognized as the integral constant 425897 at compile time), then one can use Boost.MPL as I suggested:

#include <cstddef>
#include <boost/type_traits/is_integral.hpp>
#include <boost/type_traits/is_same.hpp>
#include <boost/type_traits/is_signed.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/and.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/assert.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/char.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/contains.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/end.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/eval_if.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/find_if.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/fold.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/front.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/identity.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/integral_c.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/minus.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/negate.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/next.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/not.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/pair.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/placeholders.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/plus.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/pop_front.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/push_back.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/reverse_fold.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/size_t.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/string.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/times.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/vector.hpp>

namespace details
{
    namespace mpl = boost::mpl;

    typedef mpl::vector10<
        mpl::char_<'0'>, mpl::char_<'1'>, mpl::char_<'2'>, mpl::char_<'3'>,
        mpl::char_<'4'>, mpl::char_<'5'>, mpl::char_<'6'>, mpl::char_<'7'>,
        mpl::char_<'8'>, mpl::char_<'9'>
    > valid_chars_t;

    template<typename IntegralT, typename PowerT>
    struct power_of_10;

    template<typename IntegralT, std::size_t Power>
    struct power_of_10<IntegralT, mpl::size_t<Power> > : mpl::times<
        power_of_10<IntegralT, mpl::size_t<Power - 1u> >,
        mpl::integral_c<IntegralT, 10>
    > { };

    template<typename IntegralT>
    struct power_of_10<IntegralT, mpl::size_t<1u> >
        : mpl::integral_c<IntegralT, 10>
    { };

    template<typename IntegralT>
    struct power_of_10<IntegralT, mpl::size_t<0u> >
        : mpl::integral_c<IntegralT, 1>
    { };

    template<typename IntegralT, typename StringT>
    struct is_negative : mpl::and_<
        boost::is_signed<IntegralT>,
        boost::is_same<
            typename mpl::front<StringT>::type,
            mpl::char_<'-'>
        >
    > { };

    template<typename IntegralT, typename StringT>
    struct extract_actual_string : mpl::eval_if<
        is_negative<IntegralT, StringT>,
        mpl::pop_front<StringT>,
        mpl::identity<StringT>
    > { };

    template<typename ExtractedStringT>
    struct check_valid_characters : boost::is_same<
        typename mpl::find_if<
            ExtractedStringT,
            mpl::not_<mpl::contains<valid_chars_t, mpl::_> >
        >::type,
        typename mpl::end<ExtractedStringT>::type
    > { };

    template<typename ExtractedStringT>
    struct pair_digit_with_power : mpl::first<
        typename mpl::reverse_fold<
            ExtractedStringT,
            mpl::pair<mpl::vector0<>, mpl::size_t<0> >,
            mpl::pair<
                mpl::push_back<
                    mpl::first<mpl::_1>,
                    mpl::pair<mpl::_2, mpl::second<mpl::_1> >
                >,
                mpl::next<mpl::second<mpl::_1> >
            >
        >::type
    > { };

    template<typename IntegralT, typename ExtractedStringT>
    struct accumulate_digits : mpl::fold<
        typename pair_digit_with_power<ExtractedStringT>::type,
        mpl::integral_c<IntegralT, 0>,
        mpl::plus<
            mpl::_1,
            mpl::times<
                mpl::minus<mpl::first<mpl::_2>, mpl::char_<'0'> >,
                power_of_10<IntegralT, mpl::second<mpl::_2> >
            >
        >
    > { };

    template<typename IntegralT, typename StringT>
    class string_to_integral_impl
    {
        BOOST_MPL_ASSERT((boost::is_integral<IntegralT>));

        typedef typename extract_actual_string<
            IntegralT,
            StringT
        >::type ExtractedStringT;
        BOOST_MPL_ASSERT((check_valid_characters<ExtractedStringT>));

        typedef typename accumulate_digits<
            IntegralT,
            ExtractedStringT
        >::type ValueT;

    public:
        typedef typename mpl::eval_if<
            is_negative<IntegralT, StringT>,
            mpl::negate<ValueT>,
            mpl::identity<ValueT>
        >::type type;
    };
}

template<typename IntegralT, typename StringT>
struct string_to_integral2
    : details::string_to_integral_impl<IntegralT, StringT>::type
{ };

template<typename IntegralT, int C0, int C1 = 0, int C2 = 0,
    int C3 = 0, int C4 = 0, int C5 = 0, int C6 = 0, int C7 = 0>
struct string_to_integral : string_to_integral2<
    IntegralT,
    boost::mpl::string<C0, C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7>
> { };

Usage would look like:

type search(int tag) { /*impl... */ }

void foo()
{
    type value = search(string_to_integral<int, '4258','97'>::value);
}

// OR, if you still want to maintain the separation
// between `search` and `internal_search`

type internal_search(int tag) { /*impl... */ }

template<typename TagStringT>
type search()
{
    return internal_search(string_to_integral2<int, TagStringT>::value);
}

void foo()
{
    typedef boost::mpl::string<'4258','97'> tag_t;
    type value = search<tag_t>();
}

Support for negative numbers is implemented, support for overflow detection is not (but your compiler will probably give a warning).

---

IF what you're looking for is compile-time string-to-integral-value mapping (e.g. so "SomeTag" could be recognized as the integral constant 425897 at compile time), then Boost.MPL still solves the problem, but all string-to-integral-value mappings must be known at compile time and registered centrally:

#include <boost/type_traits/is_same.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/assert.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/at.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/integral_c.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/map.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/pair.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/string.hpp>
#include <boost/mpl/void.hpp>

namespace details
{
    namespace mpl = boost::mpl;

    typedef mpl::map<
        mpl::pair<
            mpl::string<'Some','Tag'>,
            mpl::integral_c<int, 425897>
        >,
        mpl::pair<
            mpl::string<'Some','Othe','rTag'>,
            mpl::integral_c<int, -87>
        >,
        mpl::pair<
            mpl::string<'AnUn','sign','edTa','g'>,
            mpl::integral_c<unsigned, 7u>
        >
    > mappings_t;

    template<typename StringT>
    struct map_string_impl
    {
        typedef typename mpl::at<
            mappings_t,
            StringT
        >::type type;
        BOOST_MPL_ASSERT_NOT((boost::is_same<type, mpl::void_>));
    };
}

template<typename StringT>
struct map_string2 : details::map_string_impl<StringT>::type { };

template<int C0, int C1 = 0, int C2 = 0, int C3 = 0,
    int C4 = 0, int C5 = 0, int C6 = 0, int C7 = 0>
struct map_string : map_string2<
    boost::mpl::string<C0, C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7>
> { };

Usage would look like:

type search(int tag) { /*impl... */ }

void foo()
{
    type value = search(map_string<'Some','Tag'>::value);
}

// OR, if you still want to maintain the separation
// between `search` and `internal_search`

type internal_search(int tag) { /*impl... */ }

template<typename TagStringT>
type search()
{
    return internal_search(map_string2<TagStringT>::value);
}

void foo()
{
    typedef boost::mpl::string<'Some','Tag'> tag_t;
    type value = search<tag_t>();
}

mappings_t is what needs to be edited to maintain your string-to-integral-value mappings, and, as demonstrated, the mapped integral values need not all be of the same underlying type.

---

In either case, because the mapping is done at compile time, search/internal_search (the one with the real implementation taking an int) could be made to take the integral value as a template parameter rather than as a function parameter if doing so makes sense for its implementation.

Hopefully this answers your questions.

Answer 2

You cannot operate on string literals at compile-time, so what you want isn't feasible in the way you suggested. However, if you're contemplating to process these strings at compile-time, then this means you know all strings at compile-time, and from that you might arrive at acceptable approximations to what you want.

The code you showed implies that the number generation (let's call it a hash) is invoked every time someone searches for a tag. Would reducing this to one invocation be acceptable? If so, you could define constants and use these instead of strings:

const int SomeTag       = toNumber("SomeTag"      ); 
const int SomeOtherTag  = toNumber("SomeOtherTag" ); 
const int YetAnotherTag = toNumber("YetAnotherTag"); 
// ... 

Then, simply replace all occurances of search("SomeTag") by search(SomeTag).

If there's a great number of tags, typing the above could be very tedious, in which case a macro might help:

#define DEFINE_TAG(Tag_) const int Tag_ = toNumber(#Tag_); 

DEFINE_TAG(SomeTag); 
DEFINE_TAG(SomeOtherTag); 
DEFINE_TAG(YetAnotherTag); 
// ... 

#undef DEFINE_TAG

Answer 3

If the string literal is known at compile time, then there is probably no reason to use it as a string literal. You may use enumeration or named integral constants.

If the string is passed to the search function by a variable and it is not known at compile time, then there is no way to do the toNumber() resulution at compile time. Then a good solution is to use some kind of a dictionary (e.g. std::map<std::string, int>)