[libcxx] r185343 - Implement n3658 - Compile-time integer sequences

[Howard Hinnant]

On Jul 1, 2013, at 6:17 PM, Howard Hinnant <hhinnant at apple.com> wrote:

> Inspired by your approach, I started from scratch and came up with the enclosed.  The compiler will run out of memory before it runs into the recursive template instantiation limit, and this works with far higher numbers.  It passes all the current intseq tests.

I did some timing tests for the compiler using:

#include <utility>
#include <iostream>

int
main()
{
    typedef std::make_index_sequence<10000> T;
    std::cout << typeid(T).name() << "\n";
}

and:

#include <utility>
#include <iostream>

int
main()
{
    typedef std::make_index_sequence<100000> T;
    std::cout << typeid(T).name() << "\n";
}

These are extremely long sequences!  I discovered that if I add to the patch enclosed in my previous email:

template <class _Tp, _Tp _Sp, _Tp _Ep>
struct __make_integer_sequence_unchecked<_Tp, _Sp, _Ep, 4>
{
    typedef integer_sequence<_Tp, _Sp, _Sp+1, _Sp+2, _Sp+3> type;
};

template <class _Tp, _Tp _Sp, _Tp _Ep>
struct __make_integer_sequence_unchecked<_Tp, _Sp, _Ep, 3>
{
    typedef integer_sequence<_Tp, _Sp, _Sp+1, _Sp+2> type;
};

template <class _Tp, _Tp _Sp, _Tp _Ep>
struct __make_integer_sequence_unchecked<_Tp, _Sp, _Ep, 2>
{
    typedef integer_sequence<_Tp, _Sp, _Sp+1> type;
};

that there is between a 50% to 100% improvement in compile time, and lower compiler memory usage (unmeasured), with no other difference in behavior.  There seems to be a sweet spot somewhere in this neighborhood (3 <= _Diff <= 8) between complexity, added benefit, and even performance with lower numbers.  I rather arbitrarily selected 4 as the optimum.

However I'm unsure how this compares to Richard's algorithm as I never was able to get that working.  Perhaps though if someone does, we could make an informed comparison and choose the best.  Regardless this is much better than the algorithm Marshall first posted, which I was responsible for.  Its genesis can be found in <__tuple>'s __make_tuple_indices.  When we get make_integer_sequence settled, I plan on updating <__tuple> accordingly.

Howard