[libcxx-commits] [PATCH] D92190: [libc++] fix std::sort(T**, T**)

[Arthur O'Dwyer via Phabricator via libcxx-commits]

Quuxplusone added a comment.

Aw, I wish I had seen this to bikeshed over it — it's relevant to my interests! (Finishing P0879 constexpr algorithms which includes `sort`; the nightmare minefield that is comparing pointers https://quuxplusone.github.io/blog/2019/01/20/std-less-nightmare/)

- Casting `T**` to `any-kind-of-int*` isn't something you can do constexprly, is it?
- Does this `sort` overload exist //purely// to avoid instantiating `std::less<T*>`? why is that so important? (`git blame` offers no help; this codepath dates back to Howard's initial import.)
- Could this `sort` overload simply delegate to `_VSTD::sort(first, last, __less<void*>())`, to avoid the constexpr-unfriendly part? (That is, don't type-pun the actual elements; force an implicit conversion to `void*` before each comparison.)
- If we did that, of course we'd want to add `void*` to the list of types for which `sort`'s helper functions are explicitly instantiated in "algorithm.cpp". Hmm, I wonder if `char8_t`, `char16_t`, etc. should already be there...

Anyway, no action required AFAIconcerned; I'm just thinking out loud and trying //not// to go too far down the rabbit-hole yet. This will clearly be revisited for real at some point, as part of P0879 constexpr sort.


Repository:
  rG LLVM Github Monorepo

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  https://reviews.llvm.org/D92190/new/

https://reviews.llvm.org/D92190