[libcxx-commits] [libcxx] [libcxx] improves diagnostics for containers with bad value types (PR #106296)

[Aaron Ballman via libcxx-commits]

================
@@ -635,8 +640,136 @@ void __forward_list_base<_Tp, _Alloc>::clear() _NOEXCEPT {
   __before_begin()->__next_ = nullptr;
 }
 
+// begin-diagnostic-helpers
+// std::forward_list can only have non-cv-qualified object types as its value type, which we diagnose.
+// In order to short-cirucit redundant (and cryptic) diagnostics, std::forward_list must be the one
+// to fire the static_assert. Since std::forward_list inherits from __forward_list_base, we also need
+// to create specialisations for the rejected types, so that everything appears "good" to std::forward_list
+// (otherwise we'll get lots of unhelpful diagnostics that suppress the one std::forward_list offers).
+template <class _Tp, class _Alloc>
+class _LIBCPP_TEMPLATE_VIS __forward_list_base<_Tp const, _Alloc> {
+public:
+  using __node_allocator = void*;
+  using __node_alloc_traits = void*;
+  using __node_pointer = void*;
+  using __node_type = void*;
+  using __node_base = void*;
+  using __node_base_pointer = void*;
+  using __link_pointer = void*;
+
+  using pointer = int*;
+  using const_pointer = int const*;
+  using size_type = unsigned int;
+  using difference_type = int;
+  using iterator = int*;
+  using const_iterator = int const*;
+};
+
+template <class _Tp, class _Alloc>
+class _LIBCPP_TEMPLATE_VIS __forward_list_base<_Tp volatile, _Alloc> {
+public:
+  using __node_allocator = void*;
+  using __node_alloc_traits = void*;
+  using __node_pointer = void*;
+  using __node_type = void*;
+  using __node_base = void*;
+  using __node_base_pointer = void*;
+  using __link_pointer = void*;
+
+  using pointer = int*;
+  using const_pointer = int const*;
+  using size_type = unsigned int;
+  using difference_type = int;
+  using iterator = int*;
+  using const_iterator = int const*;
+};
+
+template <class _Tp, class _Alloc>
+class _LIBCPP_TEMPLATE_VIS __forward_list_base<_Tp&, _Alloc> {
+public:
+  using __node_allocator = void*;
+  using __node_alloc_traits = void*;
+  using __node_pointer = void*;
+  using __node_type = void*;
+  using __node_base = void*;
+  using __node_base_pointer = void*;
+  using __link_pointer = void*;
+
+  using pointer = int*;
+  using const_pointer = int const*;
+  using size_type = unsigned int;
+  using difference_type = int;
+  using iterator = int*;
+  using const_iterator = int const*;
+};
+
+template <class _Tp, class _Alloc>
+class _LIBCPP_TEMPLATE_VIS __forward_list_base<_Tp&&, _Alloc> {
+public:
+  using __node_allocator = void*;
+  using __node_alloc_traits = void*;
+  using __node_pointer = void*;
+  using __node_type = void*;
+  using __node_base = void*;
+  using __node_base_pointer = void*;
+  using __link_pointer = void*;
+
+  using pointer = int*;
+  using const_pointer = int const*;
+  using size_type = unsigned int;
+  using difference_type = int;
+  using iterator = int*;
+  using const_iterator = int const*;
+};
+
+template <class _Tp, class... _Args, class _Alloc>
+class _LIBCPP_TEMPLATE_VIS __forward_list_base<_Tp(_Args...), _Alloc> {
+public:
+  using __node_allocator = void*;
+  using __node_alloc_traits = void*;
+  using __node_pointer = void*;
+  using __node_type = void*;
+  using __node_base = void*;
+  using __node_base_pointer = void*;
+  using __link_pointer = void*;
+
+  using pointer = int*;
+  using const_pointer = int const*;
+  using size_type = unsigned int;
+  using difference_type = int;
+  using iterator = int*;
+  using const_iterator = int const*;
+};
+
+template <class _Alloc>
+class _LIBCPP_TEMPLATE_VIS __forward_list_base<void, _Alloc> {
+public:
+  using __node_allocator = void*;
+  using __node_alloc_traits = void*;
+  using __node_pointer = void*;
+  using __node_type = void*;
+  using __node_base = void*;
+  using __node_base_pointer = void*;
+  using __link_pointer = void*;
+
+  using pointer = int*;
+  using const_pointer = int const*;
+  using size_type = unsigned int;
+  using difference_type = int;
+  using iterator = int*;
+  using const_iterator = int const*;
+};
+// end-diagnostic-helpers
+
 template <class _Tp, class _Alloc /*= allocator<_Tp>*/>
 class _LIBCPP_TEMPLATE_VIS forward_list : private __forward_list_base<_Tp, _Alloc> {
+  static_assert(!is_const<_Tp>::value, "'std::forward_list' can only hold non-const types");
----------------
AaronBallman wrote:

> (I never really understood why it tries to keep going).

It's a tradeoff. Follow-on diagnostics can sometimes be frustratingly chatty and useless but getting one error at a time is also frustrating. So we try to recover from errors by getting back into a valid state (e.g., unknown type? let's pretend it was `int` instead.) in an effort to get more relevant diagnostics. But, it has its problems.

> @AaronBallman, do you know how difficult it would be to get Clang to achieve (a)'s diagnostic when the static_assert is embedded in a base class?

I don't have a good intuition for how hard it would be (this involves template instantiation machinery on top of the usual sema machinery). I suspect it will be somewhat challenging to implement without degrading diagnostic behavior in other cases. However, it does seem reasonable to explore if someone has the bandwidth to experiment with changing the diagnostic recovery behavior in that case.

https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/pull/106296