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<a name="safe_numerics.pending_issues"></a>Pending Issues</h2></div></div></div>
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<dt><span class="section"><a href="pending_issues.html#idm130201646352"><code class="computeroutput">safe_base</code> Only Works for Scalar Types</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="section"><a href="pending_issues.html#idm130201605904">Concepts are Defined but Not Enforced.</a></span></dt>
<dt><span class="section"><a href="pending_issues.html#idm130201600176">Other Pending Issues</a></span></dt>
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<p>The library is under development. There are a number of issues still
pending.</p>
<div class="section">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="idm130201646352"></a><code class="computeroutput">safe_base</code> Only Works for Scalar Types</h3></div></div></div>
<p>The following is paraphrased from an issue raised by Andrzej
Krzemie&#324;ski as a <a href="https://github.com/robertramey/safe_numerics/issues/44" target="_top">github
issue</a>. It touches upon fundamental ideas behind the library and
how these ideas as the implementation of the library collided with
reality.</p>
<p><span class="quote">&#8220;<span class="quote">In the current implementation safe&lt;T&gt; will only work
with T being a C++ scalar type. Therefore making a general type
requirements that say what operations are allowed is superfluous, and
confusing (because it implies that safe&lt;&gt; is more
generic.</span>&#8221;</span></p>
<p>When I started out, It became clear that I wanted "safe" types to
look like "numeric" types. It also became clear pretty soon that there was
going to be significant template meta-programming in the implementation.
Normal type traits like std::is_integer are defined in the std namespace
and one is discouraged from extending it. Also I needed some compile time
"max" and "lowest" values. This lead me to base the design on
std::numeric_limits. But std::numeric limits is inherently extensible to
any "numeric" type. For example, money is a numeric type but not an
intrinsic types. So it seemed that I needed to define a "numeric" concept
which required that there be an implementation of std::numeric_limits for
any type T - such as money in this case. When I'm doubt - I tend to think
big.</p>
<p>For now though I'm not going to address it. For what it's worth, my
preference would be to do something like: </p>
<pre class="programlisting"><span class="keyword">template</span><span class="special">&lt;</span><span class="keyword">typename</span> <span class="identifier">T</span><span class="special">&gt;</span>
<span class="keyword">struct</span> <span class="identifier">range</span> <span class="special">{</span>
<span class="identifier">T</span> <span class="identifier">m_lowest</span><span class="special">;</span>
<span class="identifier">T</span> <span class="identifier">m_highest</span><span class="special">;</span>
<span class="comment">// default implementation</span>
<span class="identifier">range</span><span class="special">(</span>
<span class="keyword">const</span> <span class="special">&amp;</span> <span class="identifier">T</span> <span class="identifier">t_min</span><span class="special">,</span>
<span class="keyword">const</span> <span class="special">&amp;</span> <span class="identifier">T</span> <span class="identifier">t_max</span>
<span class="special">)</span> <span class="special">:</span>
<span class="identifier">m_lowest</span><span class="special">(</span><span class="identifier">std</span><span class="special">::</span><span class="identifier">numeric_limits</span><span class="special">&lt;</span><span class="identifier">T</span><span class="special">&gt;</span><span class="special">::</span><span class="identifier">lowest</span><span class="special">(</span><span class="identifier">t_min</span><span class="special">)</span><span class="special">,</span>
<span class="identifier">m_highest</span><span class="special">(</span><span class="identifier">std</span><span class="special">::</span><span class="identifier">numeric_limits</span><span class="special">&lt;</span><span class="identifier">T</span><span class="special">&gt;</span><span class="special">::</span><span class="identifier">max</span><span class="special">(</span><span class="identifier">t_max</span><span class="special">)</span>
<span class="special">{</span><span class="special">}</span>
<span class="special">}</span><span class="special">;</span></pre>
<p>Then redeclare <code class="computeroutput">safe_base</code>, etc., accordingly.</p>
<p>Also not that for C++20, template value parameters are no longer
restricted to integer primitive types buy maybe class types as well. This
means the library maybe extended to user class types without changing the
current template signatures.</p>
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<div class="section">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="idm130201605904"></a>Concepts are Defined but Not Enforced.</h3></div></div></div>
<p>The following is paraphrased from an issue raised by Andrzej
Krzemie&#324;ski as a <a href="https://github.com/robertramey/safe_numerics/issues/46" target="_top">github
issue</a>.</p>
<p><span class="quote">&#8220;<span class="quote">You do not need a concept to constrain anything with it, in
your library. Or is the purpose of the Type requirements to show in detail
what it means that safe&lt;T&gt; is a 'drop-in replacement for
T?</span>&#8221;</span></p>
<p>Right - currently I don't use the concept to constrain anything.
They are currently a purely "conceptual" tool to keep the design from
getting off track. This is common with other libraries such as the C++
standard library where the concepts are defined but not enforced by
compile time predicates. Hopefully in future that might change - see
below</p>
<p><span class="quote">&#8220;<span class="quote">If you want to extend safe&lt;T&gt; for other integer types,
Type requirement still need to be fixed:</span>&#8221;</span></p>
<p>Hmmmm - I'm not quite sure that this is true. One thing that IS true
is the the interface and implementation of the library will need to be
enhanced to permit "safe" to be applied to user defined types. This is
apparent now, but as my brain can only comprehend the library one piece at
a time, this design feature was lost during the implementation. In
implementing co-existence of floats with safe integers, I did refactor the
implementation in a way which I believe my eventually permit the
application to any user supplied T which implements all the required
operations of Numeric types. So as it is now this is pending. If the
library were to become widely used, there might be motivation to do this.
Time will tell. So for now I'm leaving these in the documentation and
code, even though they are not actually used.</p>
</div>
<div class="section">
<div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">
<a name="idm130201600176"></a>Other Pending Issues</h3></div></div></div>
<div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; ">
<li class="listitem"><p>The library is currently limited to integers. If there is
interest, it could be extended to floats and possible to user
defined types.</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p>Although care has been taken to make the library portable, at
least some parts of the implementation - particularly
<code class="computeroutput">checked</code> integer arithmetic - depend upon two's
complement representation of integers. Hence the library is probably
not currently portable to all other possible C++ architectures.
These days, this is unlikely to be a limitation in practice.
Starting with C++20, integer arithmetic will be guaranteed by the
C++ standard to be two's complement.</p></li>
<li class="listitem"><p><code class="computeroutput">std::common_type</code> is used in a variety of generic
libraries, including std::chrono. Without a specialization for
<code class="computeroutput">safe&lt;T&gt;</code>s one cannot use the safe wrappers e.g. as
a representation for <code class="computeroutput">std::chrono::duration</code>.</p></li>
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