C++ named requirements: LegacyIterator

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C++ named requirements
 

The LegacyIterator requirements describe types that can be used to identify and traverse the elements of a container.

LegacyIterator is the base set of requirements used by other iterator types: LegacyInputIterator, LegacyOutputIterator, LegacyForwardIterator, LegacyBidirectionalIterator, and LegacyRandomAccessIterator. Iterators can be thought of as an abstraction of pointers.

Requirements

The type It satisfies LegacyIterator if

Given

  • r, an lvalue of type It.

The following expressions must be valid and have their specified effects:

Expression Return Type Precondition
*r unspecified r is dereferenceable (see below)
++r It& r is incrementable (the behavior of the expression ++r is defined)

Dereferenceable iterators

Iterators for which the behavior of the expression *i is defined are called dereferenceable.

Iterators are not dereferenceable if

  • they are past-the-end iterators (including pointers past the end of an array) or before-begin iterators. Such iterators may be dereferenceable in a particular implementation, but the library never assumes that they are.
  • they are singular iterators, that is, iterators that are not associated with any sequence. A null pointer, as well as a default-constructed pointer (holding an indeterminate value) is singular
  • they were invalidated by one of the iterator-invalidating operations on the sequence to which they refer.

Concept

For the definition of std::iterator_traits, the following exposition-only concept is defined.

template<class I>

concept __LegacyIterator =
  std::Copyable<I> && requires(I i) {
    {   *i } -> __Referenceable;
    {  ++i } -> std::Same<I&>;
    { *i++ } -> __Referenceable;

  };

where the exposition-only concept __Referenceable<T> is satisfied if and only if T& is a valid type (in particular, T must not be void).

(since C++20)

See also

specifies that objects of a type can be incremented and dereferenced
(concept)