How to check that the passed Iterator is a random access iterator?
If Iterator
is a random access iterator, then
std::iterator_traits<Iterator>::iterator_category
will be std::random_access_iterator_tag
. The cleanest way to implement this is probably to create a second function template and have Foo
call it:
template <typename Iterator>
void FooImpl(Iterator first, Iterator last, std::random_access_iterator_tag) {
// ...
}
template <typename Iterator>
void Foo(Iterator first, Iterator last) {
typedef typename std::iterator_traits<Iterator>::iterator_category category;
return FooImpl(first, last, category());
}
This has the advantage that you can overload FooImpl
for different categories of iterators if you'd like.
Scott Meyers discusses this technique in one of the Effective C++ books (I don't remember which one).
In addition to the tag dispatch, you can compare the category to std::random_access_iterator_tag
directly using std::is_same_v
:
using category = typename std::iterator_traits<Iterator>::iterator_category;
if constexpr (std::is_same_v<category, std::random_access_iterator_tag>) {
vec.resize(last - first);
}
This can sometimes lead to a more clear and concise code, particularly if only a small part of your implementation (like reserving the vector size) depends on the iterator category.