C++11 reverse range-based for-loop

Is there a container adapter that would reverse the direction of iterators so I can iterate over a container in reverse with range-based for-loop?

With explicit iterators I would convert this:

for (auto i = c.begin(); i != c.end(); ++i) { ...

into this:

for (auto i = c.rbegin(); i != c.rend(); ++i) { ...

I want to convert this:

for (auto& i: c) { ...

to this:

for (auto& i: std::magic_reverse_adapter(c)) { ...

Is there such a thing or do I have to write it myself?

Solution 1:

Actually Boost does have such adaptor: boost::adaptors::reverse.

#include <list>
#include <iostream>
#include <boost/range/adaptor/reversed.hpp>

int main()
{
    std::list<int> x { 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19 };
    for (auto i : boost::adaptors::reverse(x))
        std::cout << i << '\n';
    for (auto i : x)
        std::cout << i << '\n';
}

Solution 2:

Actually, in C++14 it can be done with a very few lines of code.

This is a very similar in idea to @Paul's solution. Due to things missing from C++11, that solution is a bit unnecessarily bloated (plus defining in std smells). Thanks to C++14 we can make it a lot more readable.

The key observation is that range-based for-loops work by relying on begin() and end() in order to acquire the range's iterators. Thanks to ADL, one doesn't even need to define their custom begin() and end() in the std:: namespace.

Here is a very simple-sample solution:

// -------------------------------------------------------------------
// --- Reversed iterable

template <typename T>
struct reversion_wrapper { T& iterable; };

template <typename T>
auto begin (reversion_wrapper<T> w) { return std::rbegin(w.iterable); }

template <typename T>
auto end (reversion_wrapper<T> w) { return std::rend(w.iterable); }

template <typename T>
reversion_wrapper<T> reverse (T&& iterable) { return { iterable }; }

This works like a charm, for instance:

template <typename T>
void print_iterable (std::ostream& out, const T& iterable)
{
    for (auto&& element: iterable)
        out << element << ',';
    out << '\n';
}

int main (int, char**)
{
    using namespace std;

    // on prvalues
    print_iterable(cout, reverse(initializer_list<int> { 1, 2, 3, 4, }));

    // on const lvalue references
    const list<int> ints_list { 1, 2, 3, 4, };
    for (auto&& el: reverse(ints_list))
        cout << el << ',';
    cout << '\n';

    // on mutable lvalue references
    vector<int> ints_vec { 0, 0, 0, 0, };
    size_t i = 0;
    for (int& el: reverse(ints_vec))
        el += i++;
    print_iterable(cout, ints_vec);
    print_iterable(cout, reverse(ints_vec));

    return 0;
}

prints as expected

4,3,2,1,
4,3,2,1,
3,2,1,0,
0,1,2,3,

NOTE std::rbegin(), std::rend(), and std::make_reverse_iterator() are not yet implemented in GCC-4.9. I write these examples according to the standard, but they would not compile in stable g++. Nevertheless, adding temporary stubs for these three functions is very easy. Here is a sample implementation, definitely not complete but works well enough for most cases:

// --------------------------------------------------
template <typename I>
reverse_iterator<I> make_reverse_iterator (I i)
{
    return std::reverse_iterator<I> { i };
}

// --------------------------------------------------
template <typename T>
auto rbegin (T& iterable)
{
    return make_reverse_iterator(iterable.end());
}

template <typename T>
auto rend (T& iterable)
{
    return make_reverse_iterator(iterable.begin());
}

// const container variants

template <typename T>
auto rbegin (const T& iterable)
{
    return make_reverse_iterator(iterable.end());
}

template <typename T>
auto rend (const T& iterable)
{
    return make_reverse_iterator(iterable.begin());
}

Solution 3:

This should work in C++11 without boost:

namespace std {
template<class T>
T begin(std::pair<T, T> p)
{
    return p.first;
}
template<class T>
T end(std::pair<T, T> p)
{
    return p.second;
}
}

template<class Iterator>
std::reverse_iterator<Iterator> make_reverse_iterator(Iterator it)
{
    return std::reverse_iterator<Iterator>(it);
}

template<class Range>
std::pair<std::reverse_iterator<decltype(begin(std::declval<Range>()))>, std::reverse_iterator<decltype(begin(std::declval<Range>()))>> make_reverse_range(Range&& r)
{
    return std::make_pair(make_reverse_iterator(begin(r)), make_reverse_iterator(end(r)));
}

for(auto x: make_reverse_range(r))
{
    ...
}