Difference between revisions of "cpp/string/basic string/operator+"

The allocator used for the result is:

In other words:

• If one operand is a basic_string rvalue, its allocator is used.
• Otherwise, select_on_container_copy_construction is used on the allocator of the lvalue basic_string operand.

In each case, the left operand is preferred when both are basic_strings of the same value category.

For (8-16), all rvalue basic_string operands are left in valid but unspecified states.

Notes

operator+ should be used with great caution when stateful allocators are involved (such as when std::pmr::string is used)(since C++17). Prior to P1165R1, the allocator used for the result was determined by historical accident and can vary from overload to overload for no apparent reason. Moreover, for (1-5), the allocator propagation behavior varies across major standard library implementations and differs from the behavior depicted in the standard.

Because the allocator used by the result of operator+ is sensitive to value category, operator+ is not associative with respect to allocator propagation:

using my_string = std::basic_string<char, std::char_traits<char>, my_allocator<char>>;
my_string cat();
const my_string& dog();
 
my_string meow = /* ... */, woof = /* ... */;
meow + cat() + /* ... */; // uses select_on_container_copy_construction on meow's allocator
woof + dog() + /* ... */; // uses allocator of dog()'s return value instead
 
meow + woof + meow; // uses select_on_container_copy_construction on meow's allocator
meow + (woof + meow); // uses SOCCC on woof's allocator instead

For a chain of operator+ invocations, the allocator used for the ultimate result may be controlled by prepending an rvalue basic_string with the desired allocator:

// use my_favorite_allocator for the final result
my_string(my_favorite_allocator) + meow + woof + cat() + dog();

For better and portable control over allocators, member functions like append, insert, and operator+= should be used on a result string constructed with the desired allocator.

The usage of std::type_identity_t as parameter in overloads (4), (7), (12), and (16) ensures that an object of type std::basic_string<CharT, Traits, Allocator> can always be concatenated to an object of a type T with an implicit conversion to std::basic_string_view<CharT, Traits>, and vice versa, as per overload resolution rules.