std::uninitialized_copy

 

C++

Compiler support

Freestanding and hosted

Language

Standard library

Standard library headers

Named requirements

Feature test macros (C++20)

Language support library

Concepts library (C++20)

Metaprogramming library (C++11)

Diagnostics library

General utilities library

Strings library

Containers library

Iterators library

Ranges library (C++20)

Algorithms library

Numerics library

Localizations library

Input/output library

Filesystem library (C++17)

Regular expressions library (C++11)

Concurrency support library (C++11)

Execution support library (C++26)

Technical specifications

Symbols index

External libraries

 

Utilities library

Language support Type support (basic types, RTTI) Library feature-test macros (C++20) Dynamic memory management Program utilities Coroutine support (C++20) Variadic functions is_constant_evaluated (C++20) is_within_lifetime (C++26) initializer_list (C++11) source_location (C++20) Three-way comparison three_way_comparablethree_way_comparable_with (C++20)(C++20) strong_ordering (C++20) weak_ordering (C++20) partial_ordering (C++20) common_comparison_category (C++20) compare_three_way_result (C++20) compare_three_way (C++20) strong_order (C++20) weak_order (C++20) partial_order (C++20) compare_strong_order_fallback (C++20) compare_weak_order_fallback (C++20) compare_partial_order_fallback (C++20)   is_eqis_ltis_lteq (C++20)(C++20)(C++20)   is_neqis_gtis_gteq (C++20)(C++20)(C++20)

General utilities Date and time Function objects Formatting library (C++20)   bitset hash (C++11) Relational operators (deprecated in C++20) rel_ops::operator!=rel_ops::operator>    rel_ops::operator<=rel_ops::operator>= Integer comparison functions cmp_equalcmp_lesscmp_less_than (C++20)(C++20)(C++20)   cmp_not_equalcmp_greatercmp_greater_than (C++20)(C++20)(C++20) in_range (C++20) Swap and type operations swap ranges::swap (C++20) exchange (C++14) declval (C++11) to_underlying (C++23) forward (C++11) forward_like (C++23) move (C++11) move_if_noexcept (C++11) as_const (C++17) Common vocabulary types pair tuple (C++11) optional (C++17) any (C++17) variant (C++17) tuple_size (C++11) tuple_element (C++11) apply (C++17) make_from_tuple (C++17) expected (C++23) Elementary string conversions to_chars (C++17) from_chars (C++17) chars_format (C++17) to_chars_result (C++17) from_chars_result (C++17)

 

Dynamic memory management

Uninitialized memory algorithms uninitialized_copy uninitialized_fill uninitialized_move (C++17) uninitialized_default_construct (C++17) uninitialized_value_construct (C++17) destroy (C++17) destroy_at (C++17) voidify (C++20) uninitialized_copy_n (C++11) uninitialized_fill_n uninitialized_move_n (C++17) uninitialized_default_construct_n (C++17) uninitialized_value_construct_n (C++17) destroy_n (C++17) construct_at (C++20) Constrained uninitialized memory algorithms ranges::uninitialized_copy (C++20) ranges::uninitialized_fill (C++20) ranges::uninitialized_move (C++20) ranges::construct_at (C++20) ranges::destroy (C++20) ranges::destroy_n (C++20) ranges::destroy_at (C++20) ranges::uninitialized_copy_n (C++20) ranges::uninitialized_fill_n (C++20) ranges::uninitialized_move_n (C++20) ranges::uninitialized_default_construct (C++20) ranges::uninitialized_value_construct (C++20) ranges::uninitialized_default_construct_n (C++20)   ranges::uninitialized_value_construct_n (C++20) Allocators allocator allocator_traits (C++11) allocation_result (C++23) allocator_arg (C++11) uses_allocator (C++11) uses_allocator_construction_args (C++20) make_obj_using_allocator (C++20) uninitialized_construct_using_allocator (C++20) scoped_allocator_adaptor (C++11) pmr::polymorphic_allocator (C++17) Memory resources pmr::memory_resource (C++17) pmr::get_default_resource (C++17) pmr::set_default_resource (C++17) pmr::new_delete_resource (C++17) pmr::null_memory_resource (C++17) pmr::synchronized_pool_resource (C++17) pmr::unsynchronized_pool_resource (C++17)   pmr::monotonic_buffer_resource (C++17) pmr::pool_options (C++17) Garbage collection support declare_reachable (C++11)(until C++23) undeclare_reachable (C++11)(until C++23) declare_no_pointers (C++11)(until C++23) undeclare_no_pointers (C++11)(until C++23) pointer_safety (C++11)(until C++23) get_pointer_safety (C++11)(until C++23) Uninitialized storage raw_storage_iterator (until C++20*) get_temporary_buffer (until C++20*) return_temporary_buffer (until C++20*) Explicit lifetime management start_lifetime_asstart_lifetime_as_array (C++23)(C++23)

Smart pointers unique_ptr (C++11) shared_ptr (C++11) weak_ptr (C++11) auto_ptr (until C++17*) owner_less (C++11) owner_less<void> (C++17) owner_hash (C++26) owner_equal (C++26) enable_shared_from_this (C++11) bad_weak_ptr (C++11) default_delete (C++11) out_ptr_t (C++23) inout_ptr_t (C++23) Low level memory management operator new operator new[] operator delete operator delete[] get_new_handler (C++11) set_new_handler launder (C++17) bad_alloc bad_array_new_length (C++11) nothrow_t align_val_t (C++17) destroying_delete_t (C++20) new_handler nothrow Miscellaneous pointer_traits (C++11) to_address (C++20) addressof (C++11) align (C++11) assume_aligned (C++20) C Library malloc calloc realloc    aligned_alloc (C++17) free

 

Defined in header <memory>
template< class InputIt, class NoThrowForwardIt > NoThrowForwardIt uninitialized_copy( InputIt first, InputIt last,                                      NoThrowForwardIt d_first );	(1)
template< class ExecutionPolicy, class ForwardIt, class NoThrowForwardIt > NoThrowForwardIt uninitialized_copy( ExecutionPolicy&& policy,                                      ForwardIt first, ForwardIt last,                                      NoThrowForwardIt d_first );	(2)	(since C++17)

1) Copies elements from the range [first, last) to an uninitialized memory area beginning at d_first as if by for (; first != last; ++d_first, (void) ++first)
    ::new (/* VOIDIFY */(*d_first))
        typename std::iterator_traits<NoThrowForwardIt>::value_type(*first);

where /* VOIDIFY */(e) is:

static_cast<void*>(&e)	(until C++11)
static_cast<void*>(std::addressof(e))	(since C++11)

If an exception is thrown during the initialization, the objects already constructed are destroyed in an unspecified order.

If d_first + [​0​, std::distance(first, last)) overlaps with [first, last), the behavior is undefined.

(since C++20)

2) Same as (1), but executed according to policy. This overload participates in overload resolution only if

std::is_execution_policy_v<std::decay_t<ExecutionPolicy>> is true.	(until C++20)
std::is_execution_policy_v<std::remove_cvref_t<ExecutionPolicy>> is true.	(since C++20)

Parameters

first, last	-	the range of the elements to copy
d_first	-	the beginning of the destination range
policy	-	the execution policy to use. See execution policy for details.
Type requirements
- InputIt must meet the requirements of LegacyInputIterator.
- ForwardIt must meet the requirements of LegacyForwardIterator.
- NoThrowForwardIt must meet the requirements of LegacyForwardIterator.
- No increment, assignment, comparison, or indirection through valid instances of NoThrowForwardIt may throw exceptions. Applying &* to a NoThrowForwardIt value must yield a pointer to its value type.(until C++11)

Return value

Iterator to the element past the last element copied.

Complexity

Linear in the distance between first and last.

Exceptions

The overload with a template parameter named ExecutionPolicy reports errors as follows:

• If execution of a function invoked as part of the algorithm throws an exception and ExecutionPolicy is one of the standard policies, std::terminate is called. For any other ExecutionPolicy, the behavior is implementation-defined.
• If the algorithm fails to allocate memory, std::bad_alloc is thrown.

Possible implementation

template<class InputIt, class NoThrowForwardIt> NoThrowForwardIt uninitialized_copy(InputIt first, InputIt last, NoThrowForwardIt d_first) { using T = typename std::iterator_traits<NoThrowForwardIt>::value_type; NoThrowForwardIt current = d_first; try { for (; first != last; ++first, (void) ++current) ::new (static_cast<void*>(std::addressof(*current))) T(*first); return current; } catch (...) { for (; d_first != current; ++d_first) d_first->~T(); throw; } }

Example

Run this code

#include <cstdlib>
#include <iostream>
#include <memory>
#include <string>
 
int main()
{
    const char *v[] = {"This", "is", "an", "example"};
 
    auto sz = std::size(v);
 
    if (void *pbuf = std::aligned_alloc(alignof(std::string), sizeof(std::string) * sz))
    {
        try
        {
            auto first = static_cast<std::string*>(pbuf);
            auto last = std::uninitialized_copy(std::begin(v), std::end(v), first);
 
            for (auto it = first; it != last; ++it)
                std::cout << *it << '_';
            std::cout << '\n';
 
            std::destroy(first, last);
        }
        catch (...) {}
        std::free(pbuf);
    }
}

Output:

This_is_an_example_

Defect reports

The following behavior-changing defect reports were applied retroactively to previously published C++ standards.

DR	Applied to	Behavior as published	Correct behavior
LWG 866	C++98	given T as the value type of NoThrowForwardIt, if T::operator new exists, the program might be ill-formed	uses global replacement- new instead
LWG 2433	C++11	this algorithm might be hijacked by overloaded operator&	uses std::addressof
LWG 3870	C++20	this algorithm might create objects on a const storage	kept disallowed

See also

uninitialized_copy_n (C++11)	copies a number of objects to an uninitialized area of memory (function template)
ranges::uninitialized_copy (C++20)	copies a range of objects to an uninitialized area of memory (niebloid)