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Re: [std-proposals] Allowing coroutine_handle::from_promise to accept a pointer-interconvertible object

From: Arthur O'Dwyer <arthur.j.odwyer_at_[hidden]>
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2023 23:26:51 -0500
On Tue, Jan 3, 2023 at 8:50 PM Edward Catmur <ecatmur_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> On Tue, 3 Jan 2023 at 23:33, Aaron Jacobs via Std-Proposals <
> std-proposals_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Jan 4, 2023 at 2:18 AM Arthur O'Dwyer <arthur.j.odwyer_at_[hidden]>
>> wrote:
>> > Just looking at this proposed wording, it doesn't seem like your
>> > proposal does anything. A pointer that points to "an object
>> > pointer-interconvertible with X, with the same alignment as X" is
>> > exactly the same, machine-wise, as a pointer that points to "an
>> > X" — all you have to do is cast it to (X*) before passing it to
>> > `from_promise`.
>>
>> I agree with Jason: while you are totally right in a practical sense (and
>> that
>> is why there is no compatibility issue with existing implementations), the
>> standard says this is not allowed, because a reference to a base class
>> sub-object of a coroutine promise is not a reference to a coroutine
>> promise,
>> even if they happen to have the same address This is also what
>> @timsong-cpp
>> said in https://github.com/cplusplus/draft/issues/6039.
>>
>
Well, Tim Song and Jens Maurer certainly are more authoritative than me on
core-wording subjects, but FWIW, I would say that Ed's code above is
perfectly well-defined according to the wording you quoted from the current
Standard. Tim writes:

> the parameter refers to the PromiseBase subobject of *this, and not the
promise object iself. Since the PromiseBase object is not the promise
object of any coroutine, it follows that the precondition is not met

But in fact the "promise object of the coroutine" *literally is* that very
`Promise<Result>` object, which is-a `PromiseBase` object. Every
`Promise<Result>` object is by definition a `PromiseBase` object, and every
pointer to a `Promise<Result>` object is a pointer to a `PromiseBase`
object, and this particular `Promise<Result>` object (pointed to by the
`PromiseBase`-pointer you have) literally is the promise object of a
coroutine. I can't see any rationale by which someone could point to an
object in an execution of this particular C++ program and say, "Look, *this
object* is-a PromiseBase, but simultaneously *this same object* is not the
promise object of any coroutine." There's only one object here!

We may at this point be in violent agreement. I think the current wording
clearly permits what-you-are-doing, but it seems that there are people out
there who think it doesn't, and some of those people might influence
vendors such that what-you-are-doing actually stops working at some point
in the future (because those other people told the vendor that it was okay
to break). That would be bad. So, if the wording needs to be amended to
make it clear that what-you-are-doing is literally fine and okay... okay,
let's amend the wording to make that clear. :)

–Arthur

>

Received on 2023-01-04 04:27:04