A fallible iterator is one whose increment or decrement operations may fail.
This would usually be supported by replacing the usually iterator increment
and decrement operations (++ / --) with methods that return error:
class MyFallibleIterator { public: // ... Error inc(); Errro dec(); // ... };
The downside of this style is that it no longer conforms to the C++ iterator
concept, and can not make use of standard algorithms and features such as
range-based for loops.
The fallible_iterator wrapper takes an iterator written in the style above
and adapts it to (mostly) conform with the C++ iterator concept. It does this
by providing standard ++ and -- operator implementations, returning any errors
generated via a side channel (an Error reference passed into the wrapper at
construction time), and immediately jumping the iterator to a known 'end'
value upon error.
Usage looks like:
MyFallibleIterator I = ..., E = ...; Error Err = Error::success(); for (auto &Elem : make_fallible_range(I, E, Err)) { // Loop body is only entered when safe. // Early exits from loop body permitted without checking Err. } if (Err) // Handle error.