Re: small improvement for fill and fill_n

[Martin Sebor <sebor at roguewave dot com>]

Paolo Carlini wrote:

> Hi Martin,
>
> > IMO, this sounds more like a library issue than a simple matter of
> > QoI. It's easily detectable whether the algorithm actually "Assigns
> > value through all the iterators..." as the standard specifies or not.
> > There are places in the library where the interface goes to extra
> > trouble (of using by-value arguments) to avoid this side-effect of
> > aliasing.
>
>
> Thanks for your message: please confirm that I understand well your
> point. You mean that the library (i.e., the Standard) should be perhaps
> improved in this area to more carefully select a type of argument
> passing (e.g., by value) that automatically avoids this kind of trouble?

That would be one way to deal with it but as Nathan says, it may
not be the most efficient way. I think it might be best to first
approach this as an interpretation request: does the standard intend
to require that the reference `value' be used in each iteration of
the algorithm or is the implementations suggested by Dan permitted?
In either case, do we (the committee) think that the existing text
is  sufficiently clear to answer the question? (FWIW, I don't think
it is, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion :-)

Martin