[Patch] DR 438

[Paolo Carlini]

Hi Howard,

> This looks good to me, including the test cases.

Excellent.

> Note that the bit about static_cast<size_type>(f) is bogus (imho).   
> By the time that went in I was simply tired of arguing about this  
> issue.  I think it is relatively harmless.  However if you spot a use  
> case where it actually makes a difference, please let me know, and we  
> can file another DR to correct it.

Agreed.

>   I do not understand the rationale  from Redmond on this part.  As 
> far as I can tell the static_casting  of f does not appear to me to 
> actually do anything at all with  respect to the second parameter and 
> value_type.

In fact, I was puzzled myself. I'm wondering if something would be 
different here in case the library somehow manages to tell more types, 
besides integer types, from input_iterators? I'm saying that because, 
frankly, I noticed only today for the first time that the implementation 
is allowed to do better than recognizing integers... (well, if ever 
possible, I would suggest not spending too much time  reasoning about 
those issues in the context of C++03 DRs, concepts will chaneg 
everything here, right?)

Thanks,
Paolo.