Conversion to/from std types

[danakj]

• [x] integers <-> native
• [x] floats<-> native
• [x] Option <-> std::optional
• [ ] Result <-> std::expected (c++23...so far away)
• [ ] Tuple <-> std::tuple
• [x] input_range <-> Iterator
• [ ] Vec <-> std::vector
• [ ] Array <-> std::array
• [ ] Slice/SliceMut <-> std::span
• [ ] Box <-> std::unique_ptr
  • [ ] Can we convert errors to unique_ptr<DynError>? And strings?

References?

The tricky thing is when we have a reference type in the sus type.

• Option<T&> can convert to optional<T*>, but optional<T*> will convert to Option<T*>.
• Or should Option<T&> convert to optional<T>?
• Same question for Result<T&, E>.

Vec

For Vec, we can't construct a std::vector with a pointer of our choosing, or rip the pointer out of it. So proposing that instead of Vec<T, Allocator> we have Vec<T, Driver>.

The Driver will provide the Allocator but it will also provide an abstract API that can choose how to store the Vec's data. Then we provide two Drivers:

• VecDriver which uses the Slice pointers in the Vec in-place to manage the memory (this is how the code is written today). The VecDriver is an empty class so it does not contribute to Vec's size at all.
• StdDriver which stores a std::vector inside it, and then mirrors the std::vector's pointers into the Vec's Slice pointers.

What this means is we can construct a Vec<T, StdDriver<T>> from a std::vector with just a (cheap) move of the std::vector, and we can unwrap the Vec<T, StdDriver<T>> back into a std::vector<T> as well. The Vec with a StdDriver is necessarily larger, unless we commit ABI crimes and just read/write from the std::vector as a char array. That is another possible Driver option though.

Converting between Vec<T, StdDriver<T>> and std::vector<T> would be ~the same as a move of std::vector<T>. Whereas converting between Vec<T> and std::vector<T> will require an allocation and a move of each item between buffers.

Because allocators are also a thing, the Driver would have an optional Allocator type parameter, so technically its Vec<T, Driver<Allocator>>.