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Document number: N3599

Date: 2013-03-13

Literal Operator Templates for Strings

by Richard Smith

Excerpt:

N2765 added the ability for users to define their own literal suffixes. Several forms of literal operators are available, with one notable omission: there is no template form of literal operator for character and string literals. N2750 justifies this restriction based on two factors:

• there may be demand for a raw form of string literal, in which

  "Hello, " L"Worl\u0044!"

  is distinguishable from

  L"Hello, World!"

  but this interacted badly with phases of translation, and
• no compelling use cases for this feature were known.

Neither of these is still true, and we now have evidence that a literal operator template for string literals would be valuable; indeed, in one codebase where literal operators are not yet permitted, this form of literal operator has been requested more frequently than any of the forms which C++11 permits.