In this post we’ll have a look at new operations added to std::optional in C++23. These operations, inspired by functional programming concepts, offer a more concise and expressive way to work with optional values, reducing boilerplate and improving code readability.

How to Use Monadic Operations for `std::optional` in C++23

By Bartlomiej Filipek

From the article:

Let’s meet and_then(), transform() and or_else(), new member functions.

Traditional Approach with if/else and optional C++20  

In C++20 when you work with std::optional you have to rely heavily on conditional checks to ensure safe access to the contained values. This often led to nested if/else code blocks, which could make the code verbose and harder to follow.

Consider the task of fetching a user profile. The profile might be available in a cache, or it might need to be fetched from a server. Once retrieved, we want to extract the user’s age and then calculate their age for the next year.