I want to create a structure that allocates statically an array of 2^N bytes, but I don't want the users of this structure to specify this size as the exponent. Example:
my_stupid_array<char, 32> a1; // I want this!
my_stupid_array<char, 5> a2; // And not this...
How do I check if this template parameter is a power of two and warn the user with a nice message about this?
I've been able to check for this with a simple template:
template<int N>
struct is_power_of_two {
enum {val = (N >= 1) & !(N & (N - 1))};
};
However, I'm unable to warn the user about this with a sane message. Any ideas?
EDIT
Fixed the ambiguous example.
EDIT
1 is a power of two indeed. Fixed that! :)
EDIT
Using BOOST_STATIC_ASSERT, I'm getting this compile error for this code with GCC:
template<int N>
struct is_power_of_two {
enum {val = (N >= 1) & !(N & (N - 1))};
BOOST_STATIC_ASSERT(val);
};
Error
..\main.cpp:29:1: error: invalid application of 'sizeof' to incomplete type 'boost::STATIC_ASSERTION_FAILURE<false>'
EDIT
Oh, I get it. That was the message that I'm supposed to get when the assert fails. But that fails to give the user some sane message. :(
These days, with constexpr
and the bit twiddling hacks you can just
constexpr bool is_powerof2(int v) {
return v && ((v & (v - 1)) == 0);
}