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Introduction

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Optionals (also known as Maybe types) are used to represent a type whose contents may or may not be present. They are implemented in C++17 as the std::optional class. For example, an object of type std::optional<int> may contain some value of type int, or it may contain no value.

Optionals are commonly used either to represent a value that may not exist or as a return type from a function that can fail to return a meaningful result.

Other approaches to optional

There are many other approach to solving the problem that std::optional solves, but none of them are quite complete: using a pointer, using a sentinel, or using a pair<bool, T>.

Optional vs Pointer

In some cases, we can provide a pointer to an existing object or nullptr to indicate failure. But this is limited to those cases where objects already exist - optional, as a value type, can also be used to return new objects without resorting to memory allocation.

Optional vs Sentinel

A common idiom is to use a special value to indicate that the value is meaningless. This may be 0 or -1 for integral types, or nullptr for pointers. However, this reduces the space of valid values (you cannot differentiate between a valid 0 and a meaningless 0) and many types do not have a natural choice for the sentinel value.

Optional vs std::pair<bool, T>

Another common idiom is to provide a pair, where one of the elements is a bool indicating whether or not the value is meaningful.

This relies upon the value type being default-constructible in the case of error, which is not possible for some types and possible but undesirable for others. An optional<T>, in the case of error, does not need to construct anything.

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std::optional:
* Introduction
* std::optional as return value
* value_or
* Using optionals to represent the absence of a value
* Using optionals to represent the failure of a function
Table Of Contents
0 Getting started
1 Literals
2 Basic type keywords
3 Operator precedence
4 Floating point arithmetic
5 Bit operators
6 Bit manipulation
7 Bit fields
8 Arrays
9 Flow control
10 const keyword
11 Loops
12 mutable keyword
13 friend keyword
14 keywords
15 Variable declaration keywords
16 auto keyword
17 Pointers
18 Type keywords (class, enum, struct, union)
19 Classes / structs
20 std::string
21 Enumeration
22 std::atomic
23 std::vector
24 std::array
25 std::pair
26 std::map
27 std::unordered_map
28 std::set and std::multiset
29 std::any
30 std::variant
31 std::optional
32 std::integer_sequence
33 std::function
34 std::forward_list
35 std::iomanip
36 Iterators
37 Basic I/O
38 File I/O
39 Streams
40 Stream manipulators
41 Metaprogramming
42 Returning multiple values from a function
43 References
44 Polymorphism
45 Value and reference semantics
46 Function call by value vs. by reference
47 Copying vs assignment
48 Pointers to class / struct members
49 The this pointer
50 Smart pointers
51 Unions
52 Templates
53 Namespaces
54 Function overloading
55 Operator overloading
56 Lambdas
57 Threading
58 Value categories
59 Preprocessor
60 SFINAE
61 Rule of three, five and zero
62 RAII
63 Exceptions
64 Implementation-defined behavior
65 Special member functions
66 Random numbers
67 Sorting
68 Regular expressions
69 Perfect forwarding
70 Virtual member functions
71 Undefined behavior
72 Overload resolution
73 Move semantics
74 Pimpl idiom
75 Copy elision
76 Fold expressions
77 Unnamed types
78 Singleton
79 ISO C++ Standard
80 User-defined literals
81 Type erasure
82 Memory management
83 Explicit type conversions
84 RTTI
85 Standard library algorithms
86 Expression templates
87 Scopes
88 Atomic types
89 static assert
90 constexpr
91 Date and time with std::chrono
92 Trailing return type
93 Function template overloading
94 Common compile linker errors
95 Design patterns
96 Optimizations
97 Compiling and building
98 Type traits
99 One definition rule
100 Unspecified behavio
101 Argument dependent name lookup
102 Attributes
103 Internationalization
104 Profiling
105 Return type covariance
106 Non-static member functions
107 Recursion
108 Callable objects
109 Constant class member functions
110 C++ vs. C++ 11 vs C++ 17
111 Inline functions
112 Client server examples
113 Header files
114 Const correctness
115 Refactoring techniques
116 Parameter packs
117 Iteration
118 type deduction
119 C++ 11 memory model
120 Build systems
121 Concurrency with OpenMP
122 Type inference
123 Resource management
124 Storage class specifiers
125 Alignment
126 Inline variables
127 Linkage specifications
128 Curiusly recurring template pattern
129 Using declaration
130 Typedef and type aliases
131 Layout of object types
132 C incompatibilities
133 Optimization
134 Semaphore
135 Thread synchronization
136 Debugging
137 Futures and promises
138 More undefined behaviors
139 Mutexes
140 Recursive mutex
141 Unit testing
142 decltype
143 Digit separators
144 C++ Containers
145 Arithmetic meta-programming
146 Contributors