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Add infinite template recursion example #34

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merged 2 commits into from
Oct 1, 2023

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nicovank
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Impressive snippet: I originally forgot to pass the vector size M * N when constructing the vector (std::vector<std::uint64_t> v;, which doesn't generate a compiler diagnostic at all, would SIGSEV), and GPT reported it.

[...]

Also, in main function:

```cpp
std::vector<std::uint64_t> v(M * N);
```

This will allocates memory needed for the vector v. Without this, your
current program is accessing out-of-bounds memory in line `v[i] = i;`,
which also causes a runtime error.

For this example, it sometimes recommends a constexpr if before instantiating the subclass, sometimes suggests a base case with M equal to zero, both of which fix the issue. From manual observation it seems to give a "satisfactory" explanation / suggestion most of the time, maybe 80-90%.

Compiler diagnostic (Apple Clang 15.0.0):

fatal error: recursive template instantiation exceeded maximum depth of 1024
tests/c++/template-recursion.cpp:11:51: note: while substituting deduced template arguments into function template 'span' [with _Range = std::span<std::uint64_t> &]
    Matrix(std::span<std::uint64_t> underlying) : underlying(underlying) {
                                                  ^
tests/c++/template-recursion.cpp:19:32: note: in instantiation of member function 'Matrix<4294966373, 10>::Matrix' requested here
        const auto subMatrix = Matrix<M - 1, N>(underlying.subspan(N));
                               ^
tests/c++/template-recursion.cpp:20:48: note: in instantiation of member function 'Matrix<4294966374, 10>::lowestRowSum' requested here
        return std::min(firstRowSum, subMatrix.lowestRowSum());
                                               ^
tests/c++/template-recursion.cpp:20:48: note: in instantiation of member function 'Matrix<4294966375, 10>::lowestRowSum' requested here
tests/c++/template-recursion.cpp:20:48: note: in instantiation of member function 'Matrix<4294966376, 10>::lowestRowSum' requested here
tests/c++/template-recursion.cpp:20:48: note: (skipping 1015 contexts in backtrace; use -ftemplate-backtrace-limit=0 to see all)
tests/c++/template-recursion.cpp:20:48: note: in instantiation of member function 'Matrix<96, 10>::lowestRowSum' requested here
tests/c++/template-recursion.cpp:20:48: note: in instantiation of member function 'Matrix<97, 10>::lowestRowSum' requested here
tests/c++/template-recursion.cpp:20:48: note: in instantiation of member function 'Matrix<98, 10>::lowestRowSum' requested here
tests/c++/template-recursion.cpp:20:48: note: in instantiation of member function 'Matrix<99, 10>::lowestRowSum' requested here
tests/c++/template-recursion.cpp:36:47: note: in instantiation of member function 'Matrix<100, 10>::lowestRowSum' requested here
    const auto lowestRowSum = Matrix<M, N>(v).lowestRowSum();
                                              ^
1 error generated.

Sample CWhy suggestion:

Your issue originates from the fact that when the `Matrix<M, N>`
template is instantiated, it recursively creates a new `Matrix<M - 1,
N>` object in the `lowestRowSum` method (at line 19). This recursion
has no base case, meaning that it continues infinitely (until the
compiler puts a stop to it after 1024 iterations).

For a recursive template, you have to provide a base case to terminate
the recursion. Something like this:

```cpp
template <std::uint32_t M, std::uint32_t N>
struct Matrix {
    // ...
    std::uint64_t lowestRowSum() const {
        const auto firstRowSum = 
            std::accumulate(underlying.begin(), std::next(underlying.begin(), N), std::uint64_t(0));

        if constexpr(M > 1) {
            const auto subMatrix = Matrix<M - 1, N>(underlying.subspan(N));
            return std::min(firstRowSum, subMatrix.lowestRowSum());
        } else {
            return firstRowSum;
        }
    }
    // ...
};
```

In the code above, the `if` statement with the `constexpr` keyword
creates a compile-time `if` statement, meaning that if the condition
is `false`, the branch is not even compiled. Effectively, the
`lowestRowSum` method will have different implementations based on the
value of `M`.

If `M > 1`, the method does its normal work of comparing the current
row's sum with the submatrix's lowest row sum. If `M` is 1, then the
method simply returns the sum of the current row, which stops the
recursion.

@nicovank
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The example is a bit silly, but this is the first thing I could think of for a infinite recursive template.

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---------

Co-authored-by: github-actions <[email protected]>
@emeryberger
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LGTM. Nit: GPT produced an English syntax error?!?

This will allocates memory needed for the vector v.

@emeryberger emeryberger merged commit 6b69a11 into main Oct 1, 2023
5 checks passed
@nicovank nicovank deleted the template-recursion-example branch October 1, 2023 16:39
@nicovank
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nicovank commented Oct 1, 2023

Didn't event notice, seems so, I copy-pasted from the output 🤷

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