Exceeding container::max_size()?

[Kevin Goodsell]

I was unable to locate the answer to this question in the (draft)
Standard or in The C++ Standard Library (Josuttis). What should occur
when one attempts to increase the size of a container beyond its max_size()?

The closest thing I found to an answer was that the reserve() member of
std::basic_string and std::vector and the resize() member of
std::basic_string throw std::length_error if the new size exceeds
max_size(). This seems likely to apply to all "growing" operations of
all containers, and is consistent with the description of
std::length_error, but I can't find anything that explicitly states this.

Thanks.

-Kevin

 

[Victor Bazarov]

I was unable to locate the answer to this question in the (draft)
Standard or in The C++ Standard Library (Josuttis). What should occur
when one attempts to increase the size of a container beyond its

max_size()?

AFAIUI, 'max_size' is not a requirement but rather a statement of fact.
You should never be able to create a container of that size -- you will
most likely run out of memory first.

The closest thing I found to an answer was that the reserve() member of
std::basic_string and std::vector and the resize() member of
std::basic_string throw std::length_error if the new size exceeds
max_size(). This seems likely to apply to all "growing" operations of
all containers, and is consistent with the description of
std::length_error, but I can't find anything that explicitly states this.

23.2.4.2/4 for 'std::vector'. 21.3.3/6 for 'std::basic_string'.

V