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I was reading here how to use the byteswap function. I don't understand why bit_cast is actually needed instead of using reinterpret_cast to char*. What I understand is that using this cast we are not violating the strict aliasing rule. I read that the second version below could be wrong because we access to unaligned memory. It could but at this point I'm a bit confused because if the access is UB due to unaligned memory, when is it possible to manipulate bytes with reinterpret_cast? According to the standard the cast should allow to access (read/write) the memory.

template<std::integral T>
constexpr T byteswap(T value) noexcept
{
    static_assert(std::has_unique_object_representations_v<T>, 
                  "T may not have padding bits");
    auto value_representation = std::bit_cast<std::array<std::byte, sizeof(T)>>(value);
    std::ranges::reverse(value_representation);
    return std::bit_cast<T>(value_representation);
}

template<std::integral T>
void byteswap(T& value) noexcept
{
    static_assert(std::has_unique_object_representations_v<T>, 
                  "T may not have padding bits");
    char* value_representation = reinterpret_cast<char*>(value);
    std::reverse(value_representation, value_representation+sizeof(T));
}
greywolf82
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1 Answers1

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The primary reason is that reinterpret_cast can not be used in constant expression evaluation, while std::bit_cast can. And std::byteswap is specified to be constexpr.

If you added constexpr to the declaration in your implementation, it would be ill-formed, no diagnostic required, because there is no specialization of it that could be called as subexpression of a constant expression.

Without the constexpr it is not ill-formed, but cannot be called as subexpression of a constant expression, which std::byteswap is supposed to allow.

Furthermore, there is a defect in the standard:

The standard technically does not allow doing pointer arithmetic on the reinterpret_cast<char*>(value) pointer (and also doesn't really specify a meaning for reading and writing through such a pointer).

The intention is that the char* pointer should be a pointer into the object representation of the object, considered as an array of characters. But currently the standard just says that the reinterpret_cast<char*>(value) pointer still points to the original object, not its object representation. See P1839 for a paper proposing to correct the specification to be more in line with the usual assumptions.

The implementation from cppreference is also making an assumption that might not be guaranteed to be true: Whether std::array<std::byte, sizeof(T)> is guaranteed to have the same size as T. Of course that should hold in practice and std::bit_cast will fail to compile if it doesn't.

If you want to read some discussion on whether or not it is guaranteed in theory, see the questions std::bit_cast with std::array, Is the size of std::array defined by standard and What is the sizeof std::array<char, N>?

user17732522
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