top | item 44534809

A Mental Model for C++ Coroutine

30 points| uvdn7 | 7 months ago |uvdn7.github.io

19 comments

order

valorzard|7 months ago

Note that with std::execution, c++26 will have a default async runtime (similar to how C# has a default async runtime).

This means that c++26 is getting a default coroutine task type [1] AND a default executor [2]. You can even spawn the tasks like in Tokio/async Rust. [3]

I’m not totally sure if this is a GOOD idea to add to the c++ standard but oh well.

[1] https://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2025/p35...

[2] http://wg21.link/P2079R5

[3] https://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2025/p31...

uvdn7|7 months ago

> I’m not totally sure if this is a GOOD idea to add to the c++ standard

What are the downsides? Naively, it seems like a good idea to both provide a coroutine spec (for power users) and a default task type & default executor.

nickelpro|7 months ago

Random switching between "Awaitor" and "awaiter" makes it seem like these are distinct concepts instead that the reader is supposed to understand.

In general this moves way too fast for the density of the grammar it's trying to introduce, lines like:

> We have seen Awaitors already - suspend_always is an empty awaiter type that has await_ready returns false always.

But we haven't "seen" suspend_always, it's mentioned in half a sentence in an earlier paragraph, with no further context or examples.

There's a reason Lewis Baker's writings about C++ coroutines are 5000 word monsters, the body of grammar which needs to be covered demands that level of careful and precise definition and exploration.

JonChesterfield|7 months ago

That's pretty damning too though.

A stackful coroutine is "write the live registers to your stack, swap the stack pointer to a suspended coroutine, load the old live registers from your new stack". It's a short and boring sequence of assembly.

A C++ coroutine is a CFG transform with a bunch of logic around heap allocation elision to construct something less capable than the above, with a bunch of keywords and semantics that you can kind of derive from the work the compiler needs to do to wire things together.

michaelg7x|7 months ago

Amen. Even with those 5k word monsters it's brutally hard. Andreas Fertig's cpp-insights is really helpful, when is able to complete the coroutine transform.

FWIW, I think a useful addition would be for compilers to output the intermediate source code, so you can reason more easily about behaviour and debug into readable code.

a_t48|7 months ago

I’m excited to actually getting around to trying coroutines - they should be a good replacement for simple state machines. Rather than an storing an object with a state enum, I can write simple declarative code.

spacechild1|7 months ago

In my latest personal project I have switched my asio networking code from callback functions to coroutines. It is such a big improvement! Repeated actions can be written as simple loops, error handling is done with exceptions and the code is generally much easier to follow. And here's the icing on the cake: most data can actually stay in local variables, which means I don't have to care about the lifetime!

mog_dev|7 months ago

Interesting article, but you should use a spell checker. Typos are distracting.

uvdn7|7 months ago

I am not a native speaker and I joke about my typos and grammar mistakes being the evidence that none of my code or post is AI generated. Sorry about the typos. I just fixed all the ones I can find. Hope it's better now.