This post is the third in the series on the C++ Coroutines TS (N4736).

The previous articles in this series cover:

In this post I look at the mechanics of how the compiler translates coroutine code that you write into compiled code and how you can customise the behaviour of a coroutine by defining your own Promise type.

Coroutine Concepts

The Coroutines TS adds three new keywords: co_await , co_yield and co_return . Whenever you use one of these coroutine keywords in the body of a function this triggers the compiler to compile this function as a coroutine rather than as a normal function.

The compiler applies some fairly mechanical transformations to the code that you write to turn it into a state-machine that allows it to suspend execution at particular points within the function and then later resume execution.

In the previous post I described the first of two new interfaces that the Coroutines TS introduces: The Awaitable interface. The second interface that the TS introduces that is important to this code transformation is the Promise interface.

The Promise interface specifies methods for customising the behaviour of the coroutine itself. The library-writer is able to customise what happens when the coroutine is called, what happens when the coroutine returns (either by normal means or via an unhandled exception) and customise the behaviour of any co_await or co_yield expression within the coroutine.

Promise objects

The Promise object defines and controls the behaviour of the coroutine itself by implementing methods that are called at specific points during execution of the coroutine.

Before we go on, I want you to try and rid yourself of any preconceived notions of what a “promise” is. While, in some use-cases, the coroutine promise object does indeed act in a similar role to the std::promise part of a std::future pair, for other use-cases the analogy is somewhat stretched. It may be easier to think about the coroutine’s promise object as being a “coroutine state controller” object that controls the behaviour of the coroutine and can be used to track its state.

An instance of the promise object is constructed within the coroutine frame for each invocation of a coroutine function.

The compiler generates calls to certain methods on the promise object at key points during execution of the coroutine.

In the following examples, assume that the promise object created in the coroutine frame for a particular invocation of the coroutine is promise .

When you write a coroutine function that has a body, <body-statements> , which contains one of the coroutine keywords ( co_return , co_await , co_yield ) then the body of the coroutine is transformed to something (roughly) like the following:

{ co_await promise . initial_suspend (); try { < body - statements > } catch (...) { promise . unhandled_exception (); } FinalSuspend: co_await promise . final_suspend (); }

When a coroutine function is called there are a number of steps that are performed prior to executing the code in the source of the coroutine body that are a little different to regular functions.

Here is a summary of the steps (I’ll go into more detail on each of the steps below).

Allocate a coroutine frame using operator new (optional). Copy any function parameters to the coroutine frame. Call the constructor for the promise object of type, P . Call the promise.get_return_object() method to obtain the result to return to the caller when the coroutine first suspends. Save the result as a local variable. Call the promise.initial_suspend() method and co_await the result. When the co_await promise.initial_suspend() expression resumes (either immediately or asynchronously), then the coroutine starts executing the coroutine body statements that you wrote.

Some additional steps are executed when execution reaches a co_return statement:

Call promise.return_void() or promise.return_value(<expr>) Destroy all variables with automatic storage duration in reverse order they were created. Call promise.final_suspend() and co_await the result.

If instead, execution leaves <body-statements> due to an unhandled exception then:

Catch the exception and call promise.unhandled_exception() from within the catch-block. Call promise.final_suspend() and co_await the result.

Once execution propagates outside of the coroutine body then the coroutine frame is destroyed. Destroying the coroutine frame involves a number of steps:

Call the destructor of the promise object. Call the destructors of the function parameter copies. Call operator delete to free the memory used by the coroutine frame (optional) Transfer execution back to the caller/resumer.

When execution first reaches a <return-to-caller-or-resumer> point inside a co_await expression, or if the coroutine runs to completion without hitting a <return-to-caller-or-resumer> point, then the coroutine is either suspended or destroyed and the return-object previously returned from the call to promise.get_return_object() is then returned to the caller of the coroutine.

Allocating a coroutine frame

First, the compiler generates a call to operator new to allocate memory for the coroutine frame.

If the promise type, P , defines a custom operator new method then that is called, otherwise the global operator new is called.

There are a few important things to note here:

The size passed to operator new is not sizeof(P) but is rather the size of the entire coroutine frame and is determined automatically by the compiler based on the number and sizes of parameters, size of the promise object, number and sizes of local variables and other compiler-specific storage needed for management of coroutine state.

The compiler is free to elide the call to operator new as an optimisation if:

it is able to determine that the lifetime of the coroutine frame is strictly nested within the lifetime of the caller; and

the compiler can see the size of coroutine frame required at the call-site.

In these cases, the compiler can allocate storage for the coroutine frame in the caller’s activation frame (either in the stack-frame or coroutine-frame part).

The Coroutines TS does not yet specify any situations in which the allocation elision is guaranteed, so you still need to write code as if the allocation of the coroutine frame may fail with std::bad_alloc . This also means that you usually shouldn’t declare a coroutine function as noexcept unless you are ok with std::terminate() being called if the coroutine fails to allocate memory for the coroutine frame.

There is a fallback, however, that can be used in lieu of exceptions for handling failure to allocate the coroutine frame. This can be necessary when operating in environments where exceptions are not allowed, such as embedded environments or high-performance environments where the overhead of exceptions is not tolerated.

If the promise type provides a static P::get_return_object_on_allocation_failure() member function then the compiler will generate a call to the operator new(size_t, nothrow_t) overload instead. If that call returns nullptr then the coroutine will immediately call P::get_return_object_on_allocation_failure() and return the result to the caller of the coroutine instead of throwing an exception.

Customising coroutine frame memory allocation

Your promise type can define an overload of operator new() that will be called instead of global-scope operator new if the compiler needs to allocate memory for a coroutine frame that uses your promise type.

For example:

struct my_promise_type { void * operator new ( std :: size_t size ) { void * ptr = my_custom_allocate ( size ); if ( ! ptr ) throw std :: bad_alloc {}; return ptr ; } void operator delete ( void * ptr , std :: size_t size ) { my_custom_free ( ptr , size ); } ... };

“But what about custom allocators?”, I hear you asking.

You can also provide an overload of P::operator new() that takes additional arguments which will be called with lvalue references to the coroutine function parameters if a suitable overload can be found. This can be used to hook up operator new to call an allocate() method on an allocator that was passed as an argument to the coroutine function.

You will need to do some extra work to make a copy of the allocator inside the allocated memory so you can reference it in the corresponding call to operator delete since the parameters are not passed to the corresponding operator delete call. This is because the parameters are stored in the coroutine-frame and so they will have already been destructed by the time that operator delete is called.

For example, you can implement operator new so that it allocates extra space after the coroutine frame and use that space to stash a copy of the allocator that can be used to free the coroutine frame memory.

For example:

template < typename ALLOCATOR > struct my_promise_type { template < typename ... ARGS > void * operator new ( std :: size_t sz , std :: allocator_arg_t , ALLOCATOR & allocator , ARGS & ... args ) { // Round up sz to next multiple of ALLOCATOR alignment std :: size_t allocatorOffset = ( sz + alignof ( ALLOCATOR ) - 1u ) & ~ ( alignof ( ALLOCATOR ) - 1u ); // Call onto allocator to allocate space for coroutine frame. void * ptr = allocator . allocate ( allocatorOffset + sizeof ( ALLOCATOR )); // Take a copy of the allocator (assuming noexcept copy constructor here) new ((( char * ) ptr ) + allocatorOffset ) ALLOCATOR ( allocator ); return ptr ; } void operator delete ( void * ptr , std :: size_t sz ) { std :: size_t allocatorOffset = ( sz + alignof ( ALLOCATOR ) - 1u ) & ~ ( alignof ( ALLOCATOR ) - 1u ); ALLOCATOR & allocator = * reinterpret_cast < ALLOCATOR *> ( (( char * ) ptr ) + allocatorOffset ); // Move allocator to local variable first so it isn't freeing its // own memory from underneath itself. // Assuming allocator move-constructor is noexcept here. ALLOCATOR allocatorCopy = std :: move ( allocator ); // But don't forget to destruct allocator object in coroutine frame allocator . ~ ALLOCATOR (); // Finally, free the memory using the allocator. allocatorCopy . deallocate ( ptr , allocatorOffset + sizeof ( ALLOCATOR )); } }

To hook up the custom my_promise_type to be used for coroutines that pass std::allocator_arg as the first parameter, you need to specialise the coroutine_traits class (see section on coroutine_traits below for more details).

For example:

namespace std::experimental { template<typename ALLOCATOR, typename... ARGS> struct coroutine_traits<my_return_type, std::allocator_arg_t, ALLOCATOR, ARGS...> { using promise_type = my_promise_type<ALLOCATOR>; }; }

Note that even if you customise the memory allocation strategy for a coroutine, the compiler is still allowed to elide the call to your memory allocator.

Copying parameters to the coroutine frame

The coroutine needs to copy any parameters passed to the coroutine function by the original caller into the coroutine frame so that they remain valid after the coroutine is suspended.

If parameters are passed to the coroutine by value, then those parameters are copied to the coroutine frame by calling the type’s move-constructor.

If parameters are passed to the coroutine by reference (either lvalue or rvalue), then only the references are copied into the coroutine frame, not the values they point to.

Note that for types with trivial destructors, the compiler is free to elide the copy of the parameter if the parameter is never referenced after a reachable <return-to-caller-or-resumer> point in the coroutine.

There are many gotchas involved when passing parameters by reference into coroutines as you cannot necessarily rely on the reference remaining valid for the lifetime of the coroutine. Many common techniques used with normal functions, such as perfect-forwarding and universal-references, can result in code that has undefined behaviour if used with coroutines. Toby Allsopp has written a great article on this topic if you want more details.

If any of the parameter copy/move constructors throws an exception then any parameters already constructed are destructed, the coroutine frame is freed and the exception propagates back out to the caller.

Constructing the promise object

Once all of the parameters have been copied into the coroutine frame, the coroutine then constructs the promise object.

The reason the parameters are copied prior to the promise object being constructed is to allow the promise object to be given access to the post-copied parameters in its constructor.

First, the compiler checks to see if there is an overload of the promise constructor that can accept lvalue references to each of the copied parameters. If the compiler finds such an overload then the compiler generates a call to that constructor overload. If it does not find such an overload then the compiler falls back to generating a call to the promise type’s default constructor.

Note that the ability for the promise constructor to “peek” at the parameters was a relatively recent change to the Coroutines TS, being adopted in N4723 at the Jacksonville 2018 meeting. See P0914R1 for the proposal. Thus it may not be supported by some older versions of Clang or MSVC.

If the promise constructor throws an exception then the parameter copies are destructed and the coroutine frame freed during stack unwinding before the exception propagates out to the caller.

Obtaining the return object

The first thing a coroutine does with the promise object is obtain the return-object by calling promise.get_return_object() .

The return-object is the value that is returned to the caller of the coroutine function when the coroutine first suspends or after it runs to completion and execution returns to the caller.

You can think of the control flow going something (very roughly) like this:

// Pretend there's a compiler-generated structure called 'coroutine_frame' // that holds all of the state needed for the coroutine. It's constructor // takes a copy of parameters and default-constructs a promise object. struct coroutine_frame { ... }; T some_coroutine ( P param ) { auto * f = new coroutine_frame ( std :: forward < P > ( param )); auto returnObject = f -> promise . get_return_object (); // Start execution of the coroutine body by resuming it. // This call will return when the coroutine gets to the first // suspend-point or when the coroutine runs to completion. coroutine_handle < decltype ( f -> promise ) >:: from_promise ( f -> promise ). resume (); // Then the return object is returned to the caller. return returnObject ; }

Note that we need to obtain the return-object before starting the coroutine body since the coroutine frame (and thus the promise object) may be destroyed prior to the call to coroutine_handle::resume() returning, either on this thread or possibly on another thread, and so it would be unsafe to call get_return_object() after starting execution of the coroutine body.

The initial-suspend point

The next thing the coroutine executes once the coroutine frame has been initialised and the return object has been obtained is execute the statement co_await promise.initial_suspend(); .

This allows the author of the promise_type to control whether the coroutine should suspend before executing the coroutine body that appears in the source code or start executing the coroutine body immediately.

If the coroutine suspends at the initial suspend point then it can be later resumed or destroyed at a time of your choosing by calling resume() or destroy() on the coroutine’s coroutine_handle .

The result of the co_await promise.initial_suspend() expression is discarded so implementations should generally return void from the await_resume() method of the awaiter.

It is important to note that this statement exists outside of the try / catch block that guards the rest of the coroutine (scroll back up to the definition of the coroutine body if you’ve forgotten what it looks like). This means that any exception thrown from the co_await promise.initial_suspend() evaluation prior to hitting its <return-to-caller-or-resumer> will be thrown back to the caller of the coroutine after destroying the coroutine frame and the return object.

Be aware of this if your return-object has RAII semantics that destroy the coroutine frame on destruction. If this is the case then you want to make sure that co_await promise.initial_suspend() is noexcept to avoid double-free of the coroutine frame.

Note that there is a proposal to tweak the semantics so that either all or part of the co_await promise.initial_suspend() expression lies inside try/catch block of the coroutine-body so the exact semantics here are likely to change before coroutines are finalised.

For many types of coroutine, the initial_suspend() method either returns std::experimental::suspend_always (if the operation is lazily started) or std::experimental::suspend_never (if the operation is eagerly started) which are both noexcept awaitables so this is usually not an issue.

Returning to the caller

When the coroutine function reaches its first <return-to-caller-or-resumer> point (or if no such point is reached then when execution of the coroutine runs to completion) then the return-object returned from the get_return_object() call is returned to the caller of the coroutine.

Note that the type of the return-object doesn’t need to be the same type as the return-type of the coroutine function. An implicit conversion from the return-object to the return-type of the coroutine is performed if necessary.

Note that Clang’s implementation of coroutines (as of 5.0) defers executing this conversion until the return-object is returned from the coroutine call, whereas MSVC’s implementation as of 2017 Update 3 performs the conversion immediately after calling get_return_object() . Although the Coroutines TS is not explicit on the intended behaviour, I believe MSVC has plans to change their implementation to behave more like Clang’s as this enables some interesting use cases.

Returning from the coroutine using co_return

When the coroutine reaches a co_return statement, it is translated into either a call to promise.return_void() or promise.return_value(<expr>) followed by a goto FinalSuspend; .

The rules for the translation are as follows:

co_return;

-> promise.return_void();

-> co_return <expr>;

-> <expr>; promise.return_void(); if <expr> has type void

-> promise.return_value(<expr>); if <expr> does not have type void

The subsequent goto FinalSuspend; causes all local variables with automatic storage duration to be destructed in reverse order of construction before then evaluating co_await promise.final_suspend(); .

Note that if execution runs off the end of a coroutine without a co_return statement then this is equivalent to having a co_return; at the end of the function body. In this case, if the promise_type does not have a return_void() method then the behaviour is undefined.

If either the evaluation of <expr> or the call to promise.return_void() or promise.return_value() throws an exception then the exception still propagates to promise.unhandled_exception() (see below).

Handling exceptions that propagate out of the coroutine body

If an exception propagates out of the coroutine body then the exception is caught and the promise.unhandled_exception() method is called inside the catch block.

Implementations of this method typically call std::current_exception() to capture a copy of the exception to store it away to be later rethrown in a different context.

Alternatively, the implementation could immediately rethrow the exception by executing a throw; statement. For example see folly::Optional However, doing so will (likely - see below) cause the the coroutine frame to be immediately destroyed and for the exception to propagate out to the caller/resumer. This could cause problems for some abstractions that assume/require the call to coroutine_handle::resume() to be noexcept , so you should generally only use this approach when you have full control over who/what calls resume() .

Note that the current Coroutines TS wording is a little unclear on the intended behaviour if the call to unhandled_exception() rethrows the exception (or for that matter if any of the logic outside of the try-block throws an exception).

My current interpretation of the wording is that if control exits the coroutine-body, either via exception propagating out of co_await promise.initial_suspend() , promise.unhandled_exception() or co_await promise.final_suspend() or by the coroutine running to completion by co_await p.final_suspend() completing synchronously then the coroutine frame is automatically destroyed before execution returns to the caller/resumer. However, this interpretation has its own issues.

A future version of the Coroutines specification will hopefully clarify the situation. However, until then I’d stay away from throwing exceptions out of initial_suspend() , final_suspend() or unhandled_exception() . Stay tuned!

The final-suspend point

Once execution exits the user-defined part of the coroutine body and the result has been captured via a call to return_void() , return_value() or unhandled_exception() and any local variables have been destructed, the coroutine has an opportunity to execute some additional logic before execution is returned back to the caller/resumer.

The coroutine executes the co_await promise.final_suspend(); statement.

This allows the coroutine to execute some logic, such as publishing a result, signalling completion or resuming a continuation. It also allows the coroutine to optionally suspend immediately before execution of the coroutine runs to completion and the coroutine frame is destroyed.

Note that it is undefined behaviour to resume() a coroutine that is suspended at the final_suspend point. The only thing you can do with a coroutine suspended here is destroy() it.

The rationale for this limitation, according to Gor Nishanov, is that this provides several optimisation opportunities for the compiler due to the reduction in the number of suspend states that need to be represented by the coroutine and a potential reduction in the number of branches required.

Note that while it is allowed to have a coroutine not suspend at the final_suspend point, it is recommended that you structure your coroutines so that they do suspend at final_suspend where possible. This is because this forces you to call .destroy() on the coroutine from outside of the coroutine (typically from some RAII object destructor) and this makes it much easier for the compiler to determine when the scope of the lifetime of the coroutine-frame is nested inside the caller. This in turn makes it much more likely that the compiler can elide the memory allocation of the coroutine frame.

How the compiler chooses the promise type

So lets look now at how the compiler determines what type of promise object to use for a given coroutine.

The type of the promise object is determined from the signature of the coroutine by using the std::experimental::coroutine_traits class.

If you have a coroutine function with signature:

task < float > foo ( std :: string x , bool flag );

Then the compiler will deduce the type of the coroutine’s promise by passing the return-type and parameter types as template arguments to coroutine_traits .

typename coroutine_traits < task < float > , std :: string , bool >:: promise_type ;

If the function is a non-static member function then the class type is passed as the second template parameter to coroutine_traits . Note that if your method is overloaded for rvalue-references then the second template parameter will be an rvalue reference.

For example, if you have the following methods:

task < void > my_class :: method1 ( int x ) const ; task < foo > my_class :: method2 () && ;

Then the compiler will use the following promise types:

// method1 promise type typename coroutine_traits < task < void > , const my_class & , int >:: promise_type ; // method2 promise type typename coroutine_traits < task < foo > , my_class &&>:: promise_type ;

The default definition of coroutine_traits template defines the promise_type by looking for a nested promise_type typedef defined on the return-type. ie. Something like this (but with some extra SFINAE magic so that promise_type is not defined if RET::promise_type is not defined).

namespace std :: experimental { template < typename RET , typename ... ARGS > struct coroutine_traits < RET , ARGS ... > { using promise_type = typename RET :: promise_type ; }; }

So for coroutine return-types that you have control over, you can just define a nested promise_type in your class to have the compiler use that type as the type of the promise object for coroutines that return your class.

For example:

template < typename T > struct task { using promise_type = task_promise < T > ; ... };

However, for coroutine return-types that you don’t have control over you can specialise the coroutine_traits to define the promise type to use without needing to modify the type.

For example, to define the promise-type to use for a coroutine that returns std::optional<T> :

namespace std :: experimental { template < typename T , typename ... ARGS > struct coroutine_traits < std :: optional < T > , ARGS ... > { using promise_type = optional_promise < T > ; }; }

Identifying a specific coroutine activation frame

When you call a coroutine function, a coroutine frame is created. In order to resume the associated coroutine or destroy the coroutine frame you need some way to identify or refer to that particular coroutine frame.

The mechanism the Coroutines TS provides for this is the coroutine_handle type.

The (abbreviated) interface of this type is as follows:

namespace std :: experimental { template < typename Promise = void > struct coroutine_handle ; // Type-erased coroutine handle. Can refer to any kind of coroutine. // Doesn't allow access to the promise object. template <> struct coroutine_handle < void > { // Constructs to the null handle. constexpr coroutine_handle (); // Convert to/from a void* for passing into C-style interop functions. constexpr void * address () const noexcept ; static constexpr coroutine_handle from_address ( void * addr ); // Query if the handle is non-null. constexpr explicit operator bool () const noexcept ; // Query if the coroutine is suspended at the final_suspend point. // Undefined behaviour if coroutine is not currently suspended. bool done () const ; // Resume/Destroy the suspended coroutine void resume (); void destroy (); }; // Coroutine handle for coroutines with a known promise type. // Template argument must exactly match coroutine's promise type. template < typename Promise > struct coroutine_handle : coroutine_handle <> { using coroutine_handle <>:: coroutine_handle ; static constexpr coroutine_handle from_address ( void * addr ); // Access to the coroutine's promise object. Promise & promise () const ; // You can reconstruct the coroutine handle from the promise object. static coroutine_handle from_promise ( Promise & promise ); }; }

You can obtain a coroutine_handle for a coroutine in two ways:

It is passed to the await_suspend() method during a co_await expression. If you have a reference to the coroutine’s promise object, you can reconstruct its coroutine_handle using coroutine_handle<Promise>::from_promise() .

The coroutine_handle of the awaiting coroutine will be passed into the await_suspend() method of the awaiter after the coroutine has suspended at the <suspend-point> of a co_await expression. You can think of this coroutine_handle as representing the continuation of the coroutine in a continuation-passing style call.

Note that the coroutine_handle is NOT and RAII object. You must manually call .destroy() to destroy the coroutine frame and free its resources. Think of it as the equivalent of a void* used to manage memory. This is for performance reasons: making it an RAII object would add additional overhead to coroutine, such as the need for reference counting.

You should generally try to use higher-level types that provide the RAII semantics for coroutines, such as those provided by cppcoro (shameless plug), or write your own higher-level types that encapsulate the lifetime of the coroutine frame for your coroutine type.

Customising the behaviour of co_await

The promise type can optionally customise the behaviour of every co_await expression that appears in the body of the coroutine.

By simply defining a method named await_transform() on the promise type, the compiler will then transform every co_await <expr> appearing in the body of the coroutine into co_await promise.await_transform(<expr>) .

This has a number of important and powerful uses:

It lets you enable awaiting types that would not normally be awaitable.

For example, a promise type for coroutines with a std::optional<T> return-type might provide an await_transform() overload that takes a std::optional<U> and that returns an awaitable type that either returns a value of type U or suspends the coroutine if the awaited value contains nullopt .

template < typename T > class optional_promise { ... template < typename U > auto await_transform ( std :: optional < U >& value ) { class awaiter { std :: optional < U >& value ; public: explicit awaiter ( std :: optional < U >& x ) noexcept : value ( x ) {} bool await_ready () noexcept { return value . has_value (); } void await_suspend ( std :: experimental :: coroutine_handle <> ) noexcept {} U & await_resume () noexcept { return * value ; } }; return awaiter { value }; } };

It lets you disallow awaiting on certain types by declaring await_transform overloads as deleted.

For example, a promise type for std::generator<T> return-type might declare a deleted await_transform() template member function that accepts any type. This basically disables use of co_await within the coroutine.

template < typename T > class generator_promise { ... // Disable any use of co_await within this type of coroutine. template < typename U > std :: experimental :: suspend_never await_transform ( U && ) = delete ; };

It lets you adapt and change the behaviour of normally awaitable values

For example, you could define a type of coroutine that ensured that the coroutine always resumed from every co_await expression on an associated executor by wrapping the awaitable in a resume_on() operator (see cppcoro::resume_on() ).

template < typename T , typename Executor > class executor_task_promise { Executor executor ; public: template < typename Awaitable > auto await_transform ( Awaitable && awaitable ) { using cppcoro :: resume_on ; return resume_on ( this -> executor , std :: forward < Awaitable > ( awaitable )); } };

As a final word on await_transform() , it’s important to note that if the promise type defines any await_transform() members then this triggers the compiler to transform all co_await expressions to call promise.await_transform() . This means that if you want to customise the behaviour of co_await for just some types that you also need to provide a fallback overload of await_transform() that just forwards through the argument.

Customising the behaviour of co_yield

The final thing you can customise through the promise type is the behaviour of the co_yield keyword.

If the co_yield keyword appears in a coroutine then the compiler translates the expression co_yield <expr> into the expression co_await promise.yield_value(<expr>) . The promise type can therefore customise the behaviour of the co_yield keyword by defining one or more yield_value() methods on the promise object.

Note that, unlike await_transform , there is no default behaviour of co_yield if the promise type does not define the yield_value() method. So while a promise type needs to explicitly opt-out of allowing co_await by declaring a deleted await_transform() , a promise type needs to opt-in to supporting co_yield .

The typical example of a promise type with a yield_value() method is that of a generator<T> type:

template < typename T > class generator_promise { T * valuePtr ; public: ... std :: experimental :: suspend_always yield_value ( T & value ) noexcept { // Stash the address of the yielded value and then return an awaitable // that will cause the coroutine to suspend at the co_yield expression. // Execution will then return from the call to coroutine_handle<>::resume() // inside either generator<T>::begin() or generator<T>::iterator::operator++(). valuePtr = std :: addressof ( value ); return {}; } };

Summary

In this post I’ve covered the individual transformations that the compiler applies to a function when compiling it as a coroutine.

Hopefully this post will help you to understand how you can customise the behaviour of different types of coroutines through defining different your own promise type. There are a lot of moving parts in the coroutine mechanics and so there are lots of different ways that you can customise their behaviour.

However, there is still one more important transformation that the compiler performs which I have not yet covered - the transformation of the coroutine body into a state-machine. However, this post is already too long so I will defer explaining this to the next post. Stay tuned!