The C++2a Working Draft adds “conditional explicit ” to the core language. So rather than writing some icky constructor overload set like

template<class T> struct Wrapped { T t; template<class U, std::enable_if_t<std::is_constructible_v<T, U&&> && std::is_convertible_v<U&&, T>, int> = 0> Wrapped(U&& u) : t(static_cast<U&&>(u)) {} template<class U, std::enable_if_t<std::is_constructible_v<T, U&&> && !std::is_convertible_v<U&&, T>, int> = 0> explicit Wrapped(U&& u) : t(static_cast<U&&>(u)) {} };

you can now write just one overload:

template<class T> struct Wrapped { T t; template<class U, std::enable_if_t<std::is_constructible_v<T, U&&>, int> = 0> explicit(std::is_convertible_v<U&&, T>) Wrapped(U&& u) : t(static_cast<U&&>(u)) {} };

I noticed today (while working on the constructors for a co_optional for my coro examples library) that “conditional explicit ” (no matter whether you do it the old-school way or the C++2a way) is not quite the same thing as “forwarding explicit .” That is, we have successfully constrained this template’s interface, but we have not constrained the implicit constructor’s implementation.

Godbolt:

struct A { A(int); explicit A(long); }; using B = Wrapped<A>; A a = 42L; // A is constructed via A(int) B b = 42L; // A is constructed via A(long)

Generally speaking, C++ has problems with “passing around” things that aren’t first-class citizens in the language. (Or, likely, my notion of what it means for a thing to be “first-class” in a language is based on whether it’s possible to pass that thing around.)

Passing values such as 42 from one place to another has worked basically since they invented computers. Passing references works great in C++, because references are first-class citizens. Passing value-category (a.k.a. “perfect forwarding”) almost works, except that we’ve accumulated some inconsistencies around prvalues as their definition has shifted post-C++11. Forwarding true/false notions such as noexcept -ness and existence (in the SFINAE-space sense) tends to work great. But forwarding overload sets? Forget about it. Forwarding explicitness (per this blog post), which boils down to forwarding overload sets? Forget about it. Forwarding C++2a Concepts constraints (in a way that preserves subsumption relationships)? Forget about it.

There’s no particular moral here; I just thought it was noteworthy.