The Guidelines Support Library (GSL) contains functions and types that are suggested for use by the C++ Core Guidelines maintained by the Standard C++ Foundation. This repo contains Microsoft's implementation of GSL.
The entire implementation is provided inline in the headers under the gsl directory. The implementation generally assumes a platform that implements C++14 support.
While some types have been broken out into their own headers (e.g. gsl/span), it is simplest to just include gsl/gsl and gain access to the entire library.
NOTE: We encourage contributions that improve or refine any of the types in this library as well as ports to other platforms. Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for more information about contributing.
This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact opencode@microsoft.com with any additional questions or comments.
Usage of Third Party LibrariesThis project makes use of the Google Test testing library. Please see the ThirdPartyNotices.txt file for details regarding the licensing of Google Test.
Microsoft GSL implements the following from the C++ Core Guidelines: Feature Supported? Description 1. Views owner ☑ An alias for a raw pointer not_null ☑ Restricts a pointer/smart pointer to hold non-null values span ☑ A view over a contiguous sequence of memory. Based on the standardized version ofstd::span, however gsl::span enforces bounds checking. span_p ☐ Spans a range starting from a pointer to the first place for which the predicate is true basic_zstring ☑ A pointer to a C-string (zero-terminated array) with a templated char type zstring ☑ An alias to basic_zstring with dynamic extent and a char type of char czstring ☑ An alias to basic_zstring with dynamic extent and a char type of const char wzstring ☑ An alias to basic_zstring with dynamic extent and a char type of wchar_t cwzstring ☑ An alias to basic_zstring with dynamic extent and a char type of const wchar_t u16zstring ☑ An alias to basic_zstring with dynamic extent and a char type of char16_t cu16zstring ☑ An alias to basic_zstring with dynamic extent and a char type of const char16_t u32zstring ☑ An alias to basic_zstring with dynamic extent and a char type of char32_t cu32zstring ☑ An alias to basic_zstring with dynamic extent and a char type of const char32_t 2. Owners stack_array ☐ A stack-allocated array dyn_array ☐ A heap-allocated array 3. Assertions Expects ☑ A precondition assertion; on failure it terminates Ensures ☑ A postcondition assertion; on failure it terminates 4. Utilities move_owner ☐ A helper function that moves one owner to the other final_action ☑ A RAII style class that invokes a functor on its destruction finally ☑ A helper function instantiating final_action GSL_SUPPRESS ☑ A macro that takes an argument and turns it into [[gsl::suppress(x)]] or [[gsl::suppress("x")]] [[implicit]] ☐ A "marker" to put on single-argument constructors to explicitly make them non-explicit index ☑ A type to use for all container and array indexing (currently an alias for std::ptrdiff_t) narrow ☑ A checked version of narrow_cast; it can throw narrowing_error narrow_cast ☑ A narrowing cast for values and a synonym for static_cast narrowing_error ☑ A custom exception type thrown by narrow 5. Concepts ☐ The following features do not exist in or have been removed from the C++ Core Guidelines: Feature Supported? Description strict_not_null ☑ A stricter version of not_null with explicit constructors multi_span ☐ Deprecated. Multi-dimensional span. strided_span ☐ Deprecated. Support for this type has been discontinued. basic_string_span ☐ Deprecated. Like span but for strings with a templated char type string_span ☐ Deprecated. An alias to basic_string_span with a char type of char cstring_span ☐ Deprecated. An alias to basic_string_span with a char type of const char wstring_span ☐ Deprecated. An alias to basic_string_span with a char type of wchar_t cwstring_span ☐ Deprecated. An alias to basic_string_span with a char type of const wchar_t u16string_span ☐ Deprecated. An alias to basic_string_span with a char type of char16_t cu16string_span ☐ Deprecated. An alias to basic_string_span with a char type of const char16_t u32string_span ☐ Deprecated. An alias to basic_string_span with a char type of char32_t cu32string_span ☐ Deprecated. An alias to basic_string_span with a char type of const char32_t The following features have been adopted by WG21. They are deprecated in GSL. Feature Deprecated Since Notes unique_ptr C++11 Use std::unique_ptr instead. shared_ptr C++11 Use std::shared_ptr instead. byte C++17 Use std::byte instead. joining_thread C++20 (Note: Not yet implemented in GSL) Use std::jthread instead.
This is based on CppCoreGuidelines semi-specification.
Supported Compilers / ToolsetsThe GSL officially supports recent major versions of Visual Studio with both MSVC and LLVM, GCC, Clang, and XCode with Apple-Clang. For each of these major versions, the GSL officially supports C++14, C++17, C++20, and C++23 (when supported by the compiler). Below is a table showing the versions currently being tested (also see [.github/workflows/compilers.yml](the workflow).)
Compiler Toolset Versions Currently Tested GCC 12, 13, 14 XCode 14.3.1, 15.4 Clang 16, 17, 18 Visual Studio with MSVC VS2019, VS2022 Visual Studio with LLVM VS2019, VS2022If you successfully port GSL to another platform, we would love to hear from you!
Note: These CI/CD steps are run with each pull request, however failures in them are non-blocking.
To build the tests, you will require the following:
These steps assume the source code of this repository has been cloned into a directory named c:\GSL.
Create a directory to contain the build outputs for a particular architecture (we name it c:\GSL\build-x86 in this example).
cd GSL
md build-x86
cd build-x86
Configure CMake to use the compiler of your choice (you can see a list by running cmake --help).
cmake -G "Visual Studio 15 2017" c:\GSL
Build the test suite (in this case, in the Debug configuration, Release is another good choice).
cmake --build . --config Debug
Run the test suite.
All tests should pass - indicating your platform is fully supported and you are ready to use the GSL types!
Building GSL - Using vcpkgYou can download and install GSL using the vcpkg dependency manager:
git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg.git
cd vcpkg
./bootstrap-vcpkg.sh
./vcpkg integrate install
vcpkg install ms-gsl
The GSL port in vcpkg is kept up to date by Microsoft team members and community contributors. If the version is out of date, please create an issue or pull request on the vcpkg repository.
As the types are entirely implemented inline in headers, there are no linking requirements.
You can copy the gsl directory into your source tree so it is available to your compiler, then include the appropriate headers in your program.
Alternatively set your compiler's include path flag to point to the GSL development folder (c:\GSL\include in the example above) or installation folder (after running the install). Eg.
MSVC++
GCC/clang
Include the library using:
The library provides a Config file for CMake, once installed it can be found via find_package.
Which, when successful, will add library target called Microsoft.GSL::GSL which you can use via the usual target_link_libraries mechanism.
find_package(Microsoft.GSL CONFIG REQUIRED) target_link_libraries(foobar PRIVATE Microsoft.GSL::GSL)
If you are using CMake version 3.11+ you can use the official FetchContent module. This allows you to easily incorporate GSL into your project.
# NOTE: This example uses CMake version 3.14 (FetchContent_MakeAvailable).
# Since it streamlines the FetchContent process
cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.14)
include(FetchContent)
FetchContent_Declare(GSL
GIT_REPOSITORY "https://github.com/microsoft/GSL"
GIT_TAG "v4.2.0"
GIT_SHALLOW ON
)
FetchContent_MakeAvailable(GSL)
target_link_libraries(foobar PRIVATE Microsoft.GSL::GSL) Debugging visualization support
For Visual Studio users, the file GSL.natvis in the root directory of the repository can be added to your project if you would like more helpful visualization of GSL types in the Visual Studio debugger than would be offered by default.
For information on Microsoft Gray Systems Lab (GSL) of applied data management and system research see https://aka.ms/gsl.
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