When implementing operator[] how should I include bounds checking?

Question

First of all I apologize for the long lead up to such a simplistic question.

I am implementing a class which serves as a very long 1 dimensional index on a space fil

Answer 1

Another option is to let the caller choose the out-of-bounds policy. Consider:

template 
quint16 curvePoint::operator[](size_t index)
{
    index = OutOfBoundsPolicy(index, dimensions);
    return point[index];
}

Then you could define several policies that the caller may choose. For example:

struct NoBoundsCheck {
    size_t operator()(size_t index, size_t /* max */) {
        return index;
    }
};

struct WrapAroundIfOutOfBounds {
    size_t operator()(size_t index, size_t max) {
        return index % max;
    }
};

struct AssertIfOutOfBounds {
    size_t operator()(size_t index, size_t max) {
        assert(index < max);
        return index % max;
    }
};

struct ThrowIfOutOfBounds {
    size_t operator()(size_t index, size_t max) {
        if (index >= max) throw std::domain_error;
        return index;
    }
};

struct ClampIfOutOfBounds {
    size_t operator()(size_t index, size_t max) {
        if (index >= max) index = max - 1;
        return index;
    }
};