enumerate() with C++

Quite a few programming languages provide ways to iterate through a container while keeping count of the number of steps taken, such as enumerate() in Python:

for i, elem in enumerate(v):
    print(i, elem)

and enumerate() under std::iter::Iterator trait in Rust:

for (i, elem) in v.iter().enumerate() {
    println!("{}, {}", i, elem);
}

This is just a quick note about how to do similar things in C++17 and later without declaring extra variables out of the for loop's scope.

The first way is to use a mutable lambda:

std::for_each(v.begin(), v.end(),
              [i = 0](auto elem) mutable {
                  std::cout << i << ", " << elem << std::endl;
                  ++i;
              });

This could be used with all the algorithms that guarantees in-order application of the lambda, but I don't like the dangling ++i that could get mixed up with other logic.

The second way utilizes structured binding in for loops:

for (auto [i, elem_it] = std::tuple{0, v.begin()}; elem_it != v.end();
     ++i, ++elem_it) {
    std::cout << i << ", " << *elem_it << std::endl;
}

We have to throw in std::tuple as otherwise compiler would try to create a std::initializer_list, which does not allow heterogeneous contents.

The third least fancy method is to just calculate the distance every time:

for (auto elem_it = v.begin(); elem_it != v.end(); ++elem_it) {
    auto i = std::distance(v.begin(), elem_it);
    std::cout << i << ", " << *elem_it << std::endl;
}

Since we have to copy paste the starting point twice, I like other counter based approaches better.

In C++20, we have the ability to add an init-statement in ranged-based for loops, so we can write something like

for (auto i = 0; auto elem : v) {
    std::cout << i << ", " << elem << std::endl;
    i++;
}

Meh, not that impressive. The new <ranges> library provides a more appealing way to achieve this:

for (auto [i, elem] : v | std::views::transform(
         [i = 0](auto elem) mutable { return std::tuple{i++, elem}; })) {
    std::cout << i << ", " << elem << std::endl;
}

I like the structured binding method and the <ranges> based method the most. It would be even better though if we can get a std::views::enumerate to solve this problem once and for all.