24 Ranges library [ranges]

24.5 Range utilities [range.utility]

24.5.4 Dangling iterator handling [range.dangling]

1
#
The tag type dangling is used together with the template aliases borrowed_­iterator_­t and borrowed_­subrange_­t to indicate that an algorithm that typically returns an iterator into or subrange of a range argument does not return an iterator or subrange which could potentially reference a range whose lifetime has ended for a particular rvalue range argument which does not model borrowed_­range ([range.range]).
namespace std::ranges {
  struct dangling {
    constexpr dangling() noexcept = default;
    template<class... Args>
      constexpr dangling(Args&&...) noexcept { }
  };
}
2
#
[ Example
: 
vector<int> f();
auto result1 = ranges::find(f(), 42);                                   // #1
static_assert(same_as<decltype(result1), ranges::dangling>);
auto vec = f();
auto result2 = ranges::find(vec, 42);                                   // #2
static_assert(same_as<decltype(result2), vector<int>::iterator>);
auto result3 = ranges::find(subrange{vec}, 42);                         // #3
static_assert(same_as<decltype(result3), vector<int>::iterator>);
The call to ranges​::​find at #1 returns ranges​::​dangling since f() is an rvalue vector; the vector could potentially be destroyed before a returned iterator is dereferenced.
However, the calls at #2 and #3 both return iterators since the lvalue vec and specializations of subrange model borrowed_­range.
— end example
 ]