c++ - What is the purpose of std::byte?

Question

Now that c++17 has std::byte, I was looking for a way to convert code that reads files to char into code that reads files into byte. A file contains bytes, not a bunch of integers.

Then I read this question and this other question where people argued that reading files into byte is wrong, and that reading files into char is right.

If byte is not designed for the purpose of accessing memory, and by analogy, files, then what is the its purpose? As is quoted in the other two questions:

Like char and unsigned char, it can be used to access raw memory occupied by other objects (object representation), but unlike those types, it is not a character type and is not an arithmetic type. A byte is only a collection of bits, and only bitwise logic operators are defined for it.

This sounds like the exact type that should be used for reading files, not characters.

Answer 1

You are perhaps misunderstanding things.

byte is very much intended for "accessing memory". You are intended to use the type when the storage is just a sequence of bytes rather than an array of characters.

Iostream types cannot be specialized with byte, since they're designed around characters as their interface. That is, they do not think of files as sequences of bytes; they think of them as sequences of characters. Now, you can certainly read directly into a byte array by using a cast or two. But that's not the way iostream natively thinks.

You have to make a distinction between the way iostream works and the way files work. Iostream is just one file IO library, after all; it is hardly the end-all, be-all of file APIs.

Most file APIs for reading binary data take void* rather than character arrays. std::fread/fwrite, and so forth.

That is, you should think of this, not as a problem with std::byte, but as a problem with iostream. Just another in a long line of them.