Bad Idea:
std::string find_file(const std::string &base, const std::string &pattern);Better Idea:
std::filesystem::path find_file(const std::filesystem::path &base, const std::regex &pattern);The above is better but still suffers from having implicit conversions from std::string to std::filesystem::path and back.
Consider using a typesafe library like
- https://foonathan.net/type_safe/
- https://github.com/rollbear/strong_type
- https://github.com/joboccara/NamedType
Note that stronger typing can also allow for more compiler optimizations.