Re: std::sort (AGAIN)

From:
SG <s.gesemann@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Tue, 26 May 2009 13:49:02 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID:
<72f66bd9-a627-42e0-9ef4-5602c50c0066@r33g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>
On 26 Mai, 22:02, none <n...@none.none> wrote:

The type being sorted is not the same as the type (class) doing the
sorting. In other words, to expand on your example, this is illegal:

   class B
   {
      int x;
      int y;
   };

   class A
   {
      bool z;

      public:
         static bool comparator(const B& lhs, const BA& rhs)
         {
             return z ? (lhs.x < rhs.x) : (lhs.y < rhs.y);
         }
   };


Pretty much yes. Because of two reasons:

(1) x and y are private members of B you can't access from
    the function "comparator".
(2) z is a non-static member of A so "comparator" cannot be a
    static member function. A static member has no implicit
    this-pointer. (!)

But that is what I really want to do. I think that Bart, SG, and floyd
have provided the answer, but I'm not thrilled about it. :) I find
Boost to be a little bloated.

The fact that what I want to do is not supported directly by std::sort()
makes me think that my approach is probably just bad from the start.
How would you guys approach the problem?


I already answered that. :) The key here is to use a comparator that
has a "state" (parameters). std::sort supports more than pure function
pointers. It also accepts objects with overloaded function call
operator. Here is a non-generic example:

  #include <vector>
  #include <algorithm>
  #include <iostream>
  #include <string>

  struct entry {
    std::string name;
    int age;
    explicit entry(std::string n, int a) : name(n), age(a) {}
  };

  bool comp_name(entry const& a, entry const& b)
  {return a.name < b.name;}

  bool comp_age(entry const& a, entry const& b)
  {return a.age < b.age;}

  class multi_compare {
  public:
    // declared comp_t to be a function pointer type
    typedef bool (*comp_t)(entry const&, entry const&);

    multi_compare(comp_t pf1, comp_t pf2)
    {c[0] = pf1; c[1] = pf2;}

    bool operator()(entry const& a, entry const& b) const {
      for (int i=0; i<2; ++i) {
        comp_t pf = c[i];
        if (pf==0) break;
        if (pf(a,b)) return true;
        if (pf(b,a)) return false;
      }
      return false;
    }
  private:
    comp_t c[2];
  };

  int main() {
    std::vector<entry> vec;
    vec.push_back(entry("Jack",43));
    vec.push_back(entry("Hugo",33));
    vec.push_back(entry("Kate",29));
    std::sort(vec.begin(), vec.end(),
              multi_compare(comp_name,comp_age) );
    for (int idx=0, n=vec.size(); idx<n; ++idx) {
      entry const& e = vec.at(idx);
      std::cout << e.name << " is " << e.age << " years old.\n";
    }
  }

Cheers!
SG

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