Re: Can associative arrays be implemented by operator overloading?

From:
Ian Collins <ian-news@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:40:52 +1300
Message-ID:
<5qf3a4Fvqia0U9@mid.individual.net>
Ramon F Herrera wrote:

I am looking for a good excuse to pick up C++. I have been a satisfied
C programmer for years, a language that provides me all the facilities
that I need, with ONE exception.

I keep on finding programming problems that can be nicely solved by
the use of relational arrays. I wish I could count on the simplicity
of expression afforded by Java:

   array.put(key, data);

or -even better- by Perl:

   pictureOf{"ramon"} = myimage.gif; // or something to that effect

My question is two-fold:

(1) Which relational array implementation should I use?


Heterogeneous or homogeneous? For the latter, std::map probably gives
you what you want, for the former, look at boost.

(2) Let's say I found a perfect implementation that suits my needs. Is
there a way to overload the bracket operators to make them behave like
in Perl? Please don't tell me that the only interesting/elegant case
of operator overloading is in complex arithmetic!


Given:

std::map<std::string,int> myMap;

myMap["ramon"] = 42.

--
Ian Collins.

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