Re: counting input words

From:
James Kanze <james.kanze@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Fri, 23 Nov 2007 03:07:24 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID:
<d9112f4a-9dd4-4c26-84a2-8d49dafa2071@y43g2000hsy.googlegroups.com>
arnuld wrote:

any comments for improvement:

/* C++ Primer - 4/e
 *
 * CHAPTER 10 - Associative Containers
 *
 * EXERCISE - 10.7
 * Write a program to count and print the number of times each word
 * occured in the input.


Well, the obvious question is: how do you define a word? I'd
say that this should be documented. (For purposes of learning,
what you've done is actually quite good. But it certainly
doesn't define word in the usual English language sense.)

 *
 */

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <vector>
#include <map>

int main()
{
  std::map<std::string, int> word_count;
  std::string aword;
  while( std::cin >> aword )
    {
      ++word_count[aword];
    }


The one thing I'd do differently (but again, it's probably not
necessary in an exercise): I'd use a class instead of int as the
counter. A class which checked for overflow, and gave defined
behavior in that case.

I might also use a class Word, to facilitate changing its
definition (although it would start as a trivial wrapper for
std::string).

Both of these concepts are related to more industrial
considerations, though, and aren't necessarily relevant in a
learning context.

--
James Kanze (GABI Software) email:james.kanze@gmail.com
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