Re: return an undelining array from vector

From:
Giuliano Bertoletti <gbe32241@libero.it>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:34:00 +0100
Message-ID:
<49ada248$0$1115$4fafbaef@reader3.news.tin.it>
Yes, it will be deallocated upon returning and if the caller tries to
use that address it will lead to unpredictable results, most likely a crash.

A possible solution is to let the caller build the vector object and
pass it by reference to the function which fills it and then returns.

std::vector<double> vec;

if(GetArrayFromVector(m,names,count,vec)) {
    // ...
}

where:

bool GetArrayFromVector( std::map &m, char ** names, int count,
std::vector<double> &vec)
{
    if(!names) return 0;

    vec.clear();

    for (int i=0; i<count; ++i) {
      if(!names[i]) return 0;
      map<std::string, double>::iterator iter=m.find(name[i]);
      if(iter!=m.end())
         vec.push_back(iter->second);
      else
         return 0;
   }

   return true;
}

another possible solution is to allocate memory for the array and fill
it with the vector content. At that point, the caller is in charge to
deallocate the array.

double * GetArrayFromVector( std::map &m, char ** names, int count )
{
if(!names) return 0;

vector<double> vec;
for (int i=0; i<count; ++i)
{
    if(!names[i]) return 0;
    map<std::string, double>::iterator iter=m.find(name[i]);
    if(iter!=m.end())
       vec.push_back(iter->second);
    else
      return 0;
}

double *tmp = new double[ vec.size() ]
if(tmp) memcpy(tmp,&vec[0],sizeof(double) * vec.size());

return tmp;
}

Also I would suggest you to pass the std::map to the function by
reference and not by value.

Finally, pay attention to the vector constructor because if you call it
with m.size() and then you push_back elements, you end up with a vector
of size m.size() + k, where k is the number of push_backs made and the k
elements are located from m.size() to m.size() + k which is probably not
what you want.

Regards,
Giuliano Bertoletti.

puzzlecracker ha scritto:

Will the array be deallocated and if so, what is a workaround?

double * GetArrayFromVector( std::map m, char ** names, int count )
{ if(!names) return 0;

vector<double> vec(m.size());
for (int i=0; i<count; ++i)
{
   if(!names[i]) return 0;
   map<std::string, double>::iterator iter=m.find(name[i]);
   if(iter!=m.end())
      vec.push_back(iter->second);
   else
     return 0;
}

return &vec[0];

}

Thanks a lot

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