Re: std::map with nonunique keys

From:
Francesco <entuland@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Fri, 4 Sep 2009 03:01:13 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID:
<c09037e7-ec1d-4cf8-a5f0-e0011ef328e9@q7g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>
On 4 Set, 11:31, Francesco <entul...@gmail.com> wrote:

On 4 Set, 11:20, Ralf Goertz

<r_goe...@expires-2006-11-30.arcornews.de> wrote:

Hi,

ist it possible to have a map for which there are distinct keys k1 and
key with k1!=k2 and both k1<k2 and k2<k1 returning false? I'd like to
have something like

struct foo {
        int k[10];
        bool operator<(const foo& rhs) const {
                for (int i=0;i<9;++i)
                        if (k[i]!=rhs.k[i]) r=

eturn k[i]<rhs.k[i];

                return false;
        }

};

std::map<foo,int> evaluation_map;

The reason is that although two variables of type foo might be differen=

t

in k[9] there evaluation only depends on k[0]=85k[8]. If I understand i=

t

correctly, a map never uses operator==, therefore the above shouldn=

't

produce undefined behaviour, right?


If your operator<(), applied twice, swapped, to a couple of keys,
finds them to be equal, then any operation on the map using either of
those keys will overwrite each other - that is, well defined behavior.


Self correction: "...then any operation on the map using either of
those keys will overwrite *each other's value*...".

The key will be saved only the first time it is used, and won't be
modified by subsequent lookups - at least, my implementation works
this way, but I suppose it's the mandated behavior.

Code:

-------
#include <iostream>
#include <map>

struct foo {
  int used;
  int not_used;
  foo(int u = 0, int nu = 0) : used(u), not_used(nu) {};
  bool operator<(const foo& f) const {
    return used < f.used;
  }
};

using namespace std;

int main() {
  map<foo, int> m;
  foo f1(1,1);
  foo f2(1,2);
  m[f1] = 1;
  cout << "m.begin()->first.not_used == ";
  cout << m.begin()->first.not_used << endl;
  cout << "m[f1] == ";
  cout << m[f1] << endl;
  cout << "m[f2] = 2" << endl;
  m[f2] = 2;
  cout << "m.begin()->first.not_used == ";
  cout << m.begin()->first.not_used << endl;
  cout << "m[f1] == ";
  cout << m[f1] << endl;
  return 0;
}
-------

Output:

-------
m.begin()->first.not_used == 1
m[f1] == 1
m[f2] = 2
m.begin()->first.not_used == 1
m[f1] == 2
-------

Cheers,
Francesco

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