Re: How to pass STL containers (say a vector) ?

From:
"peter koch" <peter.koch.larsen@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
19 May 2006 13:28:45 -0700
Message-ID:
<1148070525.301764.67280@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com>
Daniel T. skrev:

In article <1148063503.729070.325510@j33g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
 "peter koch" <peter.koch.larsen@gmail.com> wrote:

Daniel T. skrev:

In article <Wahbg.228$D_5.37@fe12.lga>,
 Sanjay Kumar <nospam-hypertree@yahoo.com> wrote:

Folks,

I am getting back into C++ after a long time and I have
this simple question: How do pyou ass a STL container
like say a vector or a map (to and from a function) ?


The same way the standard algorithms do. 'std::copy' for example accepts
a container as an input param, and another container as an output param.


Well.... that one is a bad example. std::copy does not return a
collection. Actually, i can't remember a single std::algorithm that
does so (but I am tired and might well be wrong).
In my opinion you need very strong arguments (and those arguments
include measured improvements) in order to not return by value.


I beg to differ, std::copy does return a container in its own way...

vector<int> foo;
copy( istream_iterator<int>( cin ), istream_iterator<int>(),
   back_inserter( foo ) );

The data in foo was returned...

So you mean that the data was returned in foo? In that case we simply
have a different perception of "returning values". To me, std::copy
does not return data in foo.

Perhaps this example better demonstrates what i mean?
vector<int> foo;
foo.push_back(117);
copy( istream_iterator<int>( cin ), istream_iterator<int>(),
   back_inserter( foo ) );

copy definitely does not return its data in foo.

In other words when you want to pass in a container:

   tempalte < typename InIt >
void func( InIt first, InIt last );


Fine! And now let func remove the second element.

when you want to return a container:

   template < typename OutIt >
void func( OutIt first );


It still does not return a container.
template <class container> void normalise_container(container const&
c);
template <class container> void print_container(container const& c);
print_container(normalise_container(func(???)));

/Peter

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