Re: std::vector: reserve required?

From:
"Jim Langston" <tazmaster@rocketmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Sat, 5 Jul 2008 12:57:46 -0700
Message-ID:
<2nQbk.13$wD.5@newsfe02.lga>
"Mike -- Email Ignored" <m_d_berger_1900@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:cBqbk.257$9W.47@trndny04...

In std::vector, is reserve or resize required?

On:
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     Jul 27 18:10:34 EDT 2007 i686 athlon
     i386 GNU/Linux
Using:
  g++ (GCC) 4.1.2 20070502 (Red Hat 4.1.2-12)

The program below fails, but if the reserve(en)
is uncommented, it works. Is this as expected?


No. It is unspecified behavior either way. reserve will allocate memory to
extend the size of an array, but it does not actually grow the size.
resize() will both allocate the memory and extend the size also.

Note, that changing vec[jj] = jj;
to vec.push_back( jj );
would mean you don't need resize or reserve. However, if you know before
hand how much memory you are going to need, how many elements, you may wish
to resize it to avoid needless calls to new.

int en = 10;
vec<int> vec;

vec.reserve( en ); // Allocates memory, doesn't change size
for (int jj = 0; jj < en; ++jj)
   vec.push_back( jj );

alternately:
vec.resize( en ); // Allocates memory and changes size
for (int jj = 0; jj < en; ++jj)
     vec[jj] = jj;

// vectst.cc 07/04/08

#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
using namespace std;

int main(int argc, const char* argv[])
{
  int en = 10;
  vector<int> vec;

// vec.reserve(en);
  for (int jj = 0; jj < en; ++jj)
     vec[jj] = jj;
  for (int jj = 0; jj < en; ++jj)
     cout << vec[jj] << endl;

  exit (0);
}

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