Re: Multimap: how to get a key list?

From:
"Daniel T." <daniel_t@earthlink.net>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:35:31 -0500
Message-ID:
<daniel_t-8CE809.19353101032010@70-3-168-216.pools.spcsdns.net>
In article
<d0b0d95f-293e-4556-a824-b96a9ebb8274@15g2000yqi.googlegroups.com>,
 Brian <coal@mailvault.com> wrote:

On Feb 28, 5:09?pm, Sam <s...@email-scan.com> wrote:

Rui Maciel writes:

Is there any way to get a list of keys from a multimap besides relying on
a couple of nested
loops to assemble that list?


What nested loops? Only one loop is required to iterate over the multimap.

There is no single function that gives you a set of all keys stored in the
multimap, but a single loop is all that's needed to retrieve all the keys.
It's fairly easy to define a template function that gives them to you,
something like this:

template<typename multimap_t>
void keys(const multimap_t &m,
? ? ? ? ? std::set<typename multimap_t::key_type> &k)
{
? ? for (typename multimap_t::const_iterator b(m.begin()), e(m.end());
? ? ? ? ?b != e; ++b)
? ? {
? ? ? ? ?k.insert(b->first);
? ? }

}

The std::set automatically takes care of deduping the multimap's keys.


I think that works fine. This might speed it up a little:

  template<typename multimap_t>
  void keys(const multimap_t &m,
            std::set<typename multimap_t::key_type> &k)
  {
      typename std::set<typename multimap_t::key_type>::iterator
keys_end = k.end();
      for (typename multimap_t::const_iterator b(m.begin()),
e(m.end());
           b != e; ++b)
      {
           k.insert(keys_end, b->first);
      }
  }

That would work best if k is being passed in
as an empty container as seems likely.


Now that I understand the question I can give a better answer than I did
the first time around...

Using the code below, you don't have to insert into a set, you can
insert into any output iterator (of course all of these examples work
with both multimaps and regular maps:

template < typename map_t, typename OutIt>
void keys(const map_t& aMap, OutIt out)
{
   for (typename map_t::const_iterator it = aMap.begin();
         it != aMap.end();
         it = aMap.upper_bound(it->first))
      out++ = it->first;
}

However, depending on the number of elements in the map with the same
key, the OP's idea of using two loops may be the fastest.

template < typename map_t, typename OutIt>
void keys(const map_t& aMap, OutIt out)
{
   typename map_t::const_iterator it = aMap.begin();
   while (it != aMap.end()) {
      typename map_t::key_type key = it++->first; // (a)
      out++ = key;
      while (key == it->first)
         ++it;
   }
}

Some people might find the post-increment operator usage at (a) kind of
off putting; if so, just add a line pre-incrementing it after that line.

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