Re: STL: vector with pointers

From:
"Giovanni Dicanio" <giovanniDOTdicanio@REMOVEMEgmail.com>
Newsgroups:
microsoft.public.vc.mfc
Date:
Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:35:05 +0200
Message-ID:
<u2P#upRQKHA.764@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl>
"Frank" <jerk@gmx.de> ha scritto nel messaggio
news:5e6b74c9-c97e-42fe-973c-1b3b432646a5@l9g2000yqi.googlegroups.com...

here's a question concerning the STL class "vector".

I have a vector containing pointers to a custom made class, say
vector <CMyClass *>. Now if I want to use the algorithm functions,
say, "find()" I can't because I'd need an equals operator for
two CMyClass* objects which I don't have. Of course I'd
like to find a certain CMyClass object, not a certain pointer.

Now my first approach is to define a class derived
from CMyClass* - is that possible? Or should I do
something else?


What I would do is to define a functor (or "function object") to do the
comparison using pointers to CMyClass instances.
The functor can be derived from std::binary_function< CMyClass *, CMyClass
*, bool >, because your comparison function takes two CMyClass pointers as
input, and returns a boolean value (true if the instances pointed are equal,
false if they are not).
Then you can use std::find_if, passing the comparison helper as third
parameter.

This a simple C++ code I wrote (it compiles fine on VS2008 SP1, and seems to
work...):

<code>
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Test.cpp

//
// Includes
//
#include <vector> // vector container
#include <iostream> // cout
#include <algorithm> // find_if
#include <functional> // binder2nd

//
// Test class
//
class CMyClass
{
public:

    // Creates an instance of the class with specified ID
    explicit CMyClass(int id)
        : id_( id )
    {
    }

    // Returns instance ID
    int ID() const
    {
        return id_;
    }

private:
    int id_;
};

//
// Functor to compare instances of CMyClass (specified by pointers)
//
struct MyClassComparer
    // This is a binary function having CMyClass pointers as input,
    // and returning 'bool'.
    : public std::binary_function< CMyClass *, CMyClass *, bool >
{
    // Does the comparison
    bool operator()( const CMyClass * lhs, const CMyClass * rhs ) const
    {
        // They are equal if they have the same ID
        return lhs->ID() == rhs->ID();
    }
};

//
// TEST
//
int main()
{
    using std::vector;
    using std::find_if;
    using std::bind2nd;
    using std::cout;
    using std::endl;

    //
    // Vector of pointers to CMyClass
    //
    typedef vector< CMyClass * > MyClassPtrVector;
    MyClassPtrVector container;
    container.push_back( new CMyClass(1) );
    container.push_back( new CMyClass(10) );
    container.push_back( new CMyClass(3) );
    container.push_back( new CMyClass(4) );

    // Element to find
    CMyClass * elementToFind = new CMyClass(3);

    //
    // Search element using find_if
    //
    MyClassPtrVector::iterator result;
    result = find_if(
        container.begin(), container.end(),
        bind2nd( MyClassComparer(), elementToFind )
    );
    cout << "Element with ID = " << elementToFind->ID() << " was ";
    if ( result != container.end() )
    {
        cout << "found !" << endl;
    }
    else
    {
        cout << "not found." << endl;
    }

    //
    // Cleanup
    //
    delete elementToFind;
    elementToFind = NULL;
    MyClassPtrVector::iterator it;
    for (it = container.begin(); it != container.end(); ++it)
    {
        delete *it;
        *it = NULL;
    }

    return 0;
}

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

</code>

HTH,
Giovanni

 

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