Re: using a float as the index in an STL map?

From:
James Kanze <james.kanze@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
21 Apr 2007 02:51:50 -0700
Message-ID:
<1177149110.914598.283270@o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>
On Apr 21, 3:07 am, red floyd <no.s...@here.dude> wrote:

James Kanze wrote:

On Apr 21, 12:36 am, zeppethef...@gmail.com wrote:

I think a good alternative would be to manually define the comparison
operator "less" considering that the equality

(a == b)

on a map is given by

!less(a,b) && !less(b,a)

it should be sufficient to write less() as something like

less(a, b){
        if (a - b > threshold)
                return false;
        else
                return true;
}

with threshold a proper small number.


That's a nice way to get undefined behavior. Since such a
function doesn't define an ordering relationship (which must be
transitive), it doesn't meet the requirements for std::map or
std::set.


On the other hand, assuming a reasonable threshold (EPSILON), what's
wrong with:

less(float a, float b)
{
    if (fabs(a - b) > EPSILON) // difference big enough to be
           return a < b; // significant
    else
           return false; // elements are "equal"
}


What have you changed? You still haven't defined a strict
ordering relationship, so you have undefined behavior.

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James Kanze (Gabi Software) email: james.kanze@gmail.com
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