Re: Unary functor on algorithm using copy constructor

From:
James Kanze <james.kanze@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Wed, 9 Jul 2008 04:28:52 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID:
<88e36bdd-2667-41c3-adbd-df2e94240149@a70g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>
On Jul 8, 6:50 pm, Dijkstra <pepi...@gmail.com> wrote:

First, this is the code I'm using to expose the problem:

------------------------------------------------------------------
#include <functional>
#include <string>
#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

struct space_comparer : public unary_function<char, bool> {

        mutable argument_type __lastChar;

        space_comparer()
        {
                __lastChar = 'X';
                cout << "ctor() called and lastChar is '" << __lastChar <=

< "'" <<

endl;
        }

        space_comparer(const space_comparer &__src)
        {
                cout << "copy ctor() called setting lastChar to 'Y'" << e=

ndl;

                __lastChar = 'Y';
        }

        result_type operator ()(const argument_type c) const
        {
                cout << "[" << __lastChar << " | " << c << "]" << endl;
                __lastChar = c;
                return ::isspace(c);
        }
};

main()
{
        string cad1;
        string cad2;

        const space_comparer instance;

        cad1 = "cpp";

        remove_copy_if(cad1.begin(), cad1.end(), back_inserter(cad2),
instance );
        remove_copy_if(cad1.begin(), cad1.end(), back_inserter(cad2),
instance );
        remove_copy_if(cad1.begin(), cad1.end(), back_inserter(cad2),
instance );

        return 0;}

---------------------------------------------------------------

OK, so the meaning of all that is to use a unary function with
a persistent "state", so that the "space_comparer" works by
using previous values. My problem is that the "remove_copy_if"
algorithm, and I think all algorithms, use a copy.


The predicate object is passed by copy, so all they have is a
copy to begin with; they have no means of accessing the orginal
object.

I mean, suppose this call:

        remove_copy_if(cad1.begin(), cad1.end(), back_inserter(cad2),
space_comparer() );

This works by constructing a new "space_comparer" functor
object and using its instance for all the algorithm lifetime.
What I like to do is use an actual instance as the predicate,
so that it can mantain a state across algorithm calls.


The problem is that in order to do that, the algorithm would
have to declare the predicate parameter as a reference. A const
reference, if the above is to work.

        remove_copy_if(cad1.begin(), cad1.end(), back_inserter(cad2),
instance );

I supposed the above call would reuse the "instance" of the
object functor, which indeed does. But it does a temporary
copy of the object and it works with it, leaving the original
instance untouched. The output of the above code is:

-----------------------------------------------------------------
ctor() called and lastChar is 'X'
copy ctor() called setting lastChar to 'Y'
[Y | c]
[c | p]
[p | p]
copy ctor() called setting lastChar to 'Y'
[Y | c]
[c | p]
[p | p]
copy ctor() called setting lastChar to 'Y'
[Y | c]
[c | p]
[p | p]
-----------------------------------------------------------------


Which is what is required by the standard.

But, the expected output needs to be like this:

-----------------------------------------------------------------
ctor() called and lastChar is 'X'
[X | c]
[c | p]
[p | p]
[p | c] <<--- Note previous state of "lastChar"
[c | p]
[p | p]
[p | c] <<--- Note previous state of "lastChar"
[c | p]
[p | p]
-----------------------------------------------------------------

I don't know if this is at all possible. I already tried with
"mem_func" and such techniques, but to no avail...

Please, I'm not so STL literate, so bear with me. :-)


A long time ago, there was a saying: "The solution to every
problem is an additional level of indirection." Change your
space_comparer to contain a char* as member, provide a
constructor which takes an char* as argument, and use that,
declaring the char before the predicate.

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