Convert Boost::Map iterator to std::iterator - boost

I was writing wrapper methods for Boost unordered map container. In boost Unordered Map there is a method begin() which returns an iterator to the first element.Actually in my wrapper class i want to return a std::Unordered_map::iterator instead of boost::unordered_map::iterator from my Begin method.
Example code:
template
boost::unordered_map<key, value> m_myMap;
boost::unordered::unordered_map::iterator MyWrapper<>::Begin()
{
return m_myMap.begin();
}
In the above code i want to return std::Unordered_map::iterator
Please help

You can't. C++ is a strongly typed language.
The best you can do is
use std::unordered_map
Use type erasure to hide the implementation (boost::any_iterator or boost::any_range)
My spidy sense tells me that you should take the iterators by deduced template argument type, instead of hard-coding them into your algorithms.
template <typename Iterator>
void foo_algo(Iterator begin, Iterator end, int some_data) {
...

Related

C++ command pattern with large number of params

I am implementing a command pattern implementations with large number of actions and parameters involved. To simplify I am planning to use class that can hold all possible params to module in a map.
class ParamBag {
public:
add(int paramId, shared_ptr<IParam> param);
bool contains(int paramId);
std::shared_ptr<IParam> get(paramId);
private:
int mask;
std::map<int, std::shared_ptr<IParam>> params;
};
One clear downside of this implementation is each param has to extend from IParam interface, can I somehow simplify this.
If the one that uses the param after the get knows the type of the param, then you can use c++17 std::any, or if you must use c++11 you can try boost::any, or if none of those you can resort back to a void*.
The difference is that void* will not fail on a cast to a wrong type, where any_cast would throw an exception, or return nullptr if used with a pointer. You would also need to use a custom deleter in the std::shared_ptr in order to be able to free the void*.

std::binding a template function

I have a function that is part of a class handles some input as pair of iterators. The signature of which is:
class Obj {
public:
template <typename InputIterator>
void handle_read(InputIterator first, InputIterator last);
...
};
I would like to bind that to a function:
void Obj::handle_connect() {
connections.start(std::make_shared<connection>(std::move(socket), connections, logger),
std::bind(&server::handle_read<InputIterator>, this, std::placeholders::_1, std::placeholders::_2));
}
However that doesn't work, specifically the error suggests that it can't find InputIterator.
However if I put the exact signature for the bind in:
std::bind(&server::handle_read<std::array<uint8_t, 8192>::iterator>, this, std::placeholders::_1, std::placeholders::_2));
It compiles, but the code is brittle: If I change to a vector then I will need to go around changing the signatures (though failing code will be easy to detect), and if I decide that a different container would be more efficient than an array in a particular use case, then it breaks altogether.
How I do keep the bind generic and not tied to a particular iterator type?

How to write a function that iterates over anything that provides an iterator

In Python it's very easy to iterate over anything that provides an iterator:
def iterate(iterable):
for i in iterable:
do_something(i)
Is it possible to write a similiar function in C++?
Other answers suggest something like:
template<class iterator_type>
void iterate(iterator_type it, iterator_type end)
{
while (it != end) {
do_something(*(it++));
}
}
But is there a way that can directly take something with an iterator and fetches the iterator begin and end by itself?
So after all, the question reduces to: Is there a standardized way to get an iterator from any object that provides an iterator? (Like iter(...) in Python.)
You can use range for to iterate over a collection having iterators.
Is there a standardized way to get an iterator from any object that provides an iterator?
Yes, its std::begin(...) and std::end(...) functions.

How do I pass static_cast<T> as a function?

I have a type A that's designed to be implicitly casted to type B. Here's an example case I'd like to use it in:
// Current implementation:
std::transform(vec_of_a.begin(), vec_of_a.end(), std::back_inserter(vec_of_b),
[](const A& a) -> B { return a; }); // Thanks, Kerrek SB.
// Ideal implementation - Won't compile, expected '(' after 'static_cast'.
std::transform(vec_of_a.begin(), vec_of_a.end(), std::back_inserter(vec_of_b),
static_cast<B>);
What can I do to make the latter option compile?
static_cast<B>, while it is invoked with function-call syntax cannot be passed like other callable things. E.g., there's no way to use & to get a function pointer to it.
You can use a short little lambda to achieve something similar to passing a function pointer to static_cast<B>, as you do in your current implementation:
std::transform(vec_of_a.begin(), vec_of_a.end(), std::back_inserter(vec_of_b),
[](const A& a) -> B { return a; });
Another option--in this particular case--would be to construct a vector<B> from the vector<A>:
std::vector<B> vec_of_b(vec_of_a.begin(), vec_of_a.end());
(This answer is a summary of the comments on both the question and bipll's answer.)
Build a functor enclosing static_cast:
template <typename T>
struct StaticCast
{
template <typename U>
T operator()(const U& rhs)
{
return static_cast<T>(rhs);
}
};
With this, you can call std::transform:
std::transform(vec_of_a.begin(), vec_of_a.end(), std::back_inserter(vec_of_b), StaticCast<b>());
It can be used in the case the output vector is already defined in place of the lambda shown in comments. If not, prefer the constructor mentioned in another answer**.
This functor version is compliant with C++98 if needed -- even if OP is tagged C++11, it may be worthy to note this point.
** Note that with this particular constructor, a warning C4244 is raised with VS compiler (tested with VS2017).
Yes, that's the way anonymous functions work in C++, and static_cast is not a function so you cannot pass its address as the mapped function. You'll have to deal with it.
You cannot use a constructor either.

Equivalent of enumerators in C++11?

In C#, you can define a custom enumeration very trivially, eg:
public IEnumerable<Foo> GetNestedFoos()
{
foreach (var child in _SomeCollection)
{
foreach (var foo in child.FooCollection)
{
yield return foo;
}
foreach (var bar in child.BarCollection)
{
foreach (var foo in bar.MoreFoos)
{
yield return foo;
}
}
}
foreach (var baz in _SomeOtherCollection)
{
foreach (var foo in baz.GetNestedFoos())
{
yield return foo;
}
}
}
(This can be simplified using LINQ and better encapsulation but that's not the point of the question.)
In C++11, you can do similar enumerations but AFAIK it requires a visitor pattern instead:
template<typename Action>
void VisitAllFoos(const Action& action)
{
for (auto& child : m_SomeCollection)
{
for (auto& foo : child.FooCollection)
{
action(foo);
}
for (auto& bar : child.BarCollection)
{
for (auto& foo : bar.MoreFoos)
{
action(foo);
}
}
}
for (auto& baz : m_SomeOtherCollection)
{
baz.VisitAllFoos(action);
}
}
Is there a way to do something more like the first, where the function returns a range that can be iterated externally rather than calling a visitor internally?
(And I don't mean by constructing a std::vector<Foo> and returning it -- it should be an in-place enumeration.)
I am aware of the Boost.Range library, which I suspect would be involved in the solution, but I'm not particularly familiar with it.
I'm also aware that it's possible to define custom iterators to do this sort of thing (which I also suspect might be involved in the answer) but I'm looking for something that's easy to write, ideally no more complicated than the examples shown here, and composable (like with _SomeOtherCollection).
I would prefer something that does not require the caller to use lambdas or other functors (since that just makes it a visitor again), although I don't mind using lambdas internally if needed (but would still prefer to avoid them there too).
If I'm understanding your question correctly, you want to perform some action over all elements of a collection.
C++ has an extensive set of iterator operations, defined in the iterator header. Most collection structures, including the std::vector that you reference, have .begin and .end methods which take no arguments and return iterators to the beginning and the end of the structure. These iterators have some operations that can be performed on them manually, but their primary use comes in the form of the algorithm header, which defines several very useful iteration functions.
In your specific case, I believe you want the for_each function, which takes a range (as a beginning to end iterator) and a function to apply. So if you had a function (or function object) called action and you wanted to apply it to a vector called data, the following code would be correct (assuming all necessary headers are included appropriately):
std::for_each(data.begin(), data.end(), action);
Note that for_each is just one of many functions provided by the algorithm header. It also provides functions to search a collection, copy a set of data, sort a list, find a minimum/maximum, and much more, all generalized to work over any structure that has an iterator. And if even these aren't enough, you can write your own by reading up on the operations supported on iterators. Simply define a template function that takes iterators of varying types and document what kind of iterator you want.
template <typename BidirectionalIterator>
void function(BidirectionalIterator begin, BidirectionalIterator end) {
// Do something
}
One final note is that all of the operations mentioned so far also operate correctly on arrays, provided you know the size. Instead of writing .begin and .end, you write + 0 and + n, where n is the size of the array. The trivial zero addition is often necessary in order to decay the type of the array into a pointer to make it a valid iterator, but array pointers are indeed random access iterators just like any other container iterator.
What you can do is writing your own adapter function and call it with different ranges of elements of the same type.
This is a non tested solution, that will probably needs some tweaking to make it compile,but it will give you an idea. It uses variadic templates to move from a collection to the next one.
template<typename Iterator, Args...>
visitAllFoos(std::pair<Iterator, Iterator> collection, Args&&... args)
{
std::for_each(collection.first, collection.second, {}(){ // apply action });
return visitAllFoos(std::forward<Args>(args)...);
}
//you can call it with a sequence of begin/end iterators
visitAllFoos(std::make_pair(c1.begin(), c1,end()), std::make_pair(c2.begin(), c2,end()))
I believe, what you're trying to do can be done with Boost.Range, in particular with join and any_range (the latter would be needed if you want to hide the types of the containers and remove joined_range from the interface).
However, the resulting solution would not be very practical both in complexity and performance - mostly because of the nested joined_ranges and type erasure overhead incurred by any_range. Personally, I would just construct std::vector<Foo*> or use visitation.
You can do this with the help of boost::asio::coroutine; see examples at https://pubby8.wordpress.com/2014/03/16/multi-step-iterators-using-coroutines/ and http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_55_0/doc/html/boost_asio/overview/core/coroutine.html.

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