I have looked over this thread which talks about using this method for comparison:
struct thing
{
int a;
char b;
bool operator<(const thing &o) const
{
return a < o.a;
}
};
priority_queue<thing> pq;
On the other hand other uses method such as this:
struct Time {
int h;
int m;
int s;
};
class CompareTime {
public:
bool operator()(Time& t1, Time& t2) // Returns true if t1 is earlier than t2
{
if (t1.h < t2.h) return true;
if (t1.h == t2.h && t1.m < t2.m) return true;
if (t1.h == t2.h && t1.m == t2.m && t1.s < t2.s) return true;
return false;
}
}
priority_queue<Time, vector<Time>, CompareTime> pq;
While I logic myself with the first method, I don't quit understand the second method. Mostly because of the syntax. I am not quit sure what the overloading operator operator() means. What is that operator overloading?
Also, from cplusplus on priority_queue, I don't quite understand the following, mainly the second parameter.
template < class T, class Container = vector<T>,
class Compare = less<typename Container::value_type> > class priority_queue;
In another word, I don't understand the second method and its calling convention.
Also, what's the difference and which method is preferred?
I am not quit sure what the overloading operator operator() means.
What is that operator overloading?
What we have here is an overloading of the function call operator (see SO question) , this means that client code can 'treat' the CompareTime class instances as compare functions :
CompareTime ct;
if ( ct(t1, t2) )
{
...
}
I don't quite understand the following, mainly the second parameter.
The cplusplus reference summarizes quite well , the template parameters :
0 arg - The type of the objects within the queue.
1 arg - The underlying container/data structure for the queue, by
default its the std vector
2 arg - Operation on priority queue relies on some precedence
comparison, i.e. which item in the queue should be 'before' other item (see also Wikipedia , so this arg accepts to have compare object (functor) which mean instances of plain class which overload the () operator , the default is the std less functor which is simply a wrapper above the '<' semantics (boolean 2 valued function object).
// TEMPLATE STRUCT less
template<class _Ty>
struct less : public binary_function<_Ty, _Ty, bool>
{
// functor for operator<
bool operator()(const _Ty& _Left, const _Ty& _Right) const
{
// apply operator< to operands
return (_Left < _Right);
}
};
Related
I have not much experience in using lambda's - I was hoping someone could explain what I did below in 'layman's terms' (if possible).
I have a std::vector with a number of objects (or none). Each object has an id. I want to place the object with the id I am interested in at the back of the vector.
I did that like so
std::vector<my_ob> l_obs;
[...] // populate the vector
auto l_elem = std::find_if(l_obs.rbegin(),
l_obs.rend(), [](my_ob const& ob){ return ob.mv_id == 8;});
if(l_elem-l_obs.rbegin())
std::iter_swap(l_elem, l_obs.rbegin());
I am using a reverse iterator as I expect the match to already be at the back of the vector in most cases.
The above worked fine, until I moved it into a method and instead of trying to find '8', I wanted to find a value passed as a const int parameter. The compiler told me that the parameter I used was not captured, and that the lambda had no capture default. So I changed the lambda to
[=](my_ob const& ob){ return ob.mv_id == _arg;}
and this all seems to work now.
Why was this = sign needed?
Lambda expressions produce closure objects, which are function objects (similar to a struct with an overloaded operator()).
In order for closures to use variables in the outer scope, they must know how: either by copying the variable into the closure itself, or by referring to it.
Writing
[=](my_ob const& ob){ return ob.mv_id == _arg;}
is equivalent to
[_arg](my_ob const& ob){ return ob.mv_id == _arg;}
which roughly desugars to
struct LAMBDA
{
int _arg;
LAMBDA(int arg) : _arg{arg} { }
auto operator()(my_ob const& ob) const { return ob.mv_id == _arg; }
};
As you can see, _arg needs to be available in the scope of the generated LAMBDA function object, so it needs to be a data member of the closure.
When you were using a literal, no captures were needed as the generated closure looked like:
struct LAMBDA
{
auto operator()(my_ob const& ob) const { return ob.mv_id == 5; }
};
In the code below I show union-like class S which contains two non-related structs B and C. I show how to instantiate the non-POD std::string and delete it again and then switch S to S::CC and set the num int.
#include <vector>
#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include <memory>
struct B
{
B() {}
~B() {}
std::string str;
void Func1() {}
};
struct C
{
C() {}
~C() {}
int num;
void Func2() {}
};
struct S
{
S() { tag = CC; }
S( const S& s )
{
switch( s.tag )
{
case BB:
new ( &b.str ) std::string;
b.str = s.b.str;
break;
case CC:
c.num = s.c.num;
default:
break;
}
}
~S()
{
switch( tag )
{
case BB:
b.str.~basic_string< char >();
break;
case CC:
c.num = 0;
break;
default:
break;
}
}
enum { BB, CC } tag;
union
{
B b;
C c;
};
};
struct H
{
H( std::initializer_list< S > initializerList ) : initListVect( initializerList ) {}
std::vector< S > initListVect;
};
int main()
{
S s;
s.tag = S::BB;
new ( &s.b.str ) std::string; // docs say use new placement to create memory
s.b.str = "bbb";
s.b.str.~basic_string< char >(); // string usage in B ok
s.tag = S::CC;
s.c.num = 333; // int usage in C ok
H h { }; // what should the init list be if I wanted 3 list elements S::BB, S::CC, S::BB?
return 0;
}
My goal, however, is to use S in an std::initializer_list. I don’t know what the format should be for initializeing h. What should the arguments be if I wanted to initialize h with these S::BB, S::CC, S::BB?
My compiler is VS2015.
Edit:
This post’s history: my posting comes from a need for a definitive answer to the question of storing compile-time-deduceable heterogeneous objects in an std::initializer_list. This question has been asked many times before and there have been many attempts at answers (see Heterogeneous containers in C++). The most simplistic answer is to use polymorphism, but this ignores the power of being able to define a type at compile time (templates). Besides, heterogeneous, non-related objects grouped together polymorphically means a lot of derived data members are useless, which sows usage and maintenance confusion downstream. Other advice given was to use boost::any or boost::variant, but this has the same weakness as polymorphism and reduces message declaration clarity. Another attempt at container object heterogeneity was the use of std::tuple, but although an initializer_list can certainly contain tuples, this approach too ignores compile-time type resolution. I even found a paper written in 1999 called Heterogeneous, Nested STL Containers in C++ which uses template template arguments to solve the heterogeneity problem. After all this, I settled on class-like unions which led to my posting here. Class-like unions for non-related/heterogeneous container objects has perfect message declaration clarity, no object size ambiguity, and is compile time template-able, and it leads to excellent downstream maintenance scenarios.
Edit2: (5 weeks later) Here is what has happened. 1) I implemented a full class-like union solution given the advice in this posting. The result was tedious and unwieldy with ‘tag’ being used to identify which sub-method to call for each new functionality. Low grade regarding code maintenance. 2) c++17 has accepted std::variant. Since that is currently not yet implemented in VS2015 Update 2, I set about using boost::variant. See What is the right c++ variant syntax for calling a member function set to a particular variant? which uses the Visitor pattern to allow access to initialized variant members and member functions. This eliminates the ‘tag’ switches and variant ‘get’ calls. Bottom line: I dropped my class-like union and adopted variant for creating maintainable code that uses initializer_list to store variant member functionality all being initializable at compile time (read: highly maintainable).
Alright, I'm feeling generous and I've made custom unions myself so he're some stuff that'll get you set up. I've rewritten your S structure to be more compliant and usable. (I've made changes marked by comments)
struct S
{
S() : tag(CC) // initializer
{
new (&c) C; // make C object
}
S(int num) : tag(CC) // added integer constructor
{
new (&c) C;
c.num = num;
}
S(const std::string& str) : tag(BB) // added string constructor
{
new (&b) B;
b.str = str;
}
S( const S& s ) : tag(s.tag)
{
if (tag == CC)
{
new (&c) C; // construct c
c.num = s.c.num;
}
else if (tag == BB)
{
new (&b) B; // construct b, not b.str
b.str = s.b.str;
}
}
S& operator= (const S& s) // added assignment operator
{
if (tag == s.tag) // just copy b or c
{
if (tag == CC)
c = s.c;
else
b = s.b;
}
else // reconstruct b or c
{
if (tag == CC)
{
c.~C(); // destroy c
new (&b) B; // construct b
b.str = s.b.str;
}
else
{
b.~B(); // destroy b
new (&c) C; // construct c
c.num = s.c.num;
}
tag = s.tag;
}
return *this;
}
~S()
{
if (tag == CC)
{
c.~C(); // destroy c
}
else if (tag == BB)
{
b.~B(); // destroy b, not b.str
}
}
enum { BB, CC } tag;
union
{
B b;
C c;
};
};
One of the things that you were doing improperly was skipping the construction and destruction of B and C and going straight for the internal variables. You should always create and destroy types properly even when they may be trivial. While this may work out, not initializing these objects properly is only asking for trouble (It also makes it easier should you change B or C in the future).
To make using the class easier, I added in the proper constructors for std::string and int as well as an assignment operator. Because now that we can construct the objects how we want, your main() could look like this:
int main()
{
S s; // default S
s = std::string("bbb"); // set to string
s = 333; // set to number
// use initialization list
H h { std::string("bb"), 33, std::string("bb") };
return 0;
}
I encourage you to modify B and C to use constructors to build their internals rather than relying on S.
I know that using atomics is dangerous (I watched Herb Sutter's 3hr lecture a few days ago), but the following use case seems reasonable to me, in terms of being simple and well contained.
Questions: (a) Is there something wrong with this? (Surely, there must be.) (b) Is there a name for this kind of hybrid atomic/mutex based approach? (c) Is there a simpler way of achieving the same thing?
The goal is to have a thread-safe counter class which we can call attempt_invalidation() on, knowing that it will only set its invalid flag to true if the count is at zero. There will be no other public methods on the class, but we will have a friend class specially designed to do RAII incrementing/decrementing of the counter.
class hybrid_counter{
friend class hybrid_counter_user;
bool invalidated = false;
int counter_a = 0;
std::atomic_int counter_b;
std::mutex mu;
bool increment_safely(){
std::lock_guard<std::mutex> gaurd(mu);
if ( !invalidated )
counter_a++;
return invalidated;
};
void increment_dangerously(){
counter_b++;
};
void decrement(){
counter_b--;
};
public:
bool attempt_invalidation(){
if(counter_a + counter_b == 0){
std::lock_guard<std::mutex> gaurd(mu);
if(counter_a + counter_b == 0)
invalidated = true;
}
return invalidated;
};
};
This is the friend class that knows how to use the counter correctly:
class hybrid_counter_user{
public:
hybrid_counter_user(hybrid_counter& hc){
if(hc.increment_safely() == false) // is not yet invalidated
c = &hc;
else
c = nullptr;
};
~hybrid_counter_user(){
if(c)
c->decrement();
};
hybrid_counter_user(hybrid_counter_user&& old){
c = old.c;
old.c = nullptr;
}
hybrid_counter_user(hybrid_counter_user& other){
c = other.c;
if(c)
c->increment_dangerously();
}
private:
hybrid_counter* c;
};
Note that the copy constructor uses the fact that hybrid_counter remains valid while other is in scope and other's destructor cannot be reordered with increment_dangerously because both involve the same atomic var.
The move constructor is simply transferring responsibility for decrementing.
I am trying to make the producer-consumer method using c++11 concurrency. The wait method for the condition_variable class has a predicate as second argument, so I thought of using a lambda function:
struct LimitedBuffer {
int* buffer, size, front, back, count;
std::mutex lock;
std::condition_variable not_full;
std::condition_variable not_empty;
LimitedBuffer(int size) : size(size), front(0), back(0), count(0) {
buffer = new int[size];
}
~LimitedBuffer() {
delete[] buffer;
}
void add(int data) {
std::unique_lock<std::mutex> l(lock);
not_full.wait(l, [&count, &size]() {
return count != size;
});
buffer[back] = data;
back = (back+1)%size;
++count;
not_empty.notify_one();
}
int extract() {
std::unique_lock<std::mutex> l(lock);
not_empty.wait(l, [&count]() {
return count != 0;
});
int result = buffer[front];
front = (front+1)%size;
--count;
not_full.notify_one();
return result;
}
};
But I am getting this error:
[Error] capture of non-variable 'LimitedBuffer::count'
I don't really know much about c++11 and lambda functions so I found out that class members can't be captured by value. By value though, I am capturing them by reference, but it seems like it's the same thing.
In a display of brilliance I stored the struct members values in local variables and used them in the lambda function, and it worked! ... or not:
int ct = count, sz = size;
not_full.wait(l, [&ct, &sz]() {
return ct != sz;
});
Obviously I was destroying the whole point of the wait function by using local variables since the value is assigned once and the fun part is checking the member variables which may, should and will change. Silly me.
So, what are my choices? Is there any way I can make the wait method do what it has to do, using the member variables? Or I am forced to not use lambda functions so I'd have to declare auxiliary functions to do the work?
I don't really get why I can't use members variables in lambda functions, but since the masters of the universe dessigned lamba functions for c++11 this way, there must be some good reason.
count is a member variable. Member variables can not be captured directly. Instead, you can capture this to achieve the same effect:
not_full.wait(l, [this] { return count != size; });
I have this code which works fine in VS 2013 but doesn't compile in either GCC 4.8 or clang 3.3!
AND_end(c)->next = new ListNode<Point>{ b->val };
The error message is the following: "cannot convert from "Point" to "int".
Now, gradually, member val of b is a Point:
struct Point
{
int x;
int y;
double distance(const Point& other) const
{
if (this == &other)
return 0.;
return std::sqrt(std::pow(other.y - y, 2.) + std::pow(other.x - x, 2.));
}
bool operator==(const Point& other)
{
return x == other.x && y == other.y;
}
bool operator!=(const Point& other)
{
return !(*this == other);
}
};
b is a Line:
using Line = ListNode<Point>*;
a ListNode is a typical node for a singly linked list:
template<typename T>
struct ListNode
{
T val; // Value
ListNode* next = nullptr; // Next node in the list
// Constructor: takes a value of type T and optionally a pointer to the next node
explicit ListNode(T v, ListNode* n = nullptr)
: val{ v }, next{ n }
{
// Empty body, both member variables are initialized already
}
};
So, the line of code that doesn't compile should do the following: create a new ListNode, with T = Point, by supplying to the explicit ListNode constructor its first (and only) argument T v, which is a Point (b->val is a Point). This argument will be copied into the ListNode member val by copy, using the default copy constructor.
What seems to happen in both GCC and clang is that b->val is supplied to the Point constructor, hence the error message above (and for the sake of completeness, and additional warning is given: "missing field 'y' initializer").
VC++12 seems to get it all right instead.
So, what's up? Am I missing anything obvious (maybe, happens from time to time) or is there a nasty problem here?
I think the problem is, you do not have copy constructor for Point, therefore, in this line,
explicit ListNode(T v, ListNode* n = nullptr)
: val{ v }, next{ n }
since there's no copy constructor, val{v} will try to initialize by aggregate.
From 8.5.1,
An aggregate is an array or a class (Clause 9) with no user-provided
constructors.
When an aggregate is initialized by an initializer list,
as specified in 8.5.4, the elements of the initializer list are taken
as initializers for the members of the aggregate, in increasing
subscript or member order. Each member is copy-initialized from the
corresponding initializer-clause.
For a point type, the aggregate initialization shall be val {v.x, v.y}.
Or, you can implement a copy constructor for Point class.
GCC & Clang are correct. VS is wrong and it should reject your code.