Book Image

Data Structures and Algorithms with the C++ STL

By : John Farrier
5 (2)
Book Image

Data Structures and Algorithms with the C++ STL

5 (2)
By: John Farrier

Overview of this book

While the Standard Template Library (STL) offers a rich set of tools for data structures and algorithms, navigating its intricacies can be daunting for intermediate C++ developers without expert guidance. This book offers a thorough exploration of the STL’s components, covering fundamental data structures, advanced algorithms, and concurrency features. Starting with an in-depth analysis of the std::vector, this book highlights its pivotal role in the STL, progressing toward building your proficiency in utilizing vectors, managing memory, and leveraging iterators. The book then advances to STL’s data structures, including sequence containers, associative containers, and unordered containers, simplifying the concepts of container adaptors and views to enhance your knowledge of modern STL programming. Shifting the focus to STL algorithms, you’ll get to grips with sorting, searching, and transformations and develop the skills to implement and modify algorithms with best practices. Advanced sections cover extending the STL with custom types and algorithms, as well as concurrency features, exception safety, and parallel algorithms. By the end of this book, you’ll have transformed into a proficient STL practitioner ready to tackle real-world challenges and build efficient and scalable C++ applications.
Table of Contents (30 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Part 1: Mastering std::vector
7
Part 2: Understanding STL Data Structures
13
Part 3: Mastering STL Algorithms
19
Part 4: Creating STL-Compatible Types and Algorithms
23
Part 5: STL Data Structures and Algorithms: Under the Hood

std::priority_queue

Purpose and suitability

std::priority_queue is an adapter container built on top of a random-access container type, primarily std::vector. Its core strength revolves around the following:

  • Always having the highest priority element at the top
  • Ensuring efficient insertion and retrieval of the top element

It shines in the following scenarios:

  • When priority-based access is required
  • When insertions are random but access always targets the element of the highest importance

In scenarios where order is not a concern or insertion order matters more than access priority, std::priority_queue might not be the ideal choice.

Ideal use cases

The following are some of the ideal use cases for std::priority_queue:

  • Job scheduling: Assigning jobs based on their urgency or priority
  • Pathfinding algorithms: An example of such an algorithm is Dijkstra’s algorithm, where nodes with the shortest tentative distance are processed...