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

Understanding iterator requirements

Iterators in C++ serve as a consistent interface to various data structures, such as containers and, since C++20, ranges. The iterator library supplies definitions for iterators and associated traits, adaptors, and utility functions.

Given that iterators extend the idea of pointers, they inherently adopt many pointer semantics in C++. Consequently, any function template accepting iterators can also seamlessly work with regular pointers.

Iterators are categorized into six types: LegacyInputIterator, LegacyOutputIterator, LegacyForwardIterator, LegacyBidirectionalIterator, LegacyRandomAccessIterator, and LegacyContiguousIterator. Instead of being determined by their intrinsic types, these categories are distinguished by the operations they support. As an illustration, pointers accommodate all the operations defined for LegacyRandomAccessIterator, allowing them to be utilized wherever a LegacyRandomAccessIterator is required.

These iterator...