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

Range-based for loops

In C++, range-based for loops provide a concise and practical mechanism for iterating over containers such as std::vector. Armed with knowledge about std::vector operations and the std::begin and std::end functions, it’s evident that range-based for loops offer a streamlined traversal technique.

Traditional iteration over a vector necessitates declaring an iterator, initializing it to the container’s start, and updating it to progress to the end. Although this method works, it requires careful management and is prone to errors. Range-based for loops present a more efficient solution.

Overview of range-based for loops

The following code demonstrates the basic structure of a range-based for loop:

std::vector<int> numbers = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5};
for (int num : numbers) {
  std::cout << num << " ";
}

In this example, every integer within the numbers vector is printed. This approach eliminates the need for...