Effective STL

Preface xi Acknowledgments xv Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Containers 11 Item 1: Choose your containers with care. 11

Item 2: Beware the illusion of container-independent code. 15

Item 3: Make copying cheap and correct for objects in containers. 20

Item 4: Call empty instead of checking size() against zero. 23

Item 5: Prefer range member functions to their single-element counterparts. 24

Item 6: Be alert for C++'s most vexing parse. 33

Item 7: When using containers of newed pointers, remember to delete the pointers before the container is destroyed. 36

Item 8: Never create containers of auto_ptrs. 40

Item 9: Choose carefully among erasing options. 43

Item 10: Be aware of allocator conventions and restrictions. 48

Item 11: Understand the legitimate uses of custom allocators. 54

Item 12: Have realistic expectations about the thread safety of STL containers. 58

Chapter 2: vector and string 63 Item 13: Prefer vector and string to dynamically allocated arrays. 63

Item 14: Use reserve to avoid unnecessary reallocations. 66

Item 15: Be aware of variations in string implementations. 68

Item 16: Know how to pass vector and string data to legacy APIs. 74

Item 17: Use "the swap trick" to trim excess capacity. 77

Item 18: Avoid using vector. 79

Chapter 3: Associative Containers 83 Item 19: Understand the difference between equality and equivalence. 83

Item 20: Specify comparison types for associative containers of pointers. 88

Item 21: Always have comparison functions return false for equal values. 92

Item 22: Avoid in-place key modification in set and multiset. 95

Item 23: Consider replacing associative containers with sorted vectors. 100

Item 24: Choose carefully between map::operator[] and map::insert when efficiency is important. 106

Item 25: Familiarize yourself with the nonstandard hashed containers. 111

Chapter 4: Iterators 116 Item 26: Prefer iterator to const_iterator, reverse_iterator, and const_reverse_iterator. 116

Item 27: Use distance and advance to convert const_iterators to iterators. 120

Item 28: Understand how to use a reverse_iterator's base iterator. 123

Item 29: Consider istreambuf_iterators for character by character input. 126

Chapter 5: Algorithms 128 Item 30: Make sure destination ranges are big enough. 129

Item 31: Know your sorting options. 133

Item 32: Follow remove-like algorithms by erase if you really want to remove something. 139

Item 33: Be wary of remove-like algorithms on containers of pointers. 143

Item 34: Note which algorithms expect sorted ranges. 146

Item 35: Implement simple case-insensitive string comparisons via mismatch or lexicographical_compare. 150

Item 36: Understand the proper implementation of copy_if. 154

Item 37: Use accumulate or for_each to summarize ranges. 156

Chapter 6: Functors, Functor Classes, Functions, etc. 162 Item 38: Design functor classes for pass-by-value. 162

Item 39: Make predicates pure functions. 166

Item 40: Make functor classes adaptable. 169

Item 41: Understand the reasons for ptr_fun, mem_fun, and mem_fun_ref. 173

Item 42: Make sure less means operator<. 177

Chapter 7: Programming with the STL 181 Item 43: Prefer algorithm calls to hand-written loops. 181

Item 44: Prefer member functions to algorithms with the same names. 190

Item 45: Distinguish among count, find, binary_search, lower_bound, upper_bound, and equal_range. 192

Item 46: Consider function objects instead of functions as algorithm parameters. 201

Item 47: Avoid producing write-only code. 206

Item 48: Always #include the proper headers. 209

Item 49: Learn to decipher STL-related compiler diagnostics. 210

Item 50: Familiarize yourself with STL-related web sites. 217

Bibliography 225 Appendix A: Locales and Case-Insensitive String Comparisons 229 Appendix B: Remarks on Microsoft's STL Platforms 239 Index 245