Clever Geek Handbook

Two questions regarding C ++ containers

  • Why are container adapters like std::stack

    or are std::queue

    implemented as adapters and not as independent containers? Is it because you want, for example, a stack with basic memory management of different sequence containers?

  • Why are STL algorithms implemented as free functions waiting for iterators and not as methods of the respective containers?

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This is done in order to give programmers better control over the implementation. The mix-and-match ability is incredibly powerful because it allows you to accomplish more things with less code.

Why are container adapters like std::stack

or std::queue

are implemented as adapters

Because you can mix and match containers and adapters: depending on your needs, you can create queue

based on vector

or stack

based on list

and then change the implementation details by replacing in a different container type.



Why STL algorithms are implemented as free functions

To avoid coding them in multiple places. For example, a linear search in a vector remains the same linear search in a list and can also be applied to other containers with iterators.

Note that some containers have member functions specific to their implementation. For example, it std::set

has a method find

for faster nonlinear search .

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