Generic Programming and the STL Using and Extending the C++ Standard Template Library

Many programmers are unaware that C++ is more than an object-oriented language. C++ is also a language for generic programming, a methodology that can greatly enhance your ability to write efficient and reusable software components. Written by noted C++ authority Matthew H. Austern, Generic Programming and the STL introduces you to the generic programming paradigm and to the most important instance of that paradigm--the C++ Standard Template Library (STL). This book reveals that the STL is more than a set of convenient container classes: It is also an extensible framework for generic and interoperable components. Generic Programming and the STL explains the central ideas underlying generic programming--concepts, modeling, and refinement--and shows how these ideas lead to the fundamental concepts of the STL: iterators, containers, and function objects. In this way you will conceive the STL as a library of concepts rather than a library of specific functions and classes. You will learn its formal structure and be able to take full advantage of its potential power. This book enables you to: Extend the STL with your own library of portable and interoperable general-purpose components Create algorithms that are decoupled from the types and data structures they operate on, thus eliminating the need to rewrite basic algorithms and data structures Write more elegant, efficient, and effective code that can be used and reused across platforms With the knowledge and understanding you will gain, you can achieve greater skill in creating the reusable and portable software that is now invaluable in our diverse and interconnected computing environment. 0201309564B04062001

This is not a book about object-oriented programming.You may think that's odd. You probably found this book in the C++ section of the bookstore, after all, and you've probably heard people useobject orientedandC++ synonymously, but that isn't the only way to use the C++ language. C++ supports several fundamentally different paradigms, the newest and least familiar of which is generic programming.Like most new ideas, generic programming actually has a long history. Some of the early research papers on generic programming are nearly 25 years old, and the first experimental generic libraries were written not in C++ but in Ada MS89a, MS89b and Scheme KMS88. Yet generic programming is new enough that no textbooks on the subject exist.The first example of generic programming to become important outside of research groups was the STL, the C++ Standard Template Library. The Standard Template Library, designed by Alexander Stepanov (then of Hewlett-Packard Laboratories) and Meng Lee, was accepted in 1994 as part of the C++ standard library. The freely available "HP implementation" SL95, which served as a demonstration of the STL's capabilities, was released the same year.When the Standard Template Library first became part of the C++ standard, the C++ community immediately recognized it as a library of high-quality and efficient container classes. It is always easiest to see what is familiar, and every C++ programmer is familiar with container classes. Every nontrivial program requires some way of managing a collection of objects, and every C++ programmer has written a class that implements strings or vectors or lists.Container class libraries have been available since the earliest days of C++, and when "template" classes (parameterized types) were added to the language, one of their first uses--indeed, one of the main reasons that templates were introduced--was parameterized container classes. Many different vendors, including Borland, Microsoft, Rogue Wave, and IBM, wrote their own libraries that included Array or its equivalent.The fact that container classes are so familiar made the STL seem at first to be nothing more than yet another container class library. This familiarity diverted attention from the ways in which the STL was unique.The STL is a large and extensible body of efficient, generic, and interoperable software components. It includes many of the basic algorithms and data structures of computer science, and it is written so that algorithms and data structures are decoupled from each other. Rather than a container class library, it is more accurate to think of the STL as a library of generic algorithms; containers exist so that the algorithms have something to operate on.You can use the existing STL algorithms in your programs, just as you can use the existing STL containers. For example, you can use the generic STL sort as you would use the function qsort from the standard C library (although sort is simpler, more flexible, safer, and more efficient). Several books, including David Musser and Atul Saini'sSTL Tutorial and Reference GuideMS96 and Mark Nelson'sC++ Programmer's Guide to the Standard Template LibraryNel95, explain how to use the STL in such a way.Even this much is useful. It is always better to reuse code than to rewrite it, and you can reuse the existing STL algorithms in your own programs. This is still, however, only one aspect of the STL. The STL was designed to be extensible; that is, it was designed so that, just as the different STL components are interoperable with each other, they are also interoperable with components you write yourself. Using the STL effectively means extending it. Generic ProgrammingThe STL is not just a collection of useful components. Its other aspect, which is less widely recognized and understood, is that it is a f