掌握有效STL：编码艺术与容器选择

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《Effective STL》是C++编程领域中的一部经典之作，由大师级作者撰写，专为理解和提升STL（Standard Template Library）的使用技巧而设计。本书深入剖析了STL容器的高效利用，为C++开发者提供了实用的指导原则和最佳实践。 1. **谨慎选择容器**： - Item1 提醒读者在选择容器时要考虑具体需求，不同的容器适用于不同的场景。例如，vector适合元素顺序存储，而list则更适合频繁的插入和删除操作。 2. **避免假象：容器独立代码的陷阱** - Item2 阐述了在编写代码时，不要过于依赖特定容器特性，以为某些操作对所有容器都适用，这可能导致代码不兼容或性能问题。 3. **优化对象复制**： - Item3 强调了在容器中处理对象时，应确保复制操作的高效和正确，避免不必要的性能损失。 4. **使用empty()而非size()检查** - Item4 推荐使用empty()方法检测容器是否为空，而不是比较size()与0，以简化代码并提高效率。 5. **偏好范围成员函数** - Item5 提出使用迭代器范围操作（如`begin()`和`end()`）而非单个元素操作，这在处理容器时更加简洁且可读性更高。 6. **警惕C++解析难题** - Item6 指出需要了解并避免C++中的潜在歧义，特别是在容器操作和模板元编程中，理解语法规则至关重要。 7. **内存管理注意事项** - Item7 和Item8 提醒读者，当使用容器持有动态分配的指针时，务必在容器销毁前释放内存，同时建议避免使用auto_ptr，因为其不再推荐使用。 8. **合理选择删除选项** - Item9 介绍了不同容器的删除策略，选择合适的选项以保持代码的清晰性和性能。 9. **理解自定义分配器** - Item10 和Item11 介绍STL容器中的默认分配器，并探讨在特定情况下使用自定义分配器的优势和限制。 10. **关于线程安全的认识** - Item12 告诉读者要对STL容器的线程安全性有清晰的理解，特别是多线程环境下的同步问题。 11. **vector和string的优化** - Item13~Item17 集中讨论vector和string这两种常用容器，包括动态数组的选择、避免无谓的realloc、不同实现细节、与旧API交互以及如何使用“swap trick”来管理容量等。通过阅读《Effective STL》，读者不仅能掌握STL的核心概念，还能提升代码质量和性能，从而在实际开发中更有效地利用这一强大的工具。

Compared to arrays. STL containers are much more civilized. They create (by

copying) only as many objects as you ask for, they do it only when you direct them to,

and they use a default constructor only when you say they should. Yes, STL containers

make copies, and yes, you need to understand that, but don't lose sight of the fact that

they're still a big step up from arrays.

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

For any container c, writing

if (c.size() == 0)...

is essentially equivalent to writing

if (c.empty())...

That being the case, you might wonder why one construct should be preferred to the

other, especially in view of the fact that empty is typically implemented as an inline

function that simply returns whether size returns 0.

You should prefer the construct using empty, and the reason is simple: empty is a

constant-time operation for all standard containers, but for some list implementations,

size takes linear time.

But what makes list so troublesome? Why can't it, too. offer a constant-time size? The

answer has much to do with list's unique splicing functions. Consider this code:

list<int> list1;

list<int> Iist2;

...

list1.splice( // move ail nodes in Iist2

list1.end(), Iist2, // from the first occurrence

find(list2.begin(), Iist2.end(), 5), // of 5 through the last

find(list2.rbegin(), Iist2.rend(), 10).base() // occurrence of 10 to the

); //end of list1. See Item 28

// for info on the "base()" call

This code won't work unless Iist2 contains a 10 somewhere beyond a 5, but let's

assume that's not a problem. Instead, let's focus on this question: how many elements

are in list1 after the splice? Clearly, list1 after the splice has as many elements as it did

before the splice plus however many elements were spliced into it. But how many

elements were spliced into it? As many as were in the range defined by

find(list2.begin(), Iist2.end(), 5) and find(list2.rbegin(), Iist2.rend(), 10).base(). Okay,

how many is that? Without traversing the range and counting them, there's no way to

know. And therein lies the problem.

Suppose you're responsible for implementing list, list isn't just any container, it's a

standard container, so you know your class will be widely used. You naturally want

your implementation to be as efficient as possible. You figure that clients will

commonly want to find out how many elements are in a list, so you'd like to make size

a constant- time operation. You'd thus like to design list so it always knows how many

elements it contains.

At the same time, you know that of all the standard containers, only list offers the

ability to splice elements from one place to another without copying any data. You

reason that many list clients will choose list specifically because it offers high-

efficiency splicing. They know that splicing a range from one list to another can be

accomplished in constant time, and you know that they know it, so you certainly want

to meet their expectation that splice is a constant-time member function.

This puts you in a quandary. If size is to be a constant-time operation, each list

member function must update the sizes of the lists on which it operates. That includes

splice. But the only way for splice to update the sizes of the lists it modifies is for it to

count the number of elements being spliced, and doing that would prevent splice from

achieving the constant-time performance you want for it. If you eliminate the

requirement that splice update the sizes of the lists it's modifying, splice can be made

constant-time, but then size becomes a linear-time operation. In general, it will have to

traverse its entire data structure to see how many elements it contains. No matter how

you look at it, something — size or splice — has to give. One or the other can be a

constant-time operation, but not both.

Different list implementations resolve this conflict in different ways, depending on

whether their authors choose to maximize the efficiency of size or splice. If you

happen to be using a list implementation where a constant-time splice was given

higher priority than a constant-time size, you'll be better off calling empty than size,

because empty is always a constant-time operation. Even if you're not using such an

implementation, you might find yourself using such an implementation in the future.

For example, you might port your code to a different platform where a different

implementation of the STL is available, or you might just decide to switch to a

different STL implementation for your current platform.

No matter what happens, you can't go wrong if you call empty instead of checking to

see if size() == 0. So call empty whenever you need to know whether a container has

zero elements.

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

counterparts.

Quick! Given two vectors, v1 and v2, what's the easiest way to make v1’s contents be

the same as the second half of v2's? Don't agonize over the definition of "half when v2

has an odd number of elements, just do something reasonable.

Time's up! If your answer was

v1.assign(v2.begin() + v2.size() /2, v2.end());

or something quite similar, you get full credit and a gold star. If your answer involved

more than one function call, but didn't use any kind of loop, you get nearly full credit,

but no gold star. If your answer involved a loop, you've got some room for

improvement, and if your answer involved multiple loops, well, let's just say that you

really need this book.

By the way, if your response to the answer to the question included "Huh?", pay close

attention, because you're going to learn something really useful.

This quiz is designed to do two things. First, it affords me an opportunity to remind

you of the existence of the assign member function, a convenient beast that too many

programmers overlook. It's available for all the standard sequence containers (vector,

string, deque, and list). Whenever you have to completely replace the contents of a

container, you should think of assignment. If you're just copying one container to

another of the same type, operator= is the assignment function of choice, but as this

example demonstrates, assign is available for the times when you want to give a

container a completely new set of values, but operator= won't do what you want.

The second reason for the quiz is to demonstrate why range member functions are

superior to their single-element alternatives. A range member function is a member

function that, like STL algorithms, uses two iterator parameters to specify a range of

elements over which something should be done. Without using a range member

function to solve this Item's opening problem, you'd have to write an explicit loop,

probably something like this:

vector<Widget> v1, v2; // assume v1 and v2 are vectors

//of Widgets

v1.clear();

for ( vector<Widget>::const_iterator ci = v2.begin() + v2.size() / 2;

ci != v2.end();

++ci)

v1.push_back(*ci);

Item 43 examines in detail why you should try to avoid writing explicit loops, but you

don't need to read that Item to recognize that writing this code is a lot more work than

is writing the call to assign. As we'll see shortly, the loop also happens to impose an

efficiency penalty, but we'll deal with that in a moment.

One way to avoid the loop is to follow the advice of Item 43 and employ an algorithm

instead:

v1.clear();

copy(v2.begin() + v2.size() / 2, v2.end(), back_inserter(v1 ));

Writing this is still more work than writing the call to assign. Furthermore, though no

loop is present in this code, one certainly exists inside copy (see Item 43). As a result,

the efficiency penalty remains. Again. I'll discuss that below. At this point, I want to

digress briefly to observe that almost all uses of copy where the destination range is

specified using an insert iterator (i.e.. via inserter, back_inserter. or front_inserter) can

be — should be — replaced with calls to range member functions. Here, for example,

the call to copy can be replaced with a range version of insert:

v1 .insert(v1 .end(), v2.begin() + v2.size() / 2, v2.end());

This involves slightly less typing than the call to copy, but it also says more directly

what is happening: data is being inserted into v1. The call to copy expresses that, too,

but less directly. It puts the emphasis in the wrong place. The interesting aspect of

what is happening is not that elements are being copied, it's that v1 is having new data

added to it. The insert member function makes that clear. The use of copy obscures it.

There's nothing interesting about the fact that things are being copied, because the STL

is built on the assumption that things will be copied. Copying is so fundamental to the

STL. it's the topic of Item 3 in this book!

Too many STL programmers overuse copy, so the advice I just gave bears repeating:

Almost all uses of copy where the destination range is specified using an insert iterator

should be replaced with calls to range member functions.

•

Returning to our assign example, we've already identified two reasons to prefer

range member functions to their single-element counterparts:

•

It's generally less work to write the code using the range member functions.

•

Range member functions tend to lead to code that is clearer and more

straightforward.

In short, range member functions yield code that is easier to write and easier to

understand. What's not to like'.'

Alas, some will dismiss these arguments as matters of programming style, and

developers enjoy arguing about style issues almost as much as they enjoy arguing

about which is the One True Editor. (As if there's any doubt. It's Emacs.) It would be

helpful to have a more universally agreed-upon criterion for establishing the

superiority of range member functions to their single-element counterparts. For the

standard sequence containers, we have one: efficiency. When dealing with the

standard sequence containers, application of single-element member functions makes

more demands on memory allocators, copies objects more frequently, and/or performs

redundant operations compared to range member functions that achieve the same end.

For example, suppose you'd like to copy an array of ints into the front of a vector. (The

data might be in an array instead of a vector in the first place, because the data came

from a legacy C API. For a discussion of the issues that arise when mixing STL

containers and C APIs, see Item 16.) Using the vector range insert function, it's

honestly trivial:

int data[numValues]; // assume numValues is

// defined elsewhere

vector<int> v;

...

v.insert(v.begin(), data, data + numValues); // insert the ints in data

//into v at the front

Using iterative calls to insert in an explicit loop, it would probably look more or less

like this:

vector<int>::iterator insertLoc(v.begin());

for (int i = 0; i < numValues; ++i) {

insertLoc = v.insert(insertLoc, data[i]);

}

Notice how we have to be careful to save the return value of insert for the next loop

iteration. If we didn't update insertLoc after each insertion, we'd have two problems.

First, all loop iterations after the first would yield undefined behavior, because each

insert call would invalidate insertLoc. Second, even if insertLoc remained valid, we'd

always insert at the front of the vector (i.e., at v.begin()), and the result would be that

the ints copied into v would end up in reverse order.

If we follow the lead of Item 43 and replace the loop with a call to copy, we get

something like this:

copy(data. data + numValues, inserter(v, v.begin()));

By the time the copy template has been instantiated, the code based on copy and the

code using the explicit loop will be almost identical, so for purposes of an efficiency

analysis, we'll focus on the explicit loop, keeping in mind that the analysis is equally

valid for the code employing copy. Looking at the explicit loop just makes it easier to

understand where the efficiency hits come from. Yes, that's "hits." plural, because the

code using the single-element version of insert levies up to three different performance

taxes on you, none of which you pay if you use the range version of insert.

The first tax consists of unnecessary function calls. Inserting numValues elements into

v one at a time naturally costs you numValues calls to insert. Using the range form of

insert, you pay for only one function call, a savings of numValues-1 calls. Of course,

it's possible that inlining will save you from this tax, but then again, it's possible that it

won't. Only one thing is sure. With the range form of insert, you definitely won't pay

it.

Inlining won't save you from the second tax, which is the cost of inefficiently moving

the existing elements in v to their final post-insertion positions. Each time insert is

called to add a new value to v. every element above the insertion point must be moved

up one position to make room for the new element. So the element at position p must

be moved up to position p+1, etc. In our example, we're inserting numValues elements

at the front of v. That means that each element in v prior to the insertions will have to

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