Thread: Sorting Vector of structs.

Originally Posted by Zosden

They aren't wrong and I know how to use them, and they do point to something. I'm not an idiot. I just wanted to know how to sort the vector in c++. Could you show me an example. you don't have to use my code. I'm more than capable of making them pointers from an example some shows me.

Actually, I beg to differ. Learning to do something completely wrong is probably worse than not learning it at all. Continuing along that path would make you an idiot in most people's books. It's also entirely likely that all the problems your having are because of how you've wrongly misused pointers.

Can you even show that everything is allocated correctly, and that everything is deleted correctly afterwards, because I seriously doubt it!

So, no I wont help you shoot yourself in your foot, or give you enough rope to hang yourself!

Originally Posted by Zosden

Yes I know everything works. I'm not a brand new to programming, and I've tested my code thoroughly. I just wanted to know how to sort a vector of pointers. The assignment is to have a vector of pointers. I just made everything a pointer to learn how to use them. for hopefully the last time, I know I made it harder than I needed to I just wanted to learn how to use them.

Then get rid of all the other pointers and just use a vector of pointers

vector<int*> instead of vector<int*>*
vector<Election::Candidate*> instead of vector<Election::Candidate*>*

Then you'll still be using pointers, but you'll be using them in a more sane way.

Originally Posted by Zosden

That still doesn't fix my original problem.

What happens when you pass your Comparator class to std::sort()?

BTW, I wouldn't bother passing the pointers by reference:

Code:

bool operator () (const View::Election::Candidate*& lhs , const View::Election::Candidate*& rhs){

Since you're not planning on modifying the actual pointers themselves and you won't gain any performance benefit on a 4 or 8 byte pointer. They'll just cause more confusion than anything else.

Originally Posted by Zosden

what would I pass a new Comparator

I believe you'd want to do something like this:

Code:

std::sort( myElections->at(i)->myCandidates->begin(),
           myElections->at(i)->myCandidates->end(),
           Comparator() );

You stated earlier that your goal in all this was to learn to use pointers. Then for heaven's sake, learn to use pointers for something that they were actually meant to be used for.
If you were given a screw driver to learn how to use, you wouldn't learn how to use it by trying to hammer nails in with it.

If you want to learn how to use pointers, then try writing your own linked list or doubly-linked list. That's a good way to learn all about pointer manipulation.
If you goal is instead actually to write good code, as you would if you were employed as a developer, then you need to drop the unnecessary pointers from the code you're using.