Const_ holding me back

[somedude]

Hi, I'm new around these parts. I've been doing something for uni and I've been making very steady progress on an assignment until I ran into this little problem. Might be trivial, but staring at it for the last hour doesn't make it any easier.

I'm trying to use set_intersection, but this const error is there. I don't know where else to look to rectify this problem? Can someone shed some light on this please?

Thanks in advance,
Somedude.

/usr/include/c++/4.0.0/bits/stl_algo.h: In function ‘_OutputIterator std::set_intersection(_InputIterator1, _InputIterator1,
_InputIterator2, _InputIterator2, _OutputIterator) [with _InputIterator1 = std::_Rb_tree_const_iterator<Hit>, _InputIterator2 = 
std::_Rb_tree_const_iterator<Hit>, _OutputIterator = std::_Rb_tree_const_iterator<Hit>]’:
/trunk/subNode.cc:171:   instantiated from here
/usr/include/c++/4.0.0/bits/stl_algo.h:4233: error: passing ‘const Hit’ as ‘this’ argument of ‘Hit& Hit::operator=(const Hit&)’ discards qualifiers

Hits evaluate(Hits left_list, Hits right_list, Operation op) {
	Hits result;
	//vector<Hit>::iterator it_left, it_right;
	
	switch (op) {
		case '0' : 			// 'AND' operator
			set_intersection( left_list.results.begin(), left_list.results.end(),
					  right_list.results.begin(), right_list.results.end(),
					  result.results.begin() );   <-- error occurs here
			return result;
		break;
...

class Hits {
public:
	Hits() {}
	std::set<Hit> results;
	void add(Hit h) { results.insert(h); }
};

[laserlight]

The problem is that a std::set iterator treats the element that it points to as const, so you cannot just dereference and assign. This makes sense because arbitrarily changing what the iterator points to can mess up the order guaranteed by the std::set.

Offhand, I am not sure what is the correct approach here. Maybe you should use the std::inserter adapter, e.g.,

set_intersection( left_list.results.begin(), left_list.results.end(),
    right_list.results.begin(), right_list.results.end(),
    inserter(result.results, result.results.begin()));

EDIT:
Ah, std::inserter works, but my example demonstrated it incorrectly, and is now fixed. Note that you should #include <functional> for std::inserter.

[somedude]

There is so much left to learn...sigh. But I can tick this thing off that list.

So I used this code, and compiled. All good (EDIT: yeah, I looked up cplusplus reference for the definition, but I included iterator instead, still works)

inserter(result.results, result.results.begin())

Thank you very much for the prompt help!



/cookie

[anon]

You can probably achieve the same effect with:

result.results = left_list.results;
result.results.insert(right_list.results.begin(), right_list.results.end());

[brewbuck]

Ah, std::inserter works, but my example demonstrated it incorrectly, and is now fixed. Note that you should #include <functional> for std::inserter.

I thought std::inserter was in <iterator> ? I suppose <functional> probably includes <iterator>

[somedude]

You can probably achieve the same effect with:

result.results = left_list.results;
result.results.insert(right_list.results.begin(), right_list.results.end());

That would be the same as set_union, which belongs to the other case.

[laserlight]

Thank you very much for the prompt help!

You're welcome

You can probably achieve the same effect with:

No, that would be a set union, not an intersection. I was looking through the std::set interface for something that could be directly used for a set union, but did not find anything, so std::set_intersection seemed like the best option in the end.

I thought std::inserter was in <iterator> ? I suppose <functional> probably includes <iterator>

Double checked, and you are right. Looks like I have been making incorrect includes for std::back_inserter too, but probably never noticed it because I typically also include <iterator> in such cases