Thread: Max array size question

Originally Posted by legit

Really? All of the tutorials and books that i've read say that vectors are advanced and powerful tools :S

Doesn't mean they're hard to use or implement. I found it to be a glorious day when I first learned of vectors.

Although, I use both vectors and dynamic arrays interchangeably. Depends on what I'm doing/using it for.

>> Doesn't mean they're hard to use or implement.

Implementing a full-fledged vector is not as trivial as you may think. Give it a try if you doubt me.

Originally Posted by Sebastiani

Implementing a full-fledged vector is not as trivial as you may think. Give it a try if you doubt me.

Never said full-fledged vectors were trivial
But something like...

Code:

//may the code gods have mercy if this is wrong :)
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>

using namespace std;

int main()
{
    vector<int> MyVector;
    int i;
    for(i = 0; i < 10; i++)
        MyVector.push_back(i);
    for(i = 0; i < 10; i++)
        cout<< MyVector[i] << endl;

    return 0;
}

... is simple.

It would seem a bit messy.

A smaller datatype for holding ones and zeros would be char. Even smaller should be std::bitset, but then the number of ones and zeros to store should be known at compile time.

If that is unknown the most compact representation would be the std::vector<bool> specialization (but that is not recommended since it works differently from other types of vector).

If you don't mind getting boost, you could also try boost::dynamic_bitset.

Originally Posted by anon

It would seem a bit messy.

A smaller datatype for holding ones and zeros would be char. Even smaller should be std::bitset, but then the number of ones and zeros to store should be known at compile time.

If that is unknown the most compact representation would be the std::vector<bool> specialization (but that is not recommended since it works differently from other types of vector).

If you don't mind getting boost, you could also try boost::dynamic_bitset.

Yes, good idea to store such an array as an integer. I am already using something like this. The code would be:

Code:

// BIT MANIPULATIONS
#define BOOL(x) ( !(!(x)) )
#define BIT_TEST( arg , pos ) BOOL( (arg)&(1L << (pos)) )
#define BIT_FLIP( arg , pos ) ( (arg)^(1L << (pos)) )

// suppose you want an array with 1's in the 3rd and 10th positions

unsigned int n = 0;

n = BIT_FLIP( n , 3 );
n = BIT_FLIP( n , 10 );

// read the digits using BIT_TEST, e.g.

for ( i = 10; i--; ) { printf( "%u\n" , BIT_TEST( n , i ) ); }

EDIT: maybe one has to reverse the order in BIT_TEST

And with bitset, the same code without any macros would be

Code:

#include <bitset>
#include <iostream>

int main()
{
    std::bitset<32> n;
    n.flip(3);
    n.flip(10);
    for ( int i = 11; i--; ) {
        std::cout << n.test(i) << '\n';
    }
}

The difference is that you are not limited with the size of one unsigned (bitset uses an array of unsigneds for storage).