Quick Q: How do I add elements to a 2D vector of ints?--StackOverflow

By Jared Mulconry | Dec 2, 2014 03:56 AM | Tags: basics

Quick A: Index into the desired sub-vector and call push_back.

Recently on SO:

Inserting elements into 2D vector

So I'm creating a class that implements an adjacency list. Currently in my class definition I initialized two vectors:

vector<vector<int>> adjList;
vector<int> neighbors;

and I declared two functions that I plan to use to make it:

bool constructAdjList();
bool insertIntoAdjList(int, int);

It's getting difficult wrapping my head around 2D vectors. I understand that it is essentially a vector of vectors, but I'm confused about how to insert a new value into one of the "subvectors". For example, I am able to create an adjacency list in createAdjList that is empty with the following loop:

for (int i = 0; i < numOfValues; i++){
    neighbors.push_back(0);
    adjList.push_back(neighbors);
    neighbors.clear();
}

But how can I say, push_back the value 5 to the 4th vector in adjList, which would be represented in my insertIntoAdjList function as

insertIntoAdjList(4, 5);

I know I can access a specific value in a 2D vector by saying adjList[4][1], but how can I push one onto it?

Thanks!

A quick poll about order of evaluation -- Herb Sutter

By Blog Staff | Dec 1, 2014 01:48 PM | Tags: None

A quick Monday poll:

A quick poll about order of evaluation...

by Herb Sutter

From the article:

Consider this program fragment:

std::vector<int> v = { 0, 0 };
int i = 0;
v[i++] = i++;
std::cout << v[0] << v[1] << endl;

My question is not what it might print under today’s C++ rules. The third line runs afoul of two different categories of undefined and unspecified behavior.

Rather, my question is what you would like the result to be. Please let me know... [click for poll]

Details About Some of the New C++ Language Features -- Kangyuan Niu

By Adrien Hamelin | Dec 1, 2014 01:09 PM | Tags: intermediate

A few days ago from the Visual Studio C++ blog:

Details About Some of the New C++ Language Features

by Kangyuan Niu

The article explains some new features to come in Visual Studio and, maybe more importantly, why they will come, their purpose. It talks about:

-- Terse Range-Based For Loops

-- Generalized Lambda Capture

-- Dining Philosophers

Quick Q: Are "++a" and "a = a.load() + 1" equivalent if 'a' is "atomic<int>"?--StackOverflow

By Jared Mulconry | Dec 1, 2014 01:57 AM | Tags: intermediate c++11

Quick A: No. Between a.load() and the addition and store to a is a window in which other threads can change the value of a, causing updates to be lost.

Recently on SO:

c++ atomic read/write misunderstanding

Why program with this code sometimes prints "2"?

int main() {
    std::atomic<int> a;
    a = 0;

    std::thread t1([&]{++a;});
    std::thread t2([&]{a++;});
    std::thread t3([&]{
        a = a.load() + 1;
    });

    t1.join();
    t2.join();
    t3.join();

    if (a != 3) {
        std::cout << "a: " << a << std::endl;
    }
}

I've thought std::atomic guarantees that all operations will be done atomically so writing here(incrementing) will use a memory barrier and we will have always "3" at the end of threads work. I've explored the code and found out that the problem thread is t3 but I can't understand why it is wrong.

ODE simulations with Boost.odeint and Boost.SIMD

By Meeting C++ | Nov 30, 2014 08:36 AM | Tags: intermediate boost advanced

A very nice article on how to use boost::odeint and SIMD:

Boosting ODE simulations with Boost.odeint and Boost.SIMD

by Mario Mulansky

From the article:

Ordinary Differential Equations appear in numerous applications and finding their solution is a fundamental problem in science and engineering. Often one has to rely on numerical methods to approximate such solutions as in the presence of nonlinearities, no analytic solution can be found. Being such a frequent problem...

Design Patterns Revisited -- Bob Nystrom

By Mantosh Kumar | Nov 28, 2014 10:01 AM | Tags: intermediate

Walk through (with practical examples) a handful of the original patterns the Gang of Four documented in C++.

Design Patterns Revisited

Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software is nearly twenty years old by my watch. Unless you’re looking over my shoulder, there’s a good chance Design Patterns will be old enough to drink by the time you read this. For an industry as quickly moving as software, that’s practically ancient. The enduring popularity of the book says something about how timeless design is compared to many frameworks and methodologies.

While I think Design Patterns is still relevant, we’ve learned a lot in the past couple of decades. In this section, we’ll walk through a handful of the original patterns the Gang of Four documented. For each pattern, I hope to have something useful or interesting to say.

I think some patterns are overused (Singleton), while others are underappreciated (Command). A couple are in here because I want to explore their relevance specifically to games (Flyweight and Observer). Finally, sometimes I just think it’s fun to see how patterns are enmeshed in the larger field of programming (Prototype and State).

Quick Q: Does std::vector resize automatically when inserting new elements?--StackOverflow

By Jared Mulconry | Nov 28, 2014 09:54 AM | Tags: basics

Quick A: Yes.

Recently on SO:

Do Vectors resize automatically?

I am very sorry that I am asking such a beginner question but I am finding contradictory information online. I would ask at University but it is out until February next year.

Do Vectors resize automatically? Or do you need to check the current size periodically and resize when you need more room. It looks to be resizing for me automatically but I'm not sure if that is a feature or the compiler waving a magic wand.

Anti-IF idioms in C++ -- Marco Arena

By Marco Arena | Nov 28, 2014 09:46 AM | Tags: intermediate community c++14 c++11

I'm showing interactive examples of "anti-IF" idioms in C++, inspired by C# snippets which Claudio Pattarello proposed at the Italian Agile Day 2014.

Anti-IF idioms in C++

by Marco Arena

From the article:

In this post I’d like to show you how to rewrite these idioms in C++, starting from a C# snippet. And the resulting code is pretty much identical. [...] I'm not saying "this is the best thing you can do in C++". [...] Sure, we have specific idioms in our favorite language but I think it’s lovely that we are able to reuse the same code from other languages with a little effort. And this is also appealing for other programmers who want to experience C++, maybe by starting coding idioms they know. ...

Metaprogramming with Modern C++: The Haskell Metaphor -- Manu Sánchez

By Jordi Mon Companys | Nov 28, 2014 09:35 AM | Tags: None

If you are one of who have been following our post series about template metaprogramming with modern C++, at this time you should have become a C++ template Guru. At least thats what I expect .

You know about class templates, function templates, value parameters, type parameters, variadic templates… Your template metaprogramming toolbox is full of great things to play with. Thats good, but you want to start playing with your compiler, writting some cool metaprograms.

Metaprogramming with Modern C++: The Haskell Metaphor

by Manu Sánchez

From the article:

Template metaprogramming was used to improve perfomance on high-computing libraries too, with some clever code transformations done thanks to tmp. The best example of this is the blitz++ library, one of the first examples of a real use case of template metaprogramming.

Since C++11 the language has evolved to support some ways of metaprogramming as a common and useful thing. Metaprogramming became a first class citizen in C++, instead of the obscure, magical, and freaking way to abuse the compiler it was at the beginning...

A software design principle: Don’t make me use your design -- Diego Rodríguez-Losada

By Jordi Mon Companys | Nov 28, 2014 09:32 AM | Tags: None

Developing code in C++ for robotics, I often faced the problem of communicating via serial port with a robot, a sensor or any other device. C and C++ are languages supposedly very close to hardware. Furthermore, they are the most common and oldest mainstream programming languages out there. So communicating over a serial port in a portable way should be straightforward.

A software design principle: Don’t make me use your design

by Diego Rodríguez-Losada

From the article:

I have seen the pattern described in the article a few times in C and C++ projects, but very rarely in other languages (at least those that I have used more as java and python) and I believe there is a reason, not directly related to software design for it: the lack of a widely used dependency manager. And no, OS package managers, installers and so, are not enough to solve this problem. Even if the authors of these libraries decide to decouple the functionality of the SerialPort basic wrapper in their design, there is little gain in it, users should still manually extract those files and integrate them in their projects, which doesn’t sound as reasonable engineering and will produce, for sure, maintenance problems and lack of updates. It is really unlikely that the authors will decide to create a separate project/library for the SerialPort, it is more effort not only to do it in the short term, but also to maintain and work with it in the mid and long terms. So developers just roll out their designs, and fill the functionality in it as required. I’ve done it so many times too...