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From-SVN: r46194
2001-10-11 18:41:47 +00:00

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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta name="AUTHOR" content="pme@gcc.gnu.org (Phil Edwards)">
<meta name="KEYWORDS" content="HOWTO, libstdc++, GCC, g++, libg++, STL">
<meta name="DESCRIPTION" content="Notes for the libstdc++ extensions.">
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="vi and eight fingers">
<title>libstdc++-v3 HOWTO: Extensions</title>
<link rel="StyleSheet" href="../lib3styles.css">
</head>
<body>
<h1 class="centered"><a name="top">Extensions</a></h1>
<p>Here we will make an attempt at describing the non-Standard extensions to
the library. Some of these are from SGI's STL, some of these are GNU's,
and some just seemed to appear on the doorstep.
</p>
<p><strong>Before you leap in and use these</strong>, be aware of two things:
<ol>
<li>Non-Standard means exactly that. The behavior, and the very
existence, of these extensions may change with little or no
warning. (Ideally, the really good ones will appear in the next
revision of C++.) Also, other platforms, other compilers, other
versions of g++ or libstdc++-v3 may not recognize these names, or
treat them differently, or...
<li>You should know how to <a href="../faq/index.html#5_4">access
these headers properly</a>.
</ol>
</p>
<!-- ####################################################### -->
<hr>
<h1>Contents</h1>
<ul>
<li><a href="#1">Ropes and trees and hashes, oh my!</a>
<li><a href="#2">Added members and types</a>
<li><a href="#3">Allocators</a>
<li><a href="#4">Compile-time checks</a>
<li><a href="#5">LWG Issues</a>
</ul>
<hr>
<!-- ####################################################### -->
<h2><a name="1">Ropes and trees and hashes, oh my!</a></h2>
<p>The SGI headers
<pre>
&lt;bvector&gt;
&lt;hash_map&gt;
&lt;hash_set&gt;
&lt;rope&gt;
&lt;slist&gt;
&lt;tree&gt;
</pre> are all here; <code>&lt;bvector&gt;</code> exposes the old bit_vector
class that was used before specialization of vector&lt;bool&gt; was
available (it's actually a typedef for the specialization now).
<code>&lt;hash_map&gt;</code> and <code>&lt;hash_set&gt;</code>
are discussed further below. <code>&lt;rope&gt;</code> is the SGI
specialization for large strings (&quot;rope,&quot; &quot;large
strings,&quot; get it? love those SGI folks).
<code>&lt;slist&gt;</code> is a singly-linked list, for when the
doubly-linked <code>list&lt;&gt;</code> is too much space overhead, and
<code>&lt;tree&gt;</code> exposes the red-black tree classes used in the
implementation of the standard maps and sets.
</p>
<p>Okay, about those hashing classes... I'm going to foist most of the
work off onto SGI's own site.
</p>
<p>Each of the associative containers map, multimap, set, and multiset
have a counterpart which uses a
<a href="http://www.sgi.com/Technology/STL/HashFunction.html">hashing
function</a> to do the arranging, instead of a strict weak ordering
function. The classes take as one of their template parameters a
function object that will return the hash value; by default, an
instantiation of
<a href="http://www.sgi.com/Technology/STL/hash.html">hash</a>.
You should specialize this functor for your class, or define your own,
before trying to use one of the hashing classes.
</p>
<p>The hashing classes support all the usual associative container
functions, as well as some extra constructors specifying the number
of buckets, etc.
</p>
<p>Why would you want to use a hashing class instead of the
&quot;normal&quot; implementations? Matt Austern writes:
<blockquote><em>[W]ith a well chosen hash function, hash tables
generally provide much better average-case performance than binary
search trees, and much worse worst-case performance. So if your
implementation has hash_map, if you don't mind using nonstandard
components, and if you aren't scared about the possibility of
pathological cases, you'll probably get better performance from
hash_map.</em></blockquote>
</p>
<p>(Side note: for those of you wondering, <strong>&quot;Why wasn't a hash
table included in the Standard in the first #!$@ place?&quot;</strong>
I'll give a quick answer: it was proposed, but too late and in too
unorganized a fashion. Some sort of hashing will undoubtedly be
included in a future Standard.
</p>
<p>Return <a href="#top">to top of page</a> or
<a href="../faq/index.html">to the FAQ</a>.
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="2">Added members and types</a></h2>
<p>Some of the classes in the Standard Library have additional
publicly-available members, and some classes are themselves not in
the standard. Of those, some are intended purely for the implementors,
for example, additional typedefs. Those won't be described here
(or anywhere else).
</p>
<p>
<ul>
<li>The extensions added by SGI are so numerous that they have
<a href="sgiexts.html">their own page</a>. Since the SGI STL is no
longer actively maintained, we will try and keep this code working
ourselves.
<li><code>filebuf</code>s have another ctor with this signature:<br>
<code>basic_filebuf(__c_file_type*, ios_base::openmode, int_type);</code>
<br>This comes in very handy in a number of places, such as
attaching Unix sockets, pipes, and anything else which uses file
descriptors, into the IOStream buffering classes. The three
arguments are as follows:
<ul>
<li><code>__c_file_type* F </code>
// the __c_file_type typedef usually boils down to stdio's FILE
<li><code>ios_base::openmode M </code>
// same as all the other uses of openmode
<li><code>int_type B </code>
// buffer size, defaults to BUFSIZ
</ul>
For those wanting to use file descriptors instead of FILE*'s, I
invite you to contemplate the mysteries of C's <code>fdopen()</code>.
</ul>
</p>
<p>Return <a href="#top">to top of page</a> or
<a href="../faq/index.html">to the FAQ</a>.
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="3">Allocators</a></h2>
<p>This will be blank for a while. It will describe all of the different
memory allocators, most inherited from SGI's code. Input is solicited.
</p>
<p>Return <a href="#top">to top of page</a> or
<a href="../faq/index.html">to the FAQ</a>.
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="4">Compile-time checks</a></h2>
<p>Currently libstdc++-v3 uses the concept checkers from the Boost
library to perform <a href="../19_diagnostics/howto.html#3">optional
compile-time checking</a> of template instantiations of the standard
containers. They are described in the linked-to page.
</p>
<p>Return <a href="#top">to top of page</a> or
<a href="../faq/index.html">to the FAQ</a>.
</p>
<hr>
<h2><a name="5">LWG Issues</a></h2>
<p>Everybody's got issues. Even the C++ Standard Library.
</p>
<p>The Library Working Group, or LWG, is the ISO subcommittee responsible
for making changes to the library. They periodically publish an
Issues List containing problems and possible solutions. As they reach
a consensus on proposed solutions, we often incorporate the solution
into libstdc++-v3.
</p>
<p>Here are the issues which have resulted in code changes to the library.
The links are to the specific defect reports from a <strong>partial
copy </strong> of the
Issues List. You can read the full version online at the ISO C++
Committee homepage, linked to on the GCC &quot;Readings&quot; page. If
you spend a lot of time reading the issues, we recommend downloading
the ZIP file and reading them locally.
</p>
<p>(NB: <strong>partial copy</strong> means that not all links within
the lwg-*.html pages will work.
Specifically, links to defect reports that have not been accorded full
DR status will probably break. Rather than trying to mirror the
entire issues list on our overworked web server, we recommend you go
to the LWG homepage instead.)
</p>
<p>
If a DR is not listed here, we may simply not have gotten to it yet;
feel free to submit a patch. Search the include/bits and src
directories for appearances of _GLIBCPP_RESOLVE_LIB_DEFECTS for
examples of style. Note that we usually do not make changes to the code
until an issue has reached <a href="lwg-active.html#DR">DR</a> status.
</p>
<p><dl>
<!-- FIXME: locale_facets.h/tcc has a fix for get/num_get which I can't ID. -->
<dt><a href="lwg-defects.html#5">5</a>:
<em>string::compare specification questionable</em>
<dd>This should be two overloaded functions rather than a single function.
<dt><a href="lwg-defects.html#17">17</a>:
<em>Bad bool parsing</em>
<dd>Apparently extracting Boolean values was messed up...
<dt><a href="lwg-defects.html#25">25</a>:
<em>String operator&lt;&lt; uses width() value wrong</em>
<dd>Padding issues.
<dt><a href="lwg-defects.html#48">48</a>:
<em>Use of non-existent exception constructor</em>
<dd>An instance of <code>ios_base::failure</code> is constructed instead.
<dt><a href="lwg-defects.html#49">49</a>:
<em>Underspecification of ios_base::sync_with_stdio</em>
<dd>The return type is the <em>previous</em> state of synchronization.
<dt><a href="lwg-defects.html#50">50</a>:
<em>Copy constructor and assignment operator of ios_base</em>
<dd>These members functions are declared <code>private</code> and are
thus inaccessible. Specifying the correct semantics of
&quot;copying stream state&quot; was deemed too complicated.
<dt><a href="lwg-defects.html#68">68</a>:
<em>Extractors for char* should store null at end</em>
<dd>And they do now. An editing glitch in the last item in the list of
[27.6.1.2.3]/7.
<dt><a href="lwg-defects.html#74">74</a>:
<em>Garbled text for codecvt::do_max_length</em>
<dd>The text of the standard was gibberish. Typos gone rampant.
<dt><a href="lwg-defects.html#83">83</a>:
<em>string::npos vs. string::max_size()</em>
<dd>Safety checks on the size of the string should test against
<code>max_size()</code> rather than <code>npos</code>.
<dt><a href="lwg-defects.html#109">109</a>:
<em>Missing binders for non-const sequence elements</em>
<dd>The <code>binder1st</code> and <code>binder2nd</code> didn't have an
<code>operator()</code> taking a non-const parameter.
<dt><a href="lwg-defects.html#110">110</a>:
<em>istreambuf_iterator::equal not const</em>
<dd>This was not a const member function. Note that the DR says to
replace the function with a const one; we have instead provided an
overloaded version with identical contents.
<dt><a href="lwg-defects.html#129">129</a>:
<em>Need error indication from seekp() and seekg()</em>
<dd>These functions set <code>failbit</code> on error now.
<dt><a href="lwg-defects.html#136">136</a>:
<em>seekp, seekg setting wrong streams?</em>
<dd><code>seekp</code> should only set the output stream, and
<code>seekg</code> should only set the input stream.
<!--<dt><a href="lwg-defects.html#159">159</a>:
<em>Strange use of underflow()</em>
<dd>In fstream.tcc, the basic_filebuf&lt;&gt;::showmanyc() function
should probably not be calling <code>underflow()</code>.-->
<dt><a href="lwg-active.html#167">167</a>:
<em>Improper use of traits_type::length()</em>
<dd><code>op&lt;&lt;</code> with a <code>const char*</code> was
calculating an incorrect number of characters to write.
<dt><a href="lwg-defects.html#181">181</a>:
<em>make_pair() unintended behavior</em>
<dd>This function used to take its arguments as reference-to-const, now
it copies them (pass by value).
<dt><a href="lwg-defects.html#195">195</a>:
<em>Should basic_istream::sentry's constructor ever set eofbit?</em>
<dd>Yes, it can, specifically if EOF is reached while skipping whitespace.
<dt><a href="lwg-defects.html#211">211</a>:
<em>operator&gt;&gt;(istream&amp;, string&amp;) doesn't set failbit</em>
<dd>If nothing is extracted into the string, <code>op&gt;&gt;</code> now
sets <code>failbit</code> (which can cause an exception, etc, etc).
<dt><a href="lwg-defects.html#214">214</a>:
<em>set::find() missing const overload</em>
<dd>Both <code>set</code> and <code>multiset</code> were missing
overloaded find, lower_bound, upper_bound, and equal_range functions
for const instances.
<dt><a href="lwg-defects.html#251">251</a>:
<em>basic_stringbuf missing allocator_type</em>
<dd>This nested typdef was originally not specified.
<dt><a href="lwg-defects.html#265">265</a>:
<em>std::pair::pair() effects overly restrictive</em>
<dd>The default ctor would build its members from copies of temporaries;
now it simply uses their respective default ctors.
<!--
<dt><a href="lwg-defects.html#"></a>:
<em></em>
<dd>
-->
</dl></p>
<p>Return <a href="#top">to top of page</a> or
<a href="../faq/index.html">to the FAQ</a>.
<!-- ####################################################### -->
<hr>
<p class="fineprint"><em>
See <a href="../17_intro/license.html">license.html</a> for copying conditions.
Comments and suggestions are welcome, and may be sent to
<a href="mailto:libstdc++@gcc.gnu.org">the libstdc++ mailing list</a>.
</em></p>
</body>
</html>