C++ For Dummies, 7th Edition

Chapter 27

Standardizing on the Standard Template Library

In This Chapter

Using the string class

Maintaining entries in a Standard Template Library list

Accessing container elements from an iterator

Some programs can deal with data as it arrives and dispense with it. Most programs, however, must store data for later processing. A structure that is used to store data is known generically as a container or a collection. (I use the terms interchangeably.) This book has relied heavily on the array for data storage so far. The array container has a couple of nice properties: It stores and retrieves things quickly. In addition, the array can be declared to hold any type of object in a type-safe way. Weighed against these advantages, however, are two large negatives.

First, you must know the size of the array at the time it is created. This requirement is generally not achievable, although you will sometimes know that the number of elements cannot exceed some “large value.” Viruses, however, commonly exploit this type of “it can't be larger than this” assumption, which turns out to be incorrect. There is no real way to “grow” an array except to declare a new array and copy the contents ...