Programming: Principles and Practice Using C++, 2nd Edition

19. Vector, Templates, and Exceptions

“Success is never final.”

—Winston Churchill

This chapter completes the design and implementation of the most common and most useful STL container: vector. Here, we show how to implement containers where the number of elements can vary, how to specify containers where the element type is a parameter, and how to deal with range errors. As usual, the techniques used are generally applicable, rather than simply restricted to the implementation of vector, or even to the implementation of containers. Basically, we show how to deal safely with varying amounts of data of a variety of types. In addition, we add a few doses of realism as design lessons. The techniques rely on templates and exceptions, so we show how ...