Sams Teach Yourself C++ in One Hour a Day, 9th Edition

Lesson 25

Working with Bit Flags Using the STL

Using bits is an efficient way of storing settings and flags. The Standard Template Library (STL) supplies classes that help organize and manipulate bitwise information. This lesson introduces you to

• ■   The bitset class

• ■   The vector<bool> class

The bitset Class

std::bitset is the STL class designed for handling information in bits and bit flags. std::bitset is not an STL container class because it cannot resize itself. It is a utility class that is optimized for working with a sequence of bits whose length is known at compile time.

Tip

To use the class std::bitset, include the header <bitset>:

#include<bitset>

Instantiating std::bitset

The bitset template class requires you to supply one ...