Intro to the C++ STL Timmie Smith September 6, 2001

What is the STL? Standard Template Library A collection of classes to make C++ programming more efficient – Algorithms, Containers, and Iterators – Function objects, Allocators, and Adapters Containers Function Objects Iterators

STL Algorithms Accept STL Iterators as arguments – Sort(begin, end); 4 categories – Non-modifying For each, Find, Count, Equal, Search, etc. – Mutating Copy, Generate, Reverse, Remove, Swap, etc. – Sorting Related Sort, Stable sort, Binary search, Merge, etc. – Numeric Accumulate, Inner product, Partial sum, Adjacent difference

STL Containers Sequence Containers – Vectors, Linked Lists, and derivatives Container Adaptors – Queue, Priority Queue, Stack Associative Containers – Hash, Map, Set

STL Iterators Used as arguments to algorithms Containers provide several iterators – Begin, End, Reverse Begin, Reverse End 5 categories – each has specific operations – Input, Output, Forward, Bidirectional, Random Input Operations: =, ==, !=, *, ->, ++, No assignment of *i Output Operations: =, *, ++ Forward Operations: =, ==, !=, *, ->, ++ Bidirectional Operations: =, ==, !=, *, ->, ++, -- Random Operations: =, ==, !=, +=, -=, *, ->, +, ++, -, --, [n],, >=

Function Objects Used by some algorithms – Applied to each element in input by For each – Used to create new elements by Generate Predicates - Function Objects that return bool – Unary and Binary predicates used to test equality – Find If uses unary, Sort uses binary

Example Program

STL Summary STL allows programmers to focus on application specific issues – Provides collections of algorithms, containers, iterators, and other objects – Programmers don’t reinvent the wheel STL has been parallelized by the Standard Template Adaptive Parallel Library (STAPL) project

STAPL Overview STAPL provides parallel equivalents of the STL components – pAlgorithms are parallel STL algorithms – pContainers are parallel STL containers – pRanges are parallel extensions of STL iterators STAPL is a superset of the STL – STL is used by STAPL – STAPL and STL can be used in the same program

STAPL and STL Resources SGI’s STL reference documentation The STAPL project page. Includes pointers to other STL resources, STAPL documentation, and forums to discuss STL and STAPL problems. – Register with the site so you can participate and get help 514F and 514G in the Bright building