[gameprogrammer] Re: General Purpose Double Linked List Class

On Sun, 26 Feb 2006 18:31:06 +0000, "Tom Wilson"
<t.wilson@xxxxxxxxx> said:
> The STL list provides all of the functionality that you need.  You do
> not really need to "wrap" it with an outside class because the STL
> list *is* a general purpose list.

Yeah, I agree.

> Also, when using C++ it's generally not a good idea to store void
> pointers in your list as you need to make sure you type cast them
> before you delete etc etc.  void pointers are a useful C thing, but
> there are safer alternatives in C++ (such as templates!!).

Well, yeah, unless you want a heterogeneous list (of different types of
things) in which case templates won't help you.  In that case, it should
probably be a list of Base* where Base is a class which makes sense for
you app as an ancestor of everything you need to store in the list.

> I also advise that you use the "vector" class instead of the list
> class, for faster access speed.

This is not necessarily good advice, depending on (as always) what
you're using the list for:

If you need indexed access (eg mList[10], mList[2]) then vector or deque
are your only options.
If you need to be able to insert just at the end then any will work.
If you need insertions at the start then vector isn't going to work.
If you need insertions in the middle then deque also isn't going to work
and list is your only option.
Sorting or searching algorithms may well work better on a particular
type of sequence, depending on the algorithm.
Any sort of splicing or moving around of chunks of the sequence is
better done with list.

Dave.
-- 
  Dave Slutzkin
  Melbourne, Australia
  daveslutzkin@xxxxxxxxxxx



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