[openbeos] Re: Coding Suggestion -- Templates, Iterators

After writing the code snippet, it just dawned on me that the code is
error-prone. The issue is size. If it's zero, then the assignment to max_val
is going to fail. Depending on the type, it will be everything from a silent
error to a core dump. Here's an example of what we all need to do to code
defensively

template<typename T>
int maxElement(const T &array[], int size)
{
    int
        idx = 0,
        max_idx = 0;

    if (not size)
    {
        // log a warning
    }
    else
    {
        for (idx = 1; idx < size; ++idx)
        {
            if (array[max_idx] < array[idx])
            {
                max_idx = idx;
            }
        }

    return max_idx;
}

I've now returned the index where the array's maximum value occurs rather than
the maximum value itself. I can then test the return to see if it's zero or
not, and get the value myself accordingly. I've passed the array of type T by
const reference rather than by value, which keeps me from expensively
recreating the array of elements. Since I'm just shuffling the index around I
don't have to have an internal copy of T (causing more temporaries to be
created then disposed). This is a performance and resource usage issue.

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