[boost] Re: graph structure interface (proxies and forward it erators)

From: jsiek_at_[hidden]
Date: 1999-12-10 12:42:02

I wrote up the mayfly pattern for PLoP'99. Here's the paper if anyone
is interested:

http://www.lsc.nd.edu/~jsiek/mayfly_plop99.pdf

scleary_at_[hidden] writes:
 > Just a word on mayfly objects in general: the design pattern of mayfly
 > objects is very powerful; they allow advanced and easier-to-use requirements
 > to be satisfied in a run-time- and memory- efficient manner.  For example,
 > if you look at the original GGCL specs, a "ContainerRef" is basically a
 > mayfly container (that doesn't own its objects); this could allow, for a
 > vertex "v": "v.in_edges()" to return a ContainerRef of edges going into this
 > vertex, "v.out_edges()" to return a ContainerRef of edges leaving this
 > vertex, and "v.edges()" to return a ContainerRef of edges incident on this
 > vertex, but each of these functions taking constant time.  Conceptually,
 > [v.in_edges() + v.out_edges()] == v.edges().  However, ContainerRef objects
 > usually consist of one or two references or pointers to the underlying
 > (actual) container, and only *appear* to be containers, so they are far more
 > efficient, as opposed to using actual containers.
 > 
 > Optimizing compilers in many cases can optimize away mayfly objects
 > completely; thus, mayfly objects are nice to allow complicated semantics
 > with no overhead.
 > 
 > Hope this helps.
 > 
 > 	-Steve