Re: [boost] Removing vector<bool>

From: Phil Garofalo (pfg23_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-06-13 12:39:18

At 09:23 AM 6/13/2002 +1000, Matthew Wilson wrote:

>It seems like a good idea to just remove it from the
next version of 
the
>standard if there are no significant (or vocal) users
of it

I know vector<bool> doesn't adhere to the canonical
container interface and I've read Scott Meyer's
critique of it in _Effective STL_, but I for one would
like to see it stay. I believe there is a need for a
space efficient, variably sized array of bit flags.
bitset's size must be defined at runtime, as are the
bit field structures, and Meyer's suggested
deque<bool> seems grievously space inefficient. A
simple case where vector<bool> seems perfectly suited
is in an implementation of Eratosthene's Sieve. E.g.,

main (int argc,char** argv)
{
  if (argc < 2)
  {
    cerr << "Usage: " << argv[0] << " number" << endl;
    return EXIT_FAILURE;
  }
  vector<bool> flags(strtoul(argv[1], NULL, 10) + 1,
    true);  // set all flags true

  // Only need to go up to the square root.
  for(unsigned long i = 2; i < sqrt(flags.size());
i++)
    if (flags[i])        // found a prime
      for (unsigned long k = i + i; k < flags.size();
k += i)
        flags[k] = false; // cancel its multiples
        
  for (/*unsigned long*/ i = 2; i < flags.size(); i++)
    if (flags[i])
      cout << setw(11) << i;

  return EXIT_SUCCESS;

}

If there's a better alternative to vector<bool> for
cases like these, where you might need a very large
number of flags dynamically allocated at run time, I'm
all for it. I haven't seen one yet. So until then, I
vote to keep vector<bool>.

Phil Garofalo
Chicago, IL

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