[boost] Any Interest In a Raw Memory Buffer

From: Kevin Atkinson (kevin_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-03-04 05:05:08

Is there any interest in a vector like container which is designed to make 
working with raw memory easy.  It is different from a vector<char> (with 
the additional assumption that the objects are stored in memory 
sequentially) is the following ways:

  The integrator is defined to be a pointer to make working with functions
    that use raw memory easy.

  It can use a specific range of user supplied memory for its storage.
    When using user memory it will never attempt to allocate more memory.
    capacity() == max_size().

  Any function which takes a range:
    (const_iterator start, const_iterator stop)
  can also take a void pointer and a size ie:
    (const void * data, size_type size)

  Any function which takes an iterator to represent a position within 
    the exiting object can also take an offset.  If two iterators are 
    used to represent a range than an offset and a size can also be used.

  Like vector, push_back(), and pop_back() or constant time operations if
    storage is available.  However, unlike vector, pop_front() is a 
    constant time operation and push_front() can be made to be constant 
    time operations.

  support for replacing one range with another while moving the minimal 
    amount of memory possible:
    replace(iterator start, iterator_stop,
            const_iterator rstart, const_iterator rstop)

  A special member function 
    template <typename U> U * datap(size_type pos = 0)
  which allows treating the memory as another type without an ugly
  reinterpret_cast.  This statement is equivalent to
    reinterpret_cast<U *>(...) + pos

My implementation is not a template.  It uses new[] and delete[] for memory 
allocation and the data type is "unsigned char".  Since the main goal for 
this class was working with raw memory and not an array of objects I 
decided not to make it a template.

Some of the features of Buffer might be useful for a more general purpose 
vector, such as the replace method and the ability to use user memory.

If people are really interested I will post my code.

I wrote it to make working with Berkeley database and sending network 
messages as painless as possible.

Let me know.
--- 
http://kevin.atkinson.dhs.org