[boost] Re: [string algo formal review]

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-10-30 14:37:58

"Peter Dimov" <pdimov_at_[hidden]> writes:

>> I don't agree with std::nth_element() taking zero to mean first,
>> but it's in the Standard.  That makes it a solid precedent.
>
> Have you looked at the signature of std::nth_element? ;-)

That was the first thing I looked up, and why I didn't mention this
example ;-)

My sense of this is that C++ makes counting from 1 simply
incovenient.  If you want to make an array of pointers to each
occurrence of a substring, and the search algorithm counts from 1,
you either have to add 1 to the array index or subtract one from the
ordinal.

After thinking about this problem, I see little use for the algorithm
in question which doesn't involve finding *each* occurrence starting
from the first.  There's a much simpler way to do that using
std::find() and iterators.  Maybe this one should just be stripped if
we can't agree on what it should mean.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
Boost Consulting
www.boost-consulting.com