Re: [boost] Re: New dynamic_bitset

From: Jeremy Siek (jsiek_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-04-15 14:30:49

On Apr 14, 2004, at 8:12 AM, David Abrahams wrote:
> Not at all.  This is not a std::set<> after all.  It's well known that
> it has the semantics of an array.  But maybe you should rename it
> bit_array or bit_vector instead of dynamic_bitset ;-)
>

Well, it's not entirely that clear cut. dynamic_bitset does have
many aspects of a "set", in addition to many aspects of a container.
 From the docs:

 > The main problem that dynamic_bitset is designed to solve is that
 > of representing a subset of a finite set. Each bit  represents
 > whether an element of the finite set is in the subset or not. As
 > such the bitwise operations of dynamic_bitset, such as operator&
 > and operator|, correspond to set operations, such as intersection
 > and union.

dynamic_bitset is admittedly a little schizophrenic, which is
due to inheriting its design from std::bitset. However, I don't think
migrating far away from std::bitset is a good idea. If one wants a 
"pure" set
interface, one can come up with a concept for a "set" and then
add a layer that makes dynamic_bitset conform to that concept.
Along these lines, one could have a free "empty_set" function.

In short, I think empty() should not change, but only because that
would also confuse users: users who are switching from std::bitset
to dynamic_bitset.

Cheers,
Jeremy

_______________________________________________
Jeremy Siek <jsiek_at_[hidden]>
http://www.osl.iu.edu/~jsiek
Ph.D. Student, Indiana University Bloomington
Graduating in August 2004 and looking for work
C++ Booster (http://www.boost.org)
_______________________________________________