Re: [boost] [tree] tree cursors and iterators

Subject: Re: [boost] [tree] tree cursors and iterators
From: Cromwell Enage (sponage_at_[hidden])
Date: 2011-05-10 23:50:21

--- On Tue, 5/10/11, Erik Erlandson wrote:
> It looks like this:
> 
> cursor        inorder_first();
> const_cursor  inorder_cfirst() const;
>   * Returns: A cursor to the binary_tree's first
>     element in inorder (see [tr.order.iterators], §4).
> 
> Perhaps it means "if you were going to traverse this tree
> in-order, here is the cursor that points to the first node
> you would visit in that traversal"

That sounds about right.

> I'm a little skeptical that such a thing is necessary.
> If I want in-order traversal, or breadth-first traversal,
> or any other particular kind of traversal, I'd use an
> appropriate iterator for that (which might very well be
> implemented on top of a cursor).

I agree that these methods aren't necessary, but they could make certain traversal initializations more efficient (pre-order comes to mind).  The question becomes whether the efficiency is worth the update cost of inorder_first() et al.

Cromwell D. Enage