Re: [boost] Interest in a container which can hold multiple data types?

Subject: Re: [boost] Interest in a container which can hold multiple data types?
From: Thijs (M.A.) van den Berg (thijs_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-05-05 11:56:28

> On 05 May 2015, at 17:17, Boris Rasin <boris_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> 
>> On 5/5/2015 1:12 PM, TONGARI J wrote:
>> 2015-05-05 17:21 GMT+08:00 Boris Rasin <boris_at_[hidden]>:
>> 
>>>> On 5/5/2015 9:31 AM, Thijs (M.A.) van den Berg wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> tuple_vector<Point, Line, Rectangle, Circle> shapes;
>>>>>> shapes.push_back(Point{1.0, 1.0} );
>>>>> This is neat, but it' not quite the same thing. Unlike
>>>>> std::vector<boost::any>, your tuple_vector does not organize objects into
>>>>> strictly linear arrangement. Using your example, there is no way to draw
>>>>> shapes in the order they were inserted into container.
>>>>> 
>>>>>  Good point! So it loses overall ordering, only preservers it at the
>>>> type level. The reason is that objects gets stored in linear memory per
>>>> type.
>>> One could conceivably add another internal container to maintain overall
>>> index. But than again, is such tuple_vector<Point, Line, Rectangle, Circle>
>>> really better than std::vector<boost::variant<Point, Line, Rectangle,
>>> Circle>>? It would use less memory per object when some stored types are
>>> smaller than others, and in some circumstances these savings would exceed
>>> overhead of multiple internal containers and an additional index container.
>>> Any other advantages?
>> 
>> If the data sequence shows some affinity, I guess an ordered
>> tuple_vector-based sequence can provide some performance benefit in
>> traversal (with some crafted for_each method).
>> 
>> That is, a sequence of [AAABBB] may be traversed faster than [ABABAB] for
>> such a container, and I believe in the later case such that the types are
>> uniformly distributed, vector<variant> will perform better.
> 
> Why would a sequence of [AAABBB] be traversed faster for such a container compared to vector<variant>? Especially if it would need additional look up in internal index container on every iteration?
> 

I don't think it makes sense to add an index to an tuple_vector, it's more like an unordered heterogenous container, it'll be good at iterating  all "B"s though. Every variant will have pros and cons when implemented correctly.

In general, the challenge imo is iterating heterogenous containers, a specialized for_each will probably be very handy.