Re: [boost] [container] small_flat_set and small_flat_map

Subject: Re: [boost] [container] small_flat_set and small_flat_map
From: Chris Glover (c.d.glover_at_[hidden])
Date: 2016-10-19 14:42:27

>
>
> I would say that it's likely the opposite - larger flat containers will
> have more expensive insert and erase.

That's true, but often the data is relatively stable, in which case the
flat containers are a good choice.

> Flat containers are especially
> useful with small number of (small) elements because they are
> cache-friendly, and small size optimization makes perfect sense to
> improve that use case even further.
>

It is my experience that the flat containers *always* outperform the node
based containers on searching. So when the data is stable, I always use a
flat container regardless of how many elements are in the container.

One of the problems with that approach is that, because insert is slow, I
often have to build up a std::vector of items, sort it and then copy them
into the flat container using the ordered_unique_t overload. If this change
was done in a way that allowed me to pass ownership of that sorted vector
to the flat_* container, that would be an additional optimisation I would
find useful.

-- chris