Re: [boost] [histogram] discussion of accessor interface design

Subject: Re: [boost] [histogram] discussion of accessor interface design
From: Bjorn Reese (breese_at_[hidden])
Date: 2019-01-28 11:43:21

On 1/15/19 12:35 PM, Hans Dembinski via Boost wrote:

> Pros:
> - really terse
> - you can access methods on the pointee with x->method() as well! (useful when histogram counters are not PODs)
> - you can iterate over x to get the indices, for (auto i : x) { … } works

Doesn't range-for use operator* so you will get the values?

> - since x acts like an array to the indices, you can pass it to functions which accept ranges or iterators (it has .begin() and .end())
> - x can be (and is) enhanced with other useful methods
>    * x.bin(N) returns the current bin interval for the N-th axis, allowing you to access the central value, width, edges
>    * x.density() returns the current density (bin value divided by product of current bin widths)
> Cons:
> - *x and x[0] do completely different things: *x gives you the bin value, x[0] gives you the first index

An alternative is to rename x[i] to x.index(i).