5 replies to this topic

[KingofNoobs]

Hello,

Is there anything wrong with this:

string temp;
for(auto i = dest.begin(); i != dest.end(); ++i)
{
temp.insert(temp.end(), *i);
}
wcout << fieldTitle << "\t" << temp << endl;

I also tried:

string temp;
for(auto i = dest.begin(); i != dest.end(); ++i)
{
temp.insert(back_inserter(temp), *i);
}
wcout << fieldTitle << "\t" << temp << endl;

but it won't compile. Bjarne Stroustroup says to use back_inserters in his book, but the end() version has been working just fine for me. I was wondering if I didn't understand something.

[Yrjö P.]

Back_inserter automatically creates new elements at the back when you assign to it. Many algorithms which otherwise overwrite a range of target elements will instead insert new elements when you use back_inserter.

Your example code is a simple append operation. The cleanest way to do it would be to use the copy algorithm:
copy(begin(wherefrom), end(wherefrom), back_inserter(whereto));

BTW, your example has curious naming, you read items from "dest"...

[Zipster]

You can't use an std::back_inserter with a string to append other strings, because std::string doesn't implement the correct interface (it only has a push_back for individual characters, not strings). If you think of a string as a container of characters, then it makes sense that you can only insert characters (since that's what the container holds).

To append strings, you should use either append() or the += operator. insert() also works, but it's a little harder to read and you have the aforementioned shortcuts to make this specific case easier to handle.

[ApochPiQ]

Alternative suggestion:

std::wostringstream complete;

for(const std::wstring& element : container_of_strings)

	 complete << element;

wcout << fieldTitle << L"	" << complete.str() << std::endl;

[edit] Oh, screw it. The long empty string should be an escaped t (for tab, as in the OP) but the forums keep unescaping it.

Edited by ApochPiQ, 28 November 2012 - 05:53 PM.

[SiCrane]

Is the code tag doing that too?

std::wostringstream complete;
for(const std::wstring& element : container_of_strings)
     complete << element;
wcout << fieldTitle << L"\t" << complete.str() << std::endl;

edit: look like not. One more reason to prefer code tags over the source tags.

Edited by SiCrane, 28 November 2012 - 06:00 PM.

[adeyblue]

You could also (ab)use the fact that accumulate is implemented in terms of addition and use that to concat a bunch of strings in a container. The need to provide the starting point takes away some elegance points but it's still serviceable.

// include <numeric>
std::wcout << fieldTitle << L'\t' << std::accumulate(dest.begin(), dest.end(), std::wstring()) << std::endl;