Iterating through List Containers
When using containers in a program, I declare a class which represents an item in a container:
// Can also be a struct
class CMyClass : public CObject {
// Program specific
...
};
Separate class (container) has the actual container object:
class CMyClassList : public CObject {
private:
TMyList List;
// Maybe some other data members too
public:
// Usual stuff (construction, destruction etc.)
void Flush(void);
BOOL Add(CMyClass *ptr);
CMyClass *Find(...);
BOOL Del(...);
};
If the container is associated with a user interface object (tree control, list control etc.), one must iterate through the container and perform an action for each item (or for those that satisfy some criteria). Easy way to do it is to move a List variable to a public part of the class declaration and then access it directly. This is bad since it violates a data encapsulation principle (in all but trivial examples, class declaration has a lot more member variables and methods and performs some useful job too).
One approach is to use a public member function and a supplied callback function which is executed for each item. This is messy since supplied callback function is usually a member function of another class so for each different callback function, class CMyClassList must have an overloaded member function. If a callback function is a static non-member function, one must use a DWORD function argument to pass a "this" pointer to a static callback function, then from within a callback function cast a DWORD to pointer to a class object and then invoke a method which actually performs some action with a container item.
Much easier and more elegant approach is to use special iterator class. New class declaration is slightly modified:
class CMyClassListIterator;
class CMyClassList : public CObject {
private:
TMyClassList List;
// Maybe something else
public:
// Usual stuff (construction, destruction etc.)
void Flush(void);
BOOL Add(CMyClass *ptr);
CMyClass *Find(...);
BOOL Del(...);
friend CMyClassListIterator;
// New stuff
};
New iterator class is declared as follows:
class CMyClassListIterator : public CObject
{
private:
CMyClassList& Owner;
POSITION Pos;
public:
CMyClassListIterator(TProcess&
obj)
:CObject(),Owner(obj) { Reset(); }
void Reset(void)
{ Pos = Owner.List.GetHeadPosition(); }
void Next(void)
{ Owner.List.GetNext(Pos); }
CMyClass *Current(void)
{ return (CMyClass*)Owner.List.GetAt(Pos); }
BOOL IsDone(void)
{ return (Pos == NULL) ? TRUE : FALSE; }
};
Now, all you need to do to iterate thru the list is to implement the following peace of code:
CMyClassList MyList;
........
CMyClassListIterator iterator(MyList);
while (!iterator.IsDone()) {
CMyClass *ptr = iterator.Current();
// Use ptr but do not
delete it.
// You can modify its
contents however.
iterator.Next();
};
You can also easily implement a nested iteration. Good side effect of this implementation is that your code for list iteration is focused on the job that must be done since all the code is implemented in one function (no callbacks). Also, data encapsulation is preserved since List object is not directly visible.
Comments
How to erase an item while iterating?
Posted by Legacy on 05/06/2003 12:00amOriginally posted by: Cristian Hudici
Good article! I have a question that would complete it. What happens if somebody needs to erase one (or more) element(s) of the list, while iterating? Does this make the iterator instable? I think so. And more importantly, what's the solution?
ReplyMy version...
Posted by Legacy on 04/16/2000 12:00amOriginally posted by: Jeff Miller
good piece!!!
Posted by Legacy on 10/28/1999 12:00amOriginally posted by: B.Banerjee
Congrats!! It is a good piece of code. It will be of definite use to me.
Replypretty nice
Posted by Legacy on 05/11/1999 12:00amOriginally posted by: Andy Young
I like the manipulation of inline, and the ingenuity of direct access, if tedious while coding it, to maintain private, encapsulated data.
Replymember of type CMyPropSheet
Posted by Legacy on 04/30/1999 12:00amOriginally posted by: Martin Speiser
Hi Bill,
do your dialog class has a member of type CMyPropSheet? In this case the constructor of the sheet will be called during construction of the dialog class.
Martin
ReplyI wish my code was peaceful, too.. ;-)
Posted by Legacy on 11/02/1998 12:00amOriginally posted by: Christian Laforte
Interesting article! Thanks!
Reply