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| Strings |
| |
| </th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="traits.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">Part II. |
| Standard Contents |
| </th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="localization.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr /></div><div class="chapter"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title"><a id="std.strings"></a>Chapter 7. |
| Strings |
| <a id="id-1.3.4.5.1.1.1" class="indexterm"></a> |
| </h2></div></div></div><div class="toc"><p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p><dl class="toc"><dt><span class="section"><a href="strings.html#std.strings.string">String Classes</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="section"><a href="strings.html#strings.string.simple">Simple Transformations</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="strings.html#strings.string.case">Case Sensitivity</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="strings.html#strings.string.character_types">Arbitrary Character Types</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="strings.html#strings.string.token">Tokenizing</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="strings.html#strings.string.shrink">Shrink to Fit</a></span></dt><dt><span class="section"><a href="strings.html#strings.string.Cstring">CString (MFC)</a></span></dt></dl></dd></dl></div><div class="section"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="std.strings.string"></a>String Classes</h2></div></div></div><div class="section"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="strings.string.simple"></a>Simple Transformations</h3></div></div></div><p> |
| Here are Standard, simple, and portable ways to perform common |
| transformations on a <code class="code">string</code> instance, such as |
| "convert to all upper case." The word transformations |
| is especially apt, because the standard template function |
| <code class="code">transform<></code> is used. |
| </p><p> |
| This code will go through some iterations. Here's a simple |
| version: |
| </p><pre class="programlisting"> |
| #include <string> |
| #include <algorithm> |
| #include <cctype> // old <ctype.h> |
| |
| struct ToLower |
| { |
| char operator() (char c) const { return std::tolower(c); } |
| }; |
| |
| struct ToUpper |
| { |
| char operator() (char c) const { return std::toupper(c); } |
| }; |
| |
| int main() |
| { |
| std::string s ("Some Kind Of Initial Input Goes Here"); |
| |
| // Change everything into upper case |
| std::transform (s.begin(), s.end(), s.begin(), ToUpper()); |
| |
| // Change everything into lower case |
| std::transform (s.begin(), s.end(), s.begin(), ToLower()); |
| |
| // Change everything back into upper case, but store the |
| // result in a different string |
| std::string capital_s; |
| capital_s.resize(s.size()); |
| std::transform (s.begin(), s.end(), capital_s.begin(), ToUpper()); |
| } |
| </pre><p> |
| <span class="emphasis"><em>Note</em></span> that these calls all |
| involve the global C locale through the use of the C functions |
| <code class="code">toupper/tolower</code>. This is absolutely guaranteed to work -- |
| but <span class="emphasis"><em>only</em></span> if the string contains <span class="emphasis"><em>only</em></span> characters |
| from the basic source character set, and there are <span class="emphasis"><em>only</em></span> |
| 96 of those. Which means that not even all English text can be |
| represented (certain British spellings, proper names, and so forth). |
| So, if all your input forevermore consists of only those 96 |
| characters (hahahahahaha), then you're done. |
| </p><p><span class="emphasis"><em>Note</em></span> that the |
| <code class="code">ToUpper</code> and <code class="code">ToLower</code> function objects |
| are needed because <code class="code">toupper</code> and <code class="code">tolower</code> |
| are overloaded names (declared in <code class="code"><cctype></code> and |
| <code class="code"><locale></code>) so the template-arguments for |
| <code class="code">transform<></code> cannot be deduced, as explained in |
| <a class="link" href="http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/libstdc++/2002-11/msg00180.html" target="_top">this |
| message</a>. |
| |
| At minimum, you can write short wrappers like |
| </p><pre class="programlisting"> |
| char toLower (char c) |
| { |
| // std::tolower(c) is undefined if c < 0 so cast to unsigned char. |
| return std::tolower((unsigned char)c); |
| } </pre><p>(Thanks to James Kanze for assistance and suggestions on all of this.) |
| </p><p>Another common operation is trimming off excess whitespace. Much |
| like transformations, this task is trivial with the use of string's |
| <code class="code">find</code> family. These examples are broken into multiple |
| statements for readability: |
| </p><pre class="programlisting"> |
| std::string str (" \t blah blah blah \n "); |
| |
| // trim leading whitespace |
| string::size_type notwhite = str.find_first_not_of(" \t\n"); |
| str.erase(0,notwhite); |
| |
| // trim trailing whitespace |
| notwhite = str.find_last_not_of(" \t\n"); |
| str.erase(notwhite+1); </pre><p>Obviously, the calls to <code class="code">find</code> could be inserted directly |
| into the calls to <code class="code">erase</code>, in case your compiler does not |
| optimize named temporaries out of existence. |
| </p></div><div class="section"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="strings.string.case"></a>Case Sensitivity</h3></div></div></div><p> |
| </p><p>The well-known-and-if-it-isn't-well-known-it-ought-to-be |
| <a class="link" href="http://www.gotw.ca/gotw/" target="_top">Guru of the Week</a> |
| discussions held on Usenet covered this topic in January of 1998. |
| Briefly, the challenge was, <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">write a 'ci_string' class which |
| is identical to the standard 'string' class, but is |
| case-insensitive in the same way as the (common but nonstandard) |
| C function stricmp()</span>”</span>. |
| </p><pre class="programlisting"> |
| ci_string s( "AbCdE" ); |
| |
| // case insensitive |
| assert( s == "abcde" ); |
| assert( s == "ABCDE" ); |
| |
| // still case-preserving, of course |
| assert( strcmp( s.c_str(), "AbCdE" ) == 0 ); |
| assert( strcmp( s.c_str(), "abcde" ) != 0 ); </pre><p>The solution is surprisingly easy. The original answer was |
| posted on Usenet, and a revised version appears in Herb Sutter's |
| book <span class="emphasis"><em>Exceptional C++</em></span> and on his website as <a class="link" href="http://www.gotw.ca/gotw/029.htm" target="_top">GotW 29</a>. |
| </p><p>See? Told you it was easy!</p><p> |
| <span class="emphasis"><em>Added June 2000:</em></span> The May 2000 issue of C++ |
| Report contains a fascinating <a class="link" href="http://lafstern.org/matt/col2_new.pdf" target="_top"> article</a> by |
| Matt Austern (yes, <span class="emphasis"><em>the</em></span> Matt Austern) on why |
| case-insensitive comparisons are not as easy as they seem, and |
| why creating a class is the <span class="emphasis"><em>wrong</em></span> way to go |
| about it in production code. (The GotW answer mentions one of |
| the principle difficulties; his article mentions more.) |
| </p><p>Basically, this is "easy" only if you ignore some things, |
| things which may be too important to your program to ignore. (I chose |
| to ignore them when originally writing this entry, and am surprised |
| that nobody ever called me on it...) The GotW question and answer |
| remain useful instructional tools, however. |
| </p><p><span class="emphasis"><em>Added September 2000:</em></span> James Kanze provided a link to a |
| <a class="link" href="http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr21/tr21-5.html" target="_top">Unicode |
| Technical Report discussing case handling</a>, which provides some |
| very good information. |
| </p></div><div class="section"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="strings.string.character_types"></a>Arbitrary Character Types</h3></div></div></div><p> |
| </p><p>The <code class="code">std::basic_string</code> is tantalizingly general, in that |
| it is parameterized on the type of the characters which it holds. |
| In theory, you could whip up a Unicode character class and instantiate |
| <code class="code">std::basic_string<my_unicode_char></code>, or assuming |
| that integers are wider than characters on your platform, maybe just |
| declare variables of type <code class="code">std::basic_string<int></code>. |
| </p><p>That's the theory. Remember however that basic_string has additional |
| type parameters, which take default arguments based on the character |
| type (called <code class="code">CharT</code> here): |
| </p><pre class="programlisting"> |
| template <typename CharT, |
| typename Traits = char_traits<CharT>, |
| typename Alloc = allocator<CharT> > |
| class basic_string { .... };</pre><p>Now, <code class="code">allocator<CharT></code> will probably Do The Right |
| Thing by default, unless you need to implement your own allocator |
| for your characters. |
| </p><p>But <code class="code">char_traits</code> takes more work. The char_traits |
| template is <span class="emphasis"><em>declared</em></span> but not <span class="emphasis"><em>defined</em></span>. |
| That means there is only |
| </p><pre class="programlisting"> |
| template <typename CharT> |
| struct char_traits |
| { |
| static void foo (type1 x, type2 y); |
| ... |
| };</pre><p>and functions such as char_traits<CharT>::foo() are not |
| actually defined anywhere for the general case. The C++ standard |
| permits this, because writing such a definition to fit all possible |
| CharT's cannot be done. |
| </p><p>The C++ standard also requires that char_traits be specialized for |
| instantiations of <code class="code">char</code> and <code class="code">wchar_t</code>, and it |
| is these template specializations that permit entities like |
| <code class="code">basic_string<char,char_traits<char>></code> to work. |
| </p><p>If you want to use character types other than char and wchar_t, |
| such as <code class="code">unsigned char</code> and <code class="code">int</code>, you will |
| need suitable specializations for them. For a time, in earlier |
| versions of GCC, there was a mostly-correct implementation that |
| let programmers be lazy but it broke under many situations, so it |
| was removed. GCC 3.4 introduced a new implementation that mostly |
| works and can be specialized even for <code class="code">int</code> and other |
| built-in types. |
| </p><p>If you want to use your own special character class, then you have |
| <a class="link" href="http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/libstdc++/2002-08/msg00163.html" target="_top">a lot |
| of work to do</a>, especially if you with to use i18n features |
| (facets require traits information but don't have a traits argument). |
| </p><p>Another example of how to specialize char_traits was given <a class="link" href="http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/libstdc++/2002-08/msg00260.html" target="_top">on the |
| mailing list</a> and at a later date was put into the file <code class="code"> |
| include/ext/pod_char_traits.h</code>. We agree |
| that the way it's used with basic_string (scroll down to main()) |
| doesn't look nice, but that's because <a class="link" href="http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/libstdc++/2002-08/msg00236.html" target="_top">the |
| nice-looking first attempt</a> turned out to <a class="link" href="http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/libstdc++/2002-08/msg00242.html" target="_top">not |
| be conforming C++</a>, due to the rule that CharT must be a POD. |
| (See how tricky this is?) |
| </p></div><div class="section"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="strings.string.token"></a>Tokenizing</h3></div></div></div><p> |
| </p><p>The Standard C (and C++) function <code class="code">strtok()</code> leaves a lot to |
| be desired in terms of user-friendliness. It's unintuitive, it |
| destroys the character string on which it operates, and it requires |
| you to handle all the memory problems. But it does let the client |
| code decide what to use to break the string into pieces; it allows |
| you to choose the "whitespace," so to speak. |
| </p><p>A C++ implementation lets us keep the good things and fix those |
| annoyances. The implementation here is more intuitive (you only |
| call it once, not in a loop with varying argument), it does not |
| affect the original string at all, and all the memory allocation |
| is handled for you. |
| </p><p>It's called stringtok, and it's a template function. Sources are |
| as below, in a less-portable form than it could be, to keep this |
| example simple (for example, see the comments on what kind of |
| string it will accept). |
| </p><pre class="programlisting"> |
| #include <string> |
| template <typename Container> |
| void |
| stringtok(Container &container, string const &in, |
| const char * const delimiters = " \t\n") |
| { |
| const string::size_type len = in.length(); |
| string::size_type i = 0; |
| |
| while (i < len) |
| { |
| // Eat leading whitespace |
| i = in.find_first_not_of(delimiters, i); |
| if (i == string::npos) |
| return; // Nothing left but white space |
| |
| // Find the end of the token |
| string::size_type j = in.find_first_of(delimiters, i); |
| |
| // Push token |
| if (j == string::npos) |
| { |
| container.push_back(in.substr(i)); |
| return; |
| } |
| else |
| container.push_back(in.substr(i, j-i)); |
| |
| // Set up for next loop |
| i = j + 1; |
| } |
| } |
| </pre><p> |
| The author uses a more general (but less readable) form of it for |
| parsing command strings and the like. If you compiled and ran this |
| code using it: |
| </p><pre class="programlisting"> |
| std::list<string> ls; |
| stringtok (ls, " this \t is\t\n a test "); |
| for (std::list<string>const_iterator i = ls.begin(); |
| i != ls.end(); ++i) |
| { |
| std::cerr << ':' << (*i) << ":\n"; |
| } </pre><p>You would see this as output: |
| </p><pre class="programlisting"> |
| :this: |
| :is: |
| :a: |
| :test: </pre><p>with all the whitespace removed. The original <code class="code">s</code> is still |
| available for use, <code class="code">ls</code> will clean up after itself, and |
| <code class="code">ls.size()</code> will return how many tokens there were. |
| </p><p>As always, there is a price paid here, in that stringtok is not |
| as fast as strtok. The other benefits usually outweigh that, however. |
| </p><p><span class="emphasis"><em>Added February 2001:</em></span> Mark Wilden pointed out that the |
| standard <code class="code">std::getline()</code> function can be used with standard |
| <code class="code">istringstreams</code> to perform |
| tokenizing as well. Build an istringstream from the input text, |
| and then use std::getline with varying delimiters (the three-argument |
| signature) to extract tokens into a string. |
| </p></div><div class="section"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="strings.string.shrink"></a>Shrink to Fit</h3></div></div></div><p> |
| </p><p>From GCC 3.4 calling <code class="code">s.reserve(res)</code> on a |
| <code class="code">string s</code> with <code class="code">res < s.capacity()</code> will |
| reduce the string's capacity to <code class="code">std::max(s.size(), res)</code>. |
| </p><p>This behaviour is suggested, but not required by the standard. Prior |
| to GCC 3.4 the following alternative can be used instead |
| </p><pre class="programlisting"> |
| std::string(str.data(), str.size()).swap(str); |
| </pre><p>This is similar to the idiom for reducing |
| a <code class="code">vector</code>'s memory usage |
| (see <a class="link" href="../faq.html#faq.size_equals_capacity" title="7.8.">this FAQ |
| entry</a>) but the regular copy constructor cannot be used |
| because libstdc++'s <code class="code">string</code> is Copy-On-Write in GCC 3. |
| </p><p>In <a class="link" href="status.html#status.iso.2011" title="C++ 2011">C++11</a> mode you can call |
| <code class="code">s.shrink_to_fit()</code> to achieve the same effect as |
| <code class="code">s.reserve(s.size())</code>. |
| </p></div><div class="section"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="strings.string.Cstring"></a>CString (MFC)</h3></div></div></div><p> |
| </p><p>A common lament seen in various newsgroups deals with the Standard |
| string class as opposed to the Microsoft Foundation Class called |
| CString. Often programmers realize that a standard portable |
| answer is better than a proprietary nonportable one, but in porting |
| their application from a Win32 platform, they discover that they |
| are relying on special functions offered by the CString class. |
| </p><p>Things are not as bad as they seem. In |
| <a class="link" href="http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/1999-04n/msg00236.html" target="_top">this |
| message</a>, Joe Buck points out a few very important things: |
| </p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; "><li class="listitem"><p>The Standard <code class="code">string</code> supports all the operations |
| that CString does, with three exceptions. |
| </p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Two of those exceptions (whitespace trimming and case |
| conversion) are trivial to implement. In fact, we do so |
| on this page. |
| </p></li><li class="listitem"><p>The third is <code class="code">CString::Format</code>, which allows formatting |
| in the style of <code class="code">sprintf</code>. This deserves some mention: |
| </p></li></ul></div><p> |
| The old libg++ library had a function called form(), which did much |
| the same thing. But for a Standard solution, you should use the |
| stringstream classes. These are the bridge between the iostream |
| hierarchy and the string class, and they operate with regular |
| streams seamlessly because they inherit from the iostream |
| hierarchy. An quick example: |
| </p><pre class="programlisting"> |
| #include <iostream> |
| #include <string> |
| #include <sstream> |
| |
| string f (string& incoming) // incoming is "foo N" |
| { |
| istringstream incoming_stream(incoming); |
| string the_word; |
| int the_number; |
| |
| incoming_stream >> the_word // extract "foo" |
| >> the_number; // extract N |
| |
| ostringstream output_stream; |
| output_stream << "The word was " << the_word |
| << " and 3*N was " << (3*the_number); |
| |
| return output_stream.str(); |
| } </pre><p>A serious problem with CString is a design bug in its memory |
| allocation. Specifically, quoting from that same message: |
| </p><pre class="programlisting"> |
| CString suffers from a common programming error that results in |
| poor performance. Consider the following code: |
| |
| CString n_copies_of (const CString& foo, unsigned n) |
| { |
| CString tmp; |
| for (unsigned i = 0; i < n; i++) |
| tmp += foo; |
| return tmp; |
| } |
| |
| This function is O(n^2), not O(n). The reason is that each += |
| causes a reallocation and copy of the existing string. Microsoft |
| applications are full of this kind of thing (quadratic performance |
| on tasks that can be done in linear time) -- on the other hand, |
| we should be thankful, as it's created such a big market for high-end |
| ix86 hardware. :-) |
| |
| If you replace CString with string in the above function, the |
| performance is O(n). |
| </pre><p>Joe Buck also pointed out some other things to keep in mind when |
| comparing CString and the Standard string class: |
| </p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; "><li class="listitem"><p>CString permits access to its internal representation; coders |
| who exploited that may have problems moving to <code class="code">string</code>. |
| </p></li><li class="listitem"><p>Microsoft ships the source to CString (in the files |
| MFC\SRC\Str{core,ex}.cpp), so you could fix the allocation |
| bug and rebuild your MFC libraries. |
| <span class="emphasis"><em><span class="emphasis"><em>Note:</em></span> It looks like the CString shipped |
| with VC++6.0 has fixed this, although it may in fact have been |
| one of the VC++ SPs that did it.</em></span> |
| </p></li><li class="listitem"><p><code class="code">string</code> operations like this have O(n) complexity |
| <span class="emphasis"><em>if the implementors do it correctly</em></span>. The libstdc++ |
| implementors did it correctly. Other vendors might not. |
| </p></li><li class="listitem"><p>While parts of the SGI STL are used in libstdc++, their |
| string class is not. The SGI <code class="code">string</code> is essentially |
| <code class="code">vector<char></code> and does not do any reference |
| counting like libstdc++'s does. (It is O(n), though.) |
| So if you're thinking about SGI's string or rope classes, |
| you're now looking at four possibilities: CString, the |
| libstdc++ string, the SGI string, and the SGI rope, and this |
| is all before any allocator or traits customizations! (More |
| choices than you can shake a stick at -- want fries with that?) |
| </p></li></ul></div></div></div></div><div class="navfooter"><hr /><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="traits.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="std_contents.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="localization.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">Traits </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> Chapter 8. |
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