Boost C++ Libraries

...one of the most highly regarded and expertly designed C++ library projects in the world. Herb Sutter and Andrei Alexandrescu, C++ Coding Standards

This is the documentation for an old version of Boost. Click here to view this page for the latest version.
PrevUpHomeNext

Inplace and infix operators

For the major operations addition, subtraction, intersection of icl containers and for symmetric difference inplace operators += |=, -=, &= and ^= are provided.

For every inplace operator

T& operator o= (T& object, const P& operand)

the icl provides corresponding infix operators.

T operator o (T object, const P& operand){ return object o= operand; }
T operator o (const P& operand, T object){ return object o= operand; }

From this implementation of the infix operator o the compiler will hopefully use return value optimization (RVO) creating no temporary object and performing one copy of the first argument object.

[Caution] Caution

Compared to the inplace operator o= every use of an infix operator o requires one extra copy of the first argument object that passes a container.

Use infix operators only, if

Time Complexity of infix operators o

The time complexity of all infix operators of the icl is biased by the extra copy of the object argument. So all infix operators o are at least linear in n = object.iterative_size(). Taking this into account, the complexities of all infix operators can be determined from the corresponding inplace operators o= they depend on.


PrevUpHomeNext