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Rationale
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Rationale

The basic motivation behind the circular_buffer was to create a container which would work seamlessly with STL.

Additionally, the design of the circular_buffer was guided by the following principles:

  • Maximum efficiency for envisaged applications.
  • Suitable for general purpose use.
  • The behaviour of the buffer as intuitive as possible.
  • Suitable for specialization by means of adaptors. (The circular_buffer_space_optimized is such an example of the adaptor.)
  • Easy to debug. (See Debug Support for details.)

In order to achieve maximum efficiency, the circular_buffer and circular_buffer_space_optimized store their elements in a contiguous region of memory, which then enables:

  • Use of fixed memory and no implicit or unexpected memory allocation.
  • Fast constant-time insertion and removal of elements from the front and back.
  • Fast constant-time random access of elements.
  • Suitability for real-time and performance critical applications.

Possible applications of the circular buffer include:

  • Storage of the most recently received samples, overwriting the oldest as new samples arrive.
  • As an underlying container for a bounded buffer (see the Bounded Buffer example, code at circular_buffer_bound_example.cpp).
  • A kind of cache storing a specified number of last inserted elements.
  • Efficient fixed capacity FIFO (First In, First Out),
  • Efficient fixed capacity LIFO (Last In, First Out) queue which removes the oldest (inserted as first) elements when full.
Copyright © 2003-2013 Jan Gaspar

Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt)

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