Is there any existing iterator implementation (perhaps in boost) which implement some sort of flattening iterator?
For example:
unordered_set<vector<int> > s;
s.insert(vector<int>());
s.insert({1,2,3,4,5});
s.insert({6,7,8});
s.insert({9,10,11,12});
flattening_iterator<unordered_set<vector<int> >::iterator> it( ... ), end( ... );
for(; it != end; ++it)
{
cout << *it << endl;
}
//would print the numbers 1 through 12
In addition to the answer of Matthieu, you can automatically count the amount of dimensions of the iterable/container. But first we must set up a rule when something is an iterable/container:
template<class T, class R = void>
struct AliasWrapper {
using Type = R;
};
template<class T, class Enable = void>
struct HasValueType : std::false_type {};
template<class T>
struct HasValueType<T, typename AliasWrapper<typename T::value_type>::Type> : std::true_type {};
template<class T, class Enable = void>
struct HasConstIterator : std::false_type {};
template<class T>
struct HasConstIterator<T, typename AliasWrapper<typename T::const_iterator>::Type> : std::true_type {};
template<class T, class Enable = void>
struct HasIterator : std::false_type {};
template<class T>
struct HasIterator<T, typename AliasWrapper<typename T::iterator>::Type> : std::true_type {};
template<class T>
struct IsIterable {
static constexpr bool value = HasValueType<T>::value && HasConstIterator<T>::value && HasIterator<T>::value;
};
We can count the dimensions as follows:
template<class T, bool IsCont>
struct CountDimsHelper;
template<class T>
struct CountDimsHelper<T, true> {
using Inner = typename std::decay_t<T>::value_type;
static constexpr int value = 1 + CountDimsHelper<Inner, IsIterable<Inner>::value>::value;
};
template<class T>
struct CountDimsHelper<T, false> {
static constexpr int value = 0;
};
template<class T>
struct CountDims {
using Decayed = std::decay_t<T>;
static constexpr int value = CountDimsHelper<Decayed, IsIterable<Decayed>::value>::value;
};
We then can create a view wrapper, that contains a begin() and end() function.
template<class Iterable, int Dims>
class Flatten {
public:
using iterator = FlattenIterator<Iterable, Dims>;
private:
iterator _begin{};
iterator _end{};
public:
Flatten() = default;
template<class I>
explicit Flatten(I&& iterable) :
_begin(iterable),
_end(iterable)
{}
iterator begin() const {
return _begin;
}
iterator end() const {
return _end;
}
};
To make the creation of the object Flatten a bit easier, we define a helper function:
template<class Iterable>
Flatten<std::decay_t<Iterable>, CountDims<Iterable>::value - 1> flatten(Iterable&& iterable) {
return Flatten<std::decay_t<Iterable>, CountDims<Iterable>::value - 1>(iterable);
}
Usage:
std::vector<std::vector<int>> vecs = {{1,2,3}, {}, {4,5,6}};
for (int i : flatten(vecs)) {
// do something with i
}