c++booststl

How to filter items from a std::map?


I have roughly the following code. Could this be made nicer or more efficient? Perhaps using std::remove_if? Can you remove items from the map while traversing it? Can we avoid using the temporary map?

typedef std::map<Action, What> Actions;
static Actions _actions;

bool expired(const Actions::value_type &action)
{
  return <something>;
}

void bar(const Actions::value_type &action)
{
  // do some stuff
}

void foo()
{
  // loop the actions finding expired items
  Actions actions;
  BOOST_FOREACH(Actions::value_type &action, _actions)
  {
    if (expired(action))
      bar(action);
    else
      actions[action.first]=action.second;
    }
  }
  actions.swap(_actions);
}

Solution

  • You could use erase(), but I don't know how BOOST_FOREACH will handle the invalidated iterator. The documentation for map::erase states that only the erased iterator will be invalidated, the others should be OK. Here's how I would restructure the inner loop:

    Actions::iterator it = _actions.begin();
    while (it != _actions.end())
    {
      if (expired(*it))
      {
        bar(*it);
        Actions::iterator toerase = it;
        ++it;
        _actions.erase(toerase);
      }
      else
        ++it;
    }