When dealing with multidimensional arrays is it possible to assign two different variable types to the array... For example you have the array int example[i][j] is it possible for i and j to be two completely different variable types such as int and string?
So you would have to use two separate arrays to do something like student_name and score
Alec
2010-10-13 20:26:36
@Alec: what exactly are you trying to do? Do you want `array[name][score]` to access some third piece of data?
JoshD
2010-10-13 20:32:47
Blah, what i said made no since.. Sorry, I am trying to do that but gave a very poor example of what i'm trying to do.
Alec
2010-10-13 20:34:54
+2
A:
No, C++ only allows integer types (ex: int, long, unsigned int, size_t, char) as indexes.
If you want to index by a string, you could try std::map<std::string,mytype> but it gets complicated trying to extend that to two dimensions.
Mark Ransom
2010-10-13 20:26:34
+6
A:
Sounds like you're looking for:
std::vector<std::map<std::string, int> > myData1;
or perhaps:
std::map<int, std::map<std::string, int> > myData2;
The first would require you to resize the vector to an appropriate size before using the indexing operators:
myData1.resize(100);
myData1[25]["hello"] = 7;
...while the second would allow you to assign to any element directly (and sparsely):
myData2[25]["hello"] = 7;
Drew Hall
2010-10-13 20:31:55
Note that the first form will be more efficient than the second, but efficiency isn't always everything. The second has big advantages in usability and extensibility. Also note that with `map` if you try to index something that doesn't exist, it will create it automatically with a default value.
Mark Ransom
2010-10-13 20:45:29