Can someone point out a good mapping between the usual C++ STL containers such as vector, list, map, set, multimap... and the C# generic containers?
I'm used to the former ones and somehow I've accustomed myself to express algorithms in terms of those containers. I'm having some hard time finding the C# equivalent to those.
Thank you!
There isn't a terrific direct mapping, since e.g. C++ set and map use comparators, whereas .Net HashSet and Dictionary use hash codes.
This SorceForge project looks like an interesting resource for what your looking for.
Here's a rough equivalence:
Dictionary<K,V> <=> hash_map<K,V>HashSet<T> <=> hash_set<T>List<T> <=> vector<T>LinkedList<T> <=> list<T>The .NET BCL (base class library) does not have red-black trees (stl map) or priority queues (make_heap(), push_heap(), pop_heap()).
.NET collections don't use "iterators" the way C++ does. They all implement IEnumerable<T>, and can be iterated over using the "foreach statement". If you want to manually control iteration you can call "GetEnumerator()" on the collection which will return an IEnumerator<T> objet. IEnumerator<T>.MoveNext() is roughly equivalent to "++" on a C++ iterator, and "Current" is roughly equivalent to the pointer-deference operator ("*").
C# does have a language feature called "iterators". They are not the same as "iterator objects" in the STL, however. Instead, they are a language feature that allows for automatic implementation of IEnumerable<T>. See documentation for the yield return and yield break statements for more information.
You may also want to take a look at STL/CLR which is
... is a packaging of the Standard Template Library (STL), a subset of the Standard C++ Library, for use with C++ and the .NET Framework common language runtime (CLR). With STL/CLR, you can use all the containers, iterators, and algorithms of STL in a managed environment.
Also, keep in mind that you can compile your existing C++/STL code with the /clr flag.