STL vectors with uninitialized storage?

Question

I'm writing an inner loop that needs to place structs in contiguous storage. I don't know how many of these structs there will be ahead of time. My problem is that STL's vector initializes its values to 0, so no matter what I do, I incur the cost of the initialization plus the cost of setting the struct's members to their values.

Is there any way to prevent the initialization, or is there an STL-like container out there with resizeable contiguous storage and uninitialized elements?

(I'm certain that this part of the code needs to be optimized, and I'm certain that the initialization is a significant cost.)

Also, see my comments below for a clarification about when the initialization occurs.

SOME CODE:

void GetsCalledALot(int* data1, int* data2, int count) {
    int mvSize = memberVector.size()
    memberVector.resize(mvSize + count); // causes 0-initialization

    for (int i = 0; i < count; ++i) {
        memberVector[mvSize + i].d1 = data1[i];
        memberVector[mvSize + i].d2 = data2[i];
    }
}

Answer 1

Use the std::vector::reserve() method. It won't resize the vector, but it will allocate the space.

Answer 2

Err...

try the method:

std::vector<T>::reserve(x)

It will enable you to reserve enough memory for x items without initializing any (your vector is still empty). Thus, there won't be reallocation until to go over x.

The second point is that vector won't initialize the values to zero. Are you testing your code in debug ?

After verification on g++, the following code:

#include <iostream>
#include <vector>

struct MyStruct
{
   int m_iValue00 ;
   int m_iValue01 ;
} ;

int main()
{
   MyStruct aaa, bbb, ccc ;

   std::vector<MyStruct> aMyStruct ;

   aMyStruct.push_back(aaa) ;
   aMyStruct.push_back(bbb) ;
   aMyStruct.push_back(ccc) ;

   aMyStruct.resize(6) ; // [EDIT] double the size

   for(std::vector<MyStruct>::size_type i = 0, iMax = aMyStruct.size(); i < iMax; ++i)
   {
      std::cout << "[" << i << "] : " << aMyStruct[i].m_iValue00 << ", " << aMyStruct[0].m_iValue01 << "\n" ;
   }

   return 0 ;
}

gives the following results:

[0] : 134515780, -16121856
[1] : 134554052, -16121856
[2] : 134544501, -16121856
[3] : 0, -16121856
[4] : 0, -16121856
[5] : 0, -16121856

The initialization you saw was probably an artifact.

[EDIT] After the comment on resize, I modified the code to add the resize line. The resize effectively calls the default constructor of the object inside the vector, but if the default constructor does nothing, then nothing is initialized... I still believe it was an artifact (I managed the first time to have the whole vector zerooed with the following code:

aMyStruct.push_back(MyStruct()) ;
aMyStruct.push_back(MyStruct()) ;
aMyStruct.push_back(MyStruct()) ;

So... :-/

[EDIT 2] Like already offered by Arkadiy, the solution is to use an inline constructor taking the desired parameters. Something like

struct MyStruct
{
   MyStruct(int p_d1, int p_d2) : d1(p_d1), d2(p_d2) {}
   int d1, d2 ;
} ;

This will probably get inlined in your code.

But you should anyway study your code with a profiler to be sure this piece of code is the bottleneck of your application.

Answer 3

Do the structs themselves need to be in contiguous memory, or can you get away with having a vector of struct*?

Vectors make a copy of whatever you add to them, so using vectors of pointers rather than objects is one way to improve performance.

Answer 4

Why are you calling resize on a vector that you don't know what size it needs to be?

Answer 5

I don't think STL is your answer. You're going to need to roll your own sort of solution using realloc(). You'll have to store a pointer and either the size, or number of elements, and use that to find where to start adding elements after a realloc().

int *memberArray;
int arrayCount;
void GetsCalledALot(int* data1, int* data2, int count) {
    memberArray = realloc(memberArray, sizeof(int) * (arrayCount + count);
    for (int i = 0; i < count; ++i) {
        memberArray[arrayCount + i].d1 = data1[i];
        memberArray[arrayCount + i].d2 = data2[i];
    }
    arrayCount += count;
}

Answer 6

So here's the problem, resize is calling insert, which is doing a copy construction from a default constructed element for each of the newly added elements. To get this to 0 cost you need to write your own default constructor AND your own copy constructor as empty functions. Doing this to your copy constructor is a very bad idea because it will break std::vector's internal reallocation algorithms.

Summary: You're not going to be able to do this with std::vector.

Answer 7

To clarify on reserve() responses: you need to use reserve() in conjunction with push_back(). This way, the default constructor is not called for each element, but rather the copy constructor. You still incur the penalty of setting up your struct on stack, and then copying it to the vector. On the other hand, it's possible that if you use

vect.push_back(MyStruct(fieldValue1, fieldValue2))

the compiler will construct the new instance directly in the memory thatbelongs to the vector. It depends on how smart the optimizer is. You need to check the generated code to find out.

Answer 8

From your comments to other posters, it looks like you're left with malloc() and friends. Vector won't let you have unconstructed elements.

Answer 9

From your code, it looks like you have a vector of structs each of which comprises 2 ints. Could you instead use 2 vectors of ints? Then

copy(data1, data1 + count, back_inserter(v1));
copy(data2, data2 + count, back_inserter(v2));

Now you don't pay for copying a struct each time.

Answer 10

I would do something like:

void GetsCalledALot(int* data1, int* data2, int count)
{
  const size_t mvSize = memberVector.size();
  memberVector.reserve(mvSize + count);

  for (int i = 0; i < count; ++i) {
    memberVector.push_back(MyType(data1[i], data2[i]));
  }
}

You need to define a ctor for the type that is stored in the memberVector, but that's a small cost as it will give you the best of both worlds; no unnecessary initialization is done and no reallocation will occur during the loop.

Answer 11

std::vector must initialize the values in the array somehow, which means some constructor (or copy-constructor) must be called. The behavior of vector (or any container class) is undefined if you were to access the uninitialized section of the array as if it were initialized.

The best way is to use reserve() and push_back(), so that the copy-counstructor is used, avoiding default-construction.

Using your example code:

struct YourData {
    int d1;
    int d2;
    YourData(int v1, int v2) : d1(v1), d2(v2) {}
};

std::vector<YourData> memberVector;

void GetsCalledALot(int* data1, int* data2, int count) {
    int mvSize = memberVector.size();

    // Does not initialize the extra elements
    memberVector.reserve(mvSize + count);

    // Note: consider using std::generate_n or std::copy instead of this loop.
    for (int i = 0; i < count; ++i) {
        // Copy construct using a temporary.
        memberVector.push_back(YourData(data1[i], data2[i]));
    }
}

The only problem with calling reserve() (or resize()) like this is that you may end up invoking the copy-constructor more often than you need to. If you can make a good prediction as to the final size of the array, it's better to reserve() the space once at the beginning. If you don't know the final size though, at least the number of copies will be minimal on average.

In the current version of C++, the inner loop is a bit inefficient as a temporary value is constructed on the stack, copy-constructed to the vectors memory, and finally the temporary is destroyed. However the next version of C++ has a feature called R-Value references ("T&&") which will help.

The interface supplied by std::vector does not allow for another option, which is to use some factory-like class to construct values other than the default. Here is a rough example of what this pattern would look like implemented in C++:

template <typename T>
class my_vector_replacement {

    // ...

    template <typename F>
    my_vector::push_back_using_factory(F factory) {
        // ... check size of array, and resize if needed.

        // Copy construct using placement new,
        new(arrayData+end) T(factory())
        end += sizeof(T);
    }

    char* arrayData;
    size_t end; // Of initialized data in arrayData
};

// One of many possible implementations
struct MyFactory {
    MyFactory(int* p1, int* p2) : d1(p1), d2(p2) {}
    YourData operator()() const {
        return YourData(*d1,*d2);
    }
    int* d1;
    int* d2;
};

void GetsCalledALot(int* data1, int* data2, int count) {
    // ... Still will need the same call to a reserve() type function.

    // Note: consider using std::generate_n or std::copy instead of this loop.
    for (int i = 0; i < count; ++i) {
        // Copy construct using a factory
        memberVector.push_back_using_factory(MyFactory(data1+i, data2+i));
    }
}

Doing this does mean you have to create your own vector class. In this case it also complicates what should have been a simple example. But there may be times where using a factory function like this is better, for instance if the insert is conditional on some other value, and you would have to otherwise unconditionally construct some expensive temporary even if it wasn't actually needed.

Answer 12

C++0x adds a new member function template emplace_back to vector (which relies on variadic templates and perfect forwarding) that gets rid of any temporaries entirely:

memberVector.emplace_back(data1[i], data2[i]);