Re: question on merge algorithm

From:
Kai-Uwe Bux <jkherciueh@gmx.net>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.c++
Date:
Mon, 26 May 2008 03:57:09 -0400
Message-ID:
<483a6d56$0$25949$6e1ede2f@read.cnntp.org>
subramanian100in@yahoo.com, India wrote:

consider :

template<class InIt1, class InIt2, class OutIt>
   OutIt merge(InIt1 first1, InIt1 last1, InIt2 first2, InIt2 last2,
OutIt dest);

Can the destination container already contain some elements ?


Sure.

If so, will they also be taken into account for doing the sorting and
merging ?


The merge algorithm will not pay any attention to stuff it cannot see. What
happens upon writing to the output-iterator depends on the semantics of
that iterator. A back-inserter will just append.

Or, should the destination container have just enough space
to hold the result of the merge( that is, it should not contain any
elements) ?


The tarted sequence needs to have enough space for whatever gets inserted.
So, in addition to the elements already there, you need enough space for
the new elements. Now, with standard inserters, there is no problem as the
standard containers grow if needed.

The reason for asking this question is the following:

#include <cstdlib>
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
#include <set>
#include <map>
#include <algorithm>
#include <iterator>
#include <utility>

using namespace std;

void print(const pair<const int, int>& arg)
{
        cout << arg.first << " " << arg.second << endl;
        return;
}

int main()
{
        typedef pair<int, int> p_type;

        multiset<p_type> c1;

        c1.insert(make_pair(0, 2));
        c1.insert(make_pair(0, 0));
        c1.insert(make_pair(0, 1));
        c1.insert(make_pair(2, 3));

        vector<p_type> c2;

        c2.push_back(make_pair(0, -2));
        c2.push_back(make_pair(1, 2));
        c2.push_back(make_pair(2, 2));

        multimap<int, int> c3;

        c3.insert(make_pair(5, 0));
        c3.insert(make_pair(0, 0));
        c3.insert(make_pair(3, 2));
        c3.insert(make_pair(0, -1));
        c3.insert(make_pair(1, -1));

        merge(c1.begin(), c1.end(), c2.begin(), c2.end(), inserter(c3,
c3.begin()));

        for_each(c3.begin(), c3.end(), print);

        return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

The output with
g++ -std=c++98 -pedantic -Wall -Wextra x.cpp
is
0 -2
0 0
0 1
0 2
0 0
0 -1
1 -1
1 2
2 2
2 3
3 2
5 0

The second pair (0, 0) in the output should have come before the pair
(0, 1) and
the pair (0, -1) in the output should have come after the pair (0,
-2). Am I correct or wrong ?


Wrong.

What happens here is unrelated to the merge algorithm since you insert the
elements into a multimap, which then decided autonomously where to insert
the element. With regard to the output, you just observed that a multimap
makes no guarantees as to the order in which elements with identical keys
are stored: neither does it guarantee that they are ordered by value nor
does it guarantee that they are ordered by time of insertion.

Best

Kai-Uwe Bux

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