CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c++comparator
penelope
penelope

Reputation: 8418

Custom comparator (ordering) as a (multi)map ordering parameter?

My question is in many ways similar to this one: Pass a custom comparator through a function, but I tried the solution proposed there, and could not get it to work.

In a nutshell, I have a method that keeps several sorted structures and performs several comparisons, always on elements of type int, all using the same ordering. The ordering is determined when the method is called.

The intended call would look something like: myFunction(std::greater<int>());

First, I tried declaring function as: void myFunction(binary_operator<int, int, bool> order); but, as per this explanation, binary_function is not suited to act as a base class in function calls.

Finally, I tried the suggestion from this answer (and many other sites), which suggested using templates. But, I still can not get my code to compile.

The minimal non-working example:

template <typename Comparator> 
void myFunction(Comparator order){

  if (order(1,2)){
      // some stuff
      // COMPILES OK
  }

  std::vector <int> vecToSort;
  // ... initialize
  std::sort(vecToSort.begin(), vecToSort.end(), order); // works
  // COMPILES OK

  std::multimap <int, int, order > boundary;
  // STARTS KICKING, SCREAMING AND SHOUTHING
}

and the compile error I get:

error: type/value mismatch at argument 3 in template parameter list for ‘template class std::multimap’ error: expected a type, got ‘order’

I figured the same trick should work for both. It does not. (edit: I can see the type/object problem now)

Can somebody please explain what is happening here and how to get the multimap to use the ordering passed as the function argument?

PS: I am not using boost for this project.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 3236

Answers (2)

masoud
masoud

Reputation: 56479

Use Comparator and order in this form:

std::multimap <int, int, Comparator> boundary (order);

First pass the compare type inside <> and then pass the compare object in constructor.

Upvotes: 2

Shafik Yaghmour
Shafik Yaghmour

Reputation: 158469

It should be declared as follows:

std::multimap <int, int, Comparator> boundary(order);
                         ^^^^^^^^^^

As the comments say, you need to provide a type not an object. These docs for Construct multimap give some examples.

Upvotes: 2

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