[Off topic] Re: C++ arrays vs vectors

[Carlo Wood <carlo at runaway dot xs4all dot nl>]

| Several people, including Dr Stroustrup, recommended assuming contiguous
| vectors anyway, and avoiding any hypothetical weird STL implementation
| that does it differently (nobody knew of any in the real world).

A vector<> implementation that is not contiguous could have the advantage
that when the vector needs to be enlarged, and a realloc() would cause a
need for moving the data, then instead one doesn't need to move the
existing data.
Likewise, I already implemented my own streambuf class which never moves
data.  It speeds things up considerably when you deal with sudden, large,
dynamic expansions.

-- 
 Carlo Wood  <carlo@runaway.xs4all.nl>

PS I wish the malloc() interface was extended with a
   second `realloc()' that decreased the size of the
   allocated block by leaving the data at the end at
   the same point:

   before: [xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
   after:         [xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
                   ^
		   |__ returned ptr

   And a third `realloc()' that fails
   when the data needs to be moved.