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<font size="6" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Tuples</b></font>
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<p>
Tuples are the most basic infrastructure that the framework builds with. This sub-library provides a mechanism to bundle objects of arbitrary types in a single structure. Tuples hold heterogeneous types up to a predefined maximum.</p>
<p>
Only the most basic functionality needed are provided. This is a straight-forward and extremely lean and mean library. Unlike other recursive list-like tuple implementations, this tuple library implementation uses simple structs similar to std::pair with specialization for 0 to N tuple elements, where N is a predefined constant. There are only 4 tuple operations to learn:</p>
<p>
1) Construction</p>
<p>
Here are examples on how to construct tuples:</p>
<code><pre>
<span class=keyword>typedef </span><span class=identifier>tuple</span><span class=special><</span><span class=keyword>int</span><span class=special>, </span><span class=keyword>char</span><span class=special>> </span><span class=identifier>t1_t</span><span class=special>;
</span><span class=keyword>typedef </span><span class=identifier>tuple</span><span class=special><</span><span class=keyword>int</span><span class=special>, </span><span class=identifier>std</span><span class=special>::</span><span class=identifier>string</span><span class=special>, </span><span class=keyword>double</span><span class=special>> </span><span class=identifier>t2_t</span><span class=special>;
</span><span class=comment>// this tuple has an int and char members
</span><span class=identifier>t1_t </span><span class=identifier>t1</span><span class=special>(</span><span class=number>3</span><span class=special>, </span><span class=literal>'c'</span><span class=special>);
</span><span class=comment>// this tuple has an int, std::string and double members
</span><span class=identifier>t2_t </span><span class=identifier>t2</span><span class=special>(</span><span class=number>3</span><span class=special>, </span><span class=string>"hello"</span><span class=special>, </span><span class=number>3.14</span><span class=special>);
</span></pre></code>
<p>
</p>
<p>
2) Member access</p>
<p>
A member in a tuple can be accessed using the tuple's [] operator by specifying the Nth tuple_index. Here are some examples:</p>
<code><pre>
<span class=identifier>tuple_index</span><span class=special><</span><span class=number>0</span><span class=special>> </span><span class=identifier>ix0</span><span class=special>; </span><span class=comment>// 0th index == 1st item
</span><span class=identifier>tuple_index</span><span class=special><</span><span class=number>1</span><span class=special>> </span><span class=identifier>ix1</span><span class=special>; </span><span class=comment>// 1st index == 2nd item
</span><span class=identifier>tuple_index</span><span class=special><</span><span class=number>2</span><span class=special>> </span><span class=identifier>ix2</span><span class=special>; </span><span class=comment>// 2nd index == 3rd item
// Note zero based indexing. 0 = 1st item, 1 = 2nd item
</span><span class=identifier>t1</span><span class=special>[</span><span class=identifier>ix0</span><span class=special>] </span><span class=special>= </span><span class=number>33</span><span class=special>; </span><span class=comment>// sets the int member of the tuple t1
</span><span class=identifier>t2</span><span class=special>[</span><span class=identifier>ix2</span><span class=special>] </span><span class=special>= </span><span class=number>6e6</span><span class=special>; </span><span class=comment>// sets the double member of the tuple t2
</span><span class=identifier>t1</span><span class=special>[</span><span class=identifier>ix1</span><span class=special>] </span><span class=special>= </span><span class=literal>'a'</span><span class=special>; </span><span class=comment>// sets the char member of the tuple t1
</span></pre></code>
<p>
</p>
<p>
Access to out of bound indexes returns a nil_t value.</p>
<p>
3) Member type inquiry</p>
<p>
The type of an individual member can be queried. Example:</p>
<code><pre>
<span class=identifier>tuple_element</span><span class=special><</span><span class=number>1</span><span class=special>, </span><span class=identifier>t2_t</span><span class=special>>::</span><span class=identifier>type
</span></pre></code>
<p>
</p>
<p>
Refers to the type of the second member (again note zero based indexing, hence 0 = 1st item, 1 = 2nd item) of the tuple.</p>
<p>
Access to out of bound indexes returns a nil_t type.</p>
<p>
4) Tuple length</p>
<p>
The number of elements in a tuple can be queried. Example:</p>
<code><pre>
<span class=keyword>int </span><span class=identifier>n </span><span class=special>= </span><span class=identifier>t1</span><span class=special>.</span><span class=identifier>length</span><span class=special>;
</span></pre></code>
<p>
</p>
<p>
gets the number of elements in tuple t1.</p>
<p>
length is a static constant. Thus, TupleT::length also works. Example:</p>
<code><pre>
<span class=keyword>int </span><span class=identifier>n </span><span class=special>= </span><span class=identifier>t1_t</span><span class=special>::</span><span class=identifier>length</span><span class=special>;
</span></pre></code>
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<hr size="1"><p class="copyright">Copyright © 2001-2002 Joel de Guzman<br><br>
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