Array Package

The array package has several array classes:

• ads::FixedArray has the array size and the element type as template parameters. It is used to represent Cartesian points in several packages.
• ads::Array is an N-D, dynamically-sized array. The dimension and the element type are specified as template parameters. It may either allocate its own memory or wrap externally allocated memory.
• ads::SparseArray is an N-D dynamically-sized, sparse array. For 1-D (SparseArray<1,T>) it uses index compression. For higher dimensions (SparseArray<2,T>) it uses index/offset compression.
• ads::ArrayWithNullHoles is a dynamically-sized, 1-D array with holes. It supports efficient deletion of elements and insertion of elements into holes.
• ads::StaticArrayOfArrays is a static array of arrays (no, really). It is an efficient way to represent static, sparse, 2-D arrays.

The ads::IndexRange class is used to specify the index ranges of arrays.

The array classes are STL-compliant containers. (Consult "Generic Programming and the STL" by Matthew H. Austern.) Such containers define the following nine types:

• value_type
• pointer
• const_pointer
• reference
• const_reference
• iterator
• const_iterator
• difference_type
• size_type

STL-compliant containers provide accessors to the beginning and end of the range of elements:

• const_iterator begin() const
• const_iterator end() const

as well as the corresponding manipulators:

• iterator begin()
• iterator end()

There are three member functions relating to the number of elements in the container.

• size_type size() const
• bool empty() const
• size_type max_size() const

Finally there is a member function for swapping the contents of two containers.

• void swap(container&)

Each array class supports the standard mathematical operations. The ads::FixedArray class does not share implementation with the dynamic arrays.

There are two policy classes which implement functionality for ads::Array:

• ads::ArrayContainer manages the array size, the beginning and the end of the element storage and container indexing. This class either allocates memory or references external memory. The functions that operate on the array elements are implemented in this class.
• ads::ArrayIndexing defines the index ranges, indexing, and file output.