creating a literal for a Point - C++ - c++

I am trying to do a simple library where the object is a point on the xy-axis.
I want to be able to use literals like this:
Point a = (3,4);
where (3,4) is a point literal.
I read about user defined literals, but (as I understood) this seems to be impossible.
May be "(3,4)"_P is possible as I understand it.
However, I found on this page interesting use of user defined literals as follows:
#include <iostream>
#include <complex>
int main()
{
using namespace std::complex_literals;
std::complex<double> c = 1.0 + 1i;
std::cout << "abs" << c << " = " << abs(c) << '\n';
}
I can under stand the part 1i as a user defined literal, but not the whole thing 1.0 + 1i.
What I am missing, and what is the nearest possible way of getting a literal similar to (x,y) without using ".

As Some programmer dude shows, the best way is to use uniform initialization.
However, just for the fun of it, you can (sort of) do this with User Defined Literals. My idea is to to have 2 literals for each coordinate and overload operator+ between them to create the point.
Remember, this is just for fun, don't use this in a real code:
struct Px { int x; };
struct Py { int y; };
struct Point {
int x;
int y;
};
constexpr auto operator""_px(unsigned long long x) -> Px { return Px{(int)x}; }
constexpr auto operator""_py(unsigned long long y) -> Py { return Py{(int)y}; }
constexpr auto operator+(Px x, Py y) -> Point { return Point{x.x, y.y}; }
then you can have:
auto p = 3_px + 4_py; // p is deduced to type `Point`
Of course this is just a rough framework. Read this great article to learn more about UDLs. You would need to deal with the narrowing conversion in a better way and propper use namespaces to make it a better solution.
As a bonus, you could also use operator, to create a syntax more appropriate to what you had in mind. But, don't do this, as overloading operator, is just evil:
auto operator,(Px x, Py y) -> Point { return Point{x.x, y.y}; }
auto p = (2_px, 1_py); // p is deduced to type `Point`

You can't make up literals on your own, only create suffixes for literals. Like the shown 1i or the standard language f as in 1.0f. (See e.g. this user-defined literal reference for more information.)
What you can to is to use uniform initialization doing something like
Point a = { 3, 4 }; // note the use of curly-braces
Depending on what Point is you might need to add a suitable constructor to make it work.

You have 3 options
Point p = { 1,2 };
Point p2{ 1,2 };
Point p3(1,2);

Related

c++ changing implicit conversion from double to int

I have code which has a lot of conversions from double to int . The code can be seen as
double n = 5.78;
int d = n; // double implicitly converted to a int
The implicit conversion from double to int is that of a truncation which means 5.78 will be saved as 5 . However it has been decided to change this behavior with custom rounding off .
One approach to such problem would be to have your own DOUBLE and INT data types and use conversion operators but alas my code is big and I am not allowed to do much changes . Another approach i thought of was to add 0.5 in each of the numbers but alas the code is big and i was changing too much .
What can be a simple approach to change double to int conversion behaviour which impact the whole code.
You can use uniform initialization syntax to forbid narrowing conversions:
double a;
int b{a}; // error
If you don't want that, you can use std::round function (or its sisters std::ceil/std::floor/std::trunc):
int b = std::round(a);
If you want minimal diff changes, here's what you can do. Please note, though, that this is a bad solution (if it can be named that), and much more likely leaving you crashing and burning due to undefined behavior than actually solving real problems.
Define your custom Int type that handles conversions the way you want it to:
class MyInt
{
//...
};
then evilly replace each occurence of int with MyInt with the help of preprocessor black magic:
#define int MyInt
Problems:
if you accidentally change definitions in the standard library - you're in the UB-land
if you change the return type of main - you're in the UB-land
if you change the definition of a function but not it's forward declarations - you're in the UB/linker error land. Or in the silently-calling-different-overload-land.
probably more.
Do something like this:
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
int myConvert (double rhs)
{
int answer = (int)rhs; //do something fancier here to meet your needs
return answer;
}
int main()
{
double n = 5.78;
int d = myConvert(n);
cout << "d = " << d << endl;
return 0;
}
You can make myConvert as fancy as you want. Otherwise, you could define your own class for int (e.g. myInt class) and overload the = operator to do the right conversion.

Composite function in C++

I am a beginner in C++ and want to do simple example of composite function.
For example, in MATLAB, I can write
a = #(x) 2*x
b = #(y) 3*y
a(b(1))
Answer is 6
I searched following questions.
function composition in C++ / C++11 and
Function Composition in C++
But they are created using advanced features, such as templates, to which I am not much familiar at this time. Is there a simple and more direct way to achieve this? In above MATLAB code, user does not need to know implementation of function handles. User can just use proper syntax to get result. Is there such way in C++?
** Another Edit:**
In above code, I am putting a value at the end. However, if I want to pass the result to a third function, MATLAB can still consider it as a function. But, how to do this in C++?
For example, in addition to above code, consider this code:
c = #(p,q) a(p)* b(q) %This results a function
c(1,2)
answer=12
d = #(r) a(b(r))
d(1)
answer=6
function [ output1 ] = f1( arg1 )
val = 2.0;
output1 = feval(arg1,val)
end
f1(d)
answer = 12
In this code, c takes two functions as input and d is composite function. In the next example, function f1 takes a function as argument and use MATLAB builtin function feval to evaluate the function at val.
How can I achieve this in C++?
How about:
#include <iostream>
int main(int, char**)
{
auto a = [](int x) { return 2 * x; };
auto b = [](int y) { return 3 * y; };
for (int i = 0; i < 5; ++i)
std::cout << i << " -> " << a(b(i)) << std::endl;
return 0;
}
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your question, but it sounds easy:
int a(const int x) { return x * 2; }
int b(const int y) { return y * 3; }
std::cout << a(b(1)) << std::endl;
Regarding your latest edit, you can make a function return a result of another function:
int fun1(const int c) { return a(c); }
std::cout << fun1(1) << std::endl;
Note that this returns a number, the result of calling a, not the function a itself. Sure, you can return a pointer to that function, but then the syntax would be different: you'd have to write something like fun1()(1), which is rather ugly and complicated.
C++'s evaluation strategy for function arguments is always "eager" and usually "by value". The short version of what that means is, a composed function call sequence such as
x = a(b(c(1)));
is exactly the same as
{
auto t0 = c(1);
auto t1 = b(t0);
x = a(t1);
}
(auto t0 means "give t0 whatever type is most appropriate"; it is a relatively new feature and may not work in your C++ compiler. The curly braces indicate that the temporary variables t0 and t1 are destroyed after the assignment to x.)
I bring this up because you keep talking about functions "taking functions as input". There are programming languages, such as R, where writing a(b(1)) would pass the expression b(1) to a, and only actually call b when a asked for the expression to be evaluated. I thought MATLAB was not like that, but I could be wrong. Regardless, C++ is definitely not like that. In C++, a(b(1)) first evaluates b(1) and then passes the result of that evaluation to a; a has no way of finding out that the result came from a call to b. The only case in C++ that is correctly described as "a function taking another function as input" would correspond to your example using feval.
Now: The most direct translation of the MATLAB code you've shown is
#include <stdio.h>
static double a(double x) { return 2*x; }
static double b(double y) { return 3*y; }
static double c(double p, double q) { return a(p) * b(q); }
static double d(double r) { return a(b(r)); }
static double f1(double (*arg1)(double))
{ return arg1(2.0); }
int main()
{
printf("%g\n", a(b(1))); // prints 6
printf("%g\n", c(1,2)); // prints 12
printf("%g\n", d(1)); // prints 6
printf("%g\n", f1(d)); // prints 12
printf("%g\n", f1(a)); // prints 4
return 0;
}
(C++ has no need for explicit syntax like feval, because the typed parameter declaration, double (*arg1)(double) tells the compiler that arg1(2.0) is valid. In older code you may see (*arg1)(2.0) but that's not required, and I think it makes the code less readable.)
(I have used printf in this code, instead of C++'s iostreams, partly because I personally think printf is much more ergonomic than iostreams, and partly because that makes this program also a valid C program with the same semantics. That may be useful, for instance, if the reason you are learning C++ is because you want to write MATLAB extensions, which, the last time I checked, was actually easier if you stuck to plain C.)
There are significant differences; for instance, the MATLAB functions accept vectors, whereas these C++ functions only take single values; if I'd wanted b to call c I would have had to swap them or write a "forward declaration" of c above b; and in C++, (with a few exceptions that you don't need to worry about right now,) all your code has to be inside one function or another. Learning these differences is part of learning C++, but you don't need to confuse yourself with templates and lambdas and classes and so on just yet. Stick to free functions with fixed type signatures at first.
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that in
static double c(double p, double q) { return a(p) * b(q); }
the calls to a and b might happen in either order. There is talk of changing this but it has not happened yet.
int a(const int x){return x * 2;}
int b(const int x){return x * 3;}
int fun1(const int x){return a(x);}
std::cout << fun1(1) << std::endl; //returns 2
This is basic compile-time composition. If you wanted runtime composition, things get a tad more involved.

C++ "Floating Point Enum"

I am looking for a solution using the C++03 standard (I am constrained to using this version of the standard for several years yet). Solutions for C++11 are also welcome, but will not be "accepted" as the answer to this question.
What is a simple, concise way that I can represent a set of related constant floating point values as a single type (similar to an enum) to ensure type-safety without incurring significant overhead and still allow me to operate on the values as floats directly?
The end result is that I would like to be able to do something like the following:
enum FloatingPointEnum
{
VALUE1 = 0.1234f,
...
VALUEN = 0.6789f
};
float SomeFunction(FloatingPointEnum value)
{
float new_value;
/* perform some operation using "value" to calculate "new_value" */
new_value = static_cast<float>(value); // <- a simplistic example
return new_value;
}
While I can think of several solutions, none of them are as clean/simple/straightforward as I would like and I figure that someone must already have an elegant solution to this problem (yet I cannot seem to find one in my searching).
EDIT:
I would like the following call to SomeFunction with a value that is not specified directly as a value from the enumerated type to fail to compile:
float nonEnumeratedValue = 5.0f
SomeFunction(nonEnumeratedValue);
someone must already have an elegant solution to this problem
There are lots of problems that have no elegant solution (and many that have no solution at all). What makes you think this problem has one? The closest you can get is to use a wrapper class.
class FloatingPointEnum {
float f;
FloatingPointEnum(float arg) : f(arg) {}
public:
static const FloatingPointEnum Value1;
static const FloatingPointEnum Value2;
operator float() const { return f; }
};
const FloatingPointEnum FloatingPointEnum::Value1(0.1234f);
const FloatingPointEnum FloatingPointEnum::Value2(0.6789f);
A possible alternative solution, not always applicable but very clean, is to use fixed precision.
Lets imagine you have you enum containing some distance in meters
enum DistancesMeter{
A = 0.25,
b = 0.05,
};
then you may simply switch to use mm
enum DistancesMM{
A = 250,
b = 50,
};
In C++11 you can use constexpr to achieve what you want.
constexpr - specifies that the value of a variable or function can appear in constant expressions
http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/constexpr
With constexpr you define a compile-time constant. This only works for literal types, such as float. Since at the same time we want
float nonEnumeratedValue = 5.0f;
SomeFunction(nonEnumeratedValue);
to fail, we cannot use a simple typedef. Instead we use Boost’s BOOST_STRONG_TYPEDEF.
#include <boost/serialization/strong_typedef.hpp>
BOOST_STRONG_TYPEDEF(float, FloatingPointEnum);
constexpr float VALUE1 = 0.1234f;
constexpr float VALUEN = 0.6789f;
float SomeFunction(FloatingPointEnum value)
{
float new_value;
/* perform some operation using "value" to calculate "new_value" */
new_value = static_cast<float>(value); // <- a simplistic example
return new_value;
}
Now you can call the function only with instances of FloatingPointEnum. Unfortunately, the instantiation syntax is not so nice anymore
FloatingPointEnum f {VALUEN};
Alternatively, you can simply use the D programming language, where floating point enums are supported and the following code works as expected:
enum FloatingPointEnum
{
VALUE1 = 0.1234f,
//...
VALUEN = 0.6789f
};
float SomeFunction(FloatingPointEnum value)
{
float new_value;
new_value = value; // No cast needed, welcome to D!
return new_value;
}
Calling SomeFunction with a float results in
Error: function test.SomeFunction (FloatingPointEnum value) is not callable using argument types (float)

Physical Boost.Units User Defined Literals

Now that we soon have user defined literals (UDL), in GCC 4.7 for example, I'm eagerly waiting for (physical) unit libraries (such as Boost.Units) using them to ease expression of literals such as 1+3i, 3m, 3meter or 13_meter. Has anybody written an extension to Boost.Units using UDL supporting this behaviour?
No one has come out with such an extension. Only gcc (and possibly IBM?) has UDL so it might be a while. I'm hoping some kind of units makes it into tr2 which is starting about now. If that happens I'm sure UDL for units will come up.
This works:
// ./bin/bin/g++ -std=c++0x -o units4 units4.cpp
#include <boost/units/unit.hpp>
#include <boost/units/quantity.hpp>
#include <boost/units/systems/si.hpp>
using namespace boost::units;
using namespace boost::units::si;
quantity<length, long double>
operator"" _m(long double x)
{ return x * meters; }
quantity<si::time, long double>
operator"" _s(long double x)
{ return x * seconds; }
int
main()
{
auto l = 66.6_m;
auto v = 2.5_m / 6.6_s;
std::cout << "l = " << l << std::endl;
std::cout << "v = " << v << std::endl;
}
I think it wouldn't be too hard to go through you favorite units and do this.
Concerning putting these in a library:
The literal operators are namespace scope functions. The competition for suffixes is going to get ugly. I would (if I were boost) have
namespace literals
{
...
}
Then Boost users can do
using boost::units::literals;
along with all the other using decls you typically use. Then you won't get clobbered by std::tr2::units for example. Similarly if you roll your own.
In my opinion there is not much gain in using literals for Boost.Units, because a more powerful syntax can still be achieved with existing capabilities.
In simple cases, looks like literals is the way to go, but soon you see that it is not very powerful.
For example, you still have to define literals for combined units, for example, how do you express 1 m/s (one meter per second)?
Currently:
auto v = 1*si::meter/si::second; // yes, it is long
but with literals?
// fake code
using namespace boost::units::literals;
auto v = 1._m_over_s; // or 1._m/si::second; or 1._m/1_s // even worst
A better solution can be achieved with existing features. And this is what I do:
namespace boost{namespace units{namespace si{ //excuse me!
namespace abbreviations{
static const length m = si::meter;
static const time s = si::second;
// ...
}
}}} // thank you!
using namespace si::abbreviations;
auto v = 1.*m/s;
In the same way you can do: auto a = 1.*m/pow<2>(s); or extend the abbreviations more if you want (e.g. static const area m2 = pow<2>(si::meter);)
What else beyond this do you want?
Maybe a combined solution could be the way
auto v = 1._m/s; // _m is literal, /s is from si::abbreviation combined with operator/
but there will be so much redundant code and the gain is minimal (replace * by _ after the number.)
One drawback of my solution is that it polutes the namespace with common one letter names. But I don't see a way around that except to add an underscore (to the beginning or the end of the abbreviation), as in 1.*m_/s_ but at least I can build real units expressions.

What does this C++ syntax mean and why does it work?

I was looking through the source of OpenDE and I came across some wierd syntax usage of the array indexing operator '[]' on a class. Here's a simplified example to show the syntax:
#include <iostream>
class Point
{
public:
Point() : x(2.8), y(4.2), z(9.5) {}
operator const float *() const
{
return &x;
}
private:
float x, y, z;
};
int main()
{
Point p;
std::cout << "x: " << p[0] << '\n'
<< "y: " << p[1] << '\n'
<< "z: " << p[2];
}
Output:
x: 2.8
y: 4.2
z: 9.5
What's going on here? Why does this syntax work? The Point class contains no overloaded operator [] and here this code is trying to do an automatic conversion to float somewhere.
I've never seen this kind of usage before -- it definitely looks unusual and surprising to say the least.
Thanks
p is being converted implicitly into a const float* const, which points to x. So *p is x, *(p+1) is y, and so on.
It's a pretty weird idea (and confusing!) to do it this way, of course. It's usually preferable to store x, y, and z in an array and have a function to get the entire array if they really want to do things this way.
The idea here is to give access to the members of the Point by either subscript or name. If you want to do that, however, you'd be better off overloading operator[] something like this:
struct Point {
float x, y, z;
float &operator[](size_t subscript) {
switch(subscript) {
case 0: return x;
case 1: return y;
case 2: return z;
default: throw std::range_error("bad subscript");
}
}
};
This way, if the compiler inserts padding between the floats, it will still work -- and anybody who can read C++ should be able to understand it without any problems.
This is just a way of treating your member data as an array. You can also do this with structs. This is useful when you want readability, yet want to be able to iterate over simple data structures. An example use would be to declare a matrix this way:
typedef struct {
CGFloat m11,m12,m13,m14;
CGFloat m21,m22,m23,m24;
CGFloat m31,m32,m33,m34;
CGFloat m41,m42,m43,m44;
} CATransform3D;
You can conveniently reference each cell by name, yet you can also pass around a pointer to m11 everywhere (and C will see your struct as an array, m11 being the first element), and iterate over all the elements.