Build a string using recursion in c++ - c++

Question

I have a matrix of values (stored as an array of values) and a vector with the matrix dimensions( dims[d0, d1, d2]).
I need to build a string like that:
"matA(j, k, l) = x;"
where j, k, l are the indices of the matrix and x the value of the element. I need to write this for each value of the matrix and for matrices with 2 to n dimensions.
I have a problem isolating the base case and replicating it in a useful way. I did a version in a switch case with a case for each dimension and a number of for cycles equal to the number of dimensions:
for (unsigned int k=1; k<=(dims[2]); k++)
{
for (unsigned int j=1; j<=(dims[1]); j++)
{
for (unsigned int i=1; i<=(dims[0]); i++)
{
strs << matName << "(" << i << "," << j << ","<< k << ")="<< tmp[t]<< "; ";
....
but is not what I wanted.. Any idea for a more general case with a variable number of dimensions?

Answer 1

You need a separate worker function to recursively generate the series of indices and main function which operates on it.
For example something like
void worker(stringstream& strs, int[] dims, int dims_size, int step) {
if (step < dims_size) {
... // Add dims[step] to stringstream. Another if may be necessary for
... // whether include `,` or not
worker(strs, dims, dims_size, step + 1);
} else {
... // Add cell value to stringstream.
}
}
string create_matrix_string(int[] dims, int dims_size, int* matrix) {
... // Create stringstream, etc.
strs << ... // Add matrix name etc.
worker(strs, dims, dims_size, 0);
strs << ... // Add ending `;` etc.
}
The main problem here is the value, since the dimension is not known during compilation. You can avoid that by encoding matrix in single-dimensional table (well, that's what C++ is doing anyway for static multidimensional tables) and call it using manually computed index, eg. i + i * j (for two-dimensional table). You can do it, again, by passing an accumulated value recursively and using it in final step (which I omitted in example above). And you probably have to pass two of them (running sum of polynomial components, and the i * j * k * ... * x product for indices from steps done so far.
So, the code above is far from completion (and cleanliness), but I hope the idea is clear.

Answer 2

You can solve this, by doing i, j and k in a container of the size of dim[] - sample:
#include <iostream>
#include <vector>
template< typename Itr >
bool increment( std::vector< int >& ijk, Itr idim, int start )
{
for( auto i = begin(ijk); i != end(ijk); ++i, ++idim )
{
if( ++*i <= *idim )
return true;
*i = start;
}
return false;
}
int main()
{
using namespace std;
int dim[] = { 5, 7, 2, 3 };
const int start = 1;
vector< int > ijk( sizeof(dim)/sizeof(*dim), start );
for( bool inc_done = true; inc_done
; inc_done = increment( ijk, begin(dim), start ) )
{
// .. here make what you want to make with ijk
cout << "(";
bool first = true;
for( auto j = begin(ijk); j != end(ijk); ++j )
{
if( !first )
cout << ",";
else
first = false;
cout << *j;
}
cout << ")= tmp[t] " << endl;
}
return 0;
}