On 01/10/12 14:08, Allan Nielsen wrote: [snip]
the largest enumeration. However, in the case of StructModel_r, I don't understand:
static const size_t size = head::size * _tail::size;
around line 200. I would think that there would just be additions since you want to store one value after another. That's why, in my previous post, in template sum_bits, there's:
, integral_c
Could you explain why multiplication instead of addition is used to calculate the size in StructModel_r?
This is because the offset is not really an offset, I just could not come up with a better name. Here is the explanation:
Assume we need to store 5 different enumerated types which each represents 3 different values ( like the A, B C).
These 5 enums can all together represent 3^5 = 243 different values ( AAAAA, AAAAB, AAAAC, AAABA, AAABB ...).
As 243 is less than 256 ( all the different values in a char), it is possible to store the values in a char. But in a binary number system 2 bits are required to store one tri-state value. If we use 3 * 5 bits we end up with 15 bits ( more than one char) which is not the most efficient encoding.
Therefore we encode this in a base_3 number system which is defined by: ... d_2 * n^2 + d_1 * n^1 + d_0 * n^0, where d is the digits we want to encode, and n is 3 because all the enums are tri-states.
Example: Encode BCACB -> 12021
1*3^4 + 2*3^3 + 0*3^2 + 2*3^1 + 1*3^0 = 142
To extract enum number 4 the reverse operation must be done: (142 / 3^3) % 3 = 2
If different enums are with different sizes are used then n in the equation above will be different for each digit. Then to set digit number 4 one has to multiply n_0 * n_1 * n_2 * n_3 and then use this as base. Therefore the multiplications.
Ah! Now I see. This reminds me of apl decode and encode: http://www.sigapl.org/encode.htm the radix vector mentioned there represents the sizes (=max value+1) of the enums to be stored. For example, let: enum E_0{e0_0,e0_1,e0_2,...,e0_n0}; enum E_1{e1_0,e1_1,...,e1_n1}; ... enum E_m{em_0,em_1,...,em_nm}; then the radix vector, rv, would be: unsigned rv[m+1]={n0+1,n1+2,...,nm+1}; and to encode the enum values: struct Ev { E_0 e0; E_1 e1; ... E_m em; }; Ev ev={e0_i0, e1_i1, ..., em_im}; decode would be used: unsigned dv=decode(rv,ev) where decode is the c++ equivalent of the decode described on encode.htm. Is that about right? -regards, Larry