On 2/20/07, Jean-Christophe Roux <jcxxr@yahoo.com> wrote:
Hello,
1) The new notation left/right used instead of first/second.
I am wondering if left/right will scale well. Isn't it reasonable to anticipate that the library could evolve into trimap, quadrimap and so on? Left/center/right could work for trimap but it becomes harder to find names for quadrimaps? Maybe going with one/two instead would be better.
The framework is about *bidirectional* mapping. This restriction allows us to build a very intuitive interface that extend the stl mapping framework. A bimap is a very frequent beast, so it is worth to have a special design for it. Trimaps and quadrimaps are less frequent. With trimaps you have to make a lot of changes to the interface. The operator[] will lost their meaning. trimap<X,Y,Z> tm; tm.one[x] = ?? And the most important thing is that when you are viewing one of the sides you can not provide the symmetric behaviour of the actual framework bimap<X,Y> bm; bm.left // --> map<X,Y> : X first, Y second bm.right // --> map<Y,X> : Y first, X second For a general N-map framework the best approach is to use Boost.MultiIndex. Best Regards Matias Capeletto