A Static Map?

14 Jan 2002

      I have learned a lot about templates and library programming from reading
and using the Boost code. Recently I have been finding myself doing
something that I would call Static Maps. Basically I would like to use an
array of structs as if it were a map or associative array.

Does boost have anything like this or can anyone recommend something like
that?

Here is a simple example:

struct entry 
{
    const char* key;
    const char* value;
};

const entry entries[] =
{
    { "one", "Hello" },
    { "two", "World" },
    { "three", "!" }
};

{
    some_type the_map = make_static_map( entries );
    const char* word = the_map[ "one" ];

}

This is a real poor example, but shows the idea. The struct could be any
types that are less-than comparable; maybe there is some special
arrangment of key and type. But the idea is there. I would like to be
able to lookup items in a static array of items using array notation
(other than numerically indexed).

For extra credit, the interface would be writeable also; aka a fixed
array space map.

Any idea? Comments? Suggestions?

..Duane

A Static Map?

Duane Murphy