Containers/README.md

Containers

This library provides various containers. Each container has utility functions to manipulate the data it holds. This is an abstraction as to not have to manually manage and reallocate memory.

Inspired by the C++ standard library; however, implemented using C with different function interfaces as the C++ standard library but with the same container names.

Setup

There are two types of library files which can be generated: dynamic and static. Both ways will be described below using clang. However, the steps are the same with gcc except clang is to be replaced with gcc.

The benefit of a dynamic library is that changing the containers.so library can be done without needing to recompile the codebase which is using the library. Nevertheless, it is slower than a static library.

The benefit of a static library is that it is faster than a dynamic library. However, if the containers.a library is modified, the codebase which is using the library needs to be recompiled.

Dynamic Library

1. Navigate to your C working directory

2. Run:

   git clone ssh://git@github.com/bkthomps/Containers.git
   cd Containers/src
   

3. To create a dynamic library, run:

   clang -shared -o containers.so -O3 -fPIC *.c
   

4. Now, you can copy and paste the include directory and containers.so to any project that you would like to use the dynamic library with.

5. Thus, for an example program, the directory would look like this:

   • containers.so
   • include/
     • array.h
     • deque.h
     • ...
   • test.c

6. The test.c file could then contain, for example:

   #include "include/vector.h"
   

7. And the project would be compiled with:

   clang test.c -o test containers.so -ldl
   

Static Library

1. Navigate to your C working directory

2. Run:

   git clone ssh://git@github.com/bkthomps/Containers.git
   cd Containers/src
   

3. To create a static library, run:

   clang *.c -c -O3 -fpic
   ar rcs containers.a *.o
   rm *.o
   

4. Now, you can copy and paste the include directory and containers.a to any project that you would like to use the static library with.

5. Thus, for an example program, the directory would look like this:

   • containers.a
   • include/
     • array.h
     • deque.h
     • ...
   • test.c

6. The test.c file could then contain, for example:

   #include "include/vector.h"
   

7. And the project would be compiled with:

   clang test.c -o test containers.a -ldl
   

Container Types

The container types that this library contains are described below.

Sequence containers

Data structures which can be accessed sequentially.

• array - static contiguous array
• vector - dynamic contiguous array
• deque - double-ended queue
• forward_list - singly-linked list
• list - doubly-linked list

Associative containers

Data structures that can be quickly searched which use comparators.

• set - collection of unique keys, sorted by keys
• map - collection of key-value pairs, sorted by keys, keys are unique
• multiset - collection of keys, sorted by keys
• multimap - collection of key-value pairs, sorted by keys

Unordered associative containers

Data structures that can be quickly searched which use hashing.

• unordered_set - collection of unique keys, hashed by keys
• unordered_map - collection of key-value pairs, hashed by keys, keys are unique
• unordered_multiset - collection of keys, hashed by keys
• unordered_multimap - collection of key-value pairs, hashed by keys

Container adaptors

Data structures which adapt other containers to enhance functionality.

• stack - adapts a container to provide stack (last-in first-out)
• queue - adapts a container to provide queue (first-in first-out)
• priority_queue - adapts a container to provide priority queue