Click on the banner to return to the user guide home page.

©Copyright 1996 Rogue Wave Software

Chapter 13: Smalltalk-Like Collection Classes

• Tables of the Smalltalk-like Classes
• Example
• Choosing a Smalltalk-like Collection Class
• Bags Versus Sets Versus Hash Tables
• Sequenceable Classes
• Dictionaries
• Virtual Functions Inherited From RWCollection
• insert()
• find() and Friends
• remove() Functions
• apply() Functions
• Functions clear() and clearAndDestroy()
• Other Functions Shared by All RWCollections
• Class Conversions
• Inserting and Removing Other Collections
• Selection
• Virtual Functions Inherited from RWSequenceable
• A Note on How Objects are Found
• Hashing

The Smalltalk-like collection classes are the third general type of collection class provided by Tools.h++. Based on the language Smalltalk-80, these collections require that their collected objects singly or multiply inherit from the abstract base class RWCollectable.

These collection classes have a few disadvantages: they are slightly slower and not completely typesafe, and their objects are slightly larger. These disadvantages are easily outweighed by the power of these classes, and their clean programming interface. Most importantly, the Smalltalk-like collection classes are well-suited for heterogeneous collections and polymorphic persistence.

Many of the Tools.h++ Smalltalk-like classes have a typedef to either the corresponding Smalltalk names, or to a generic name. This typedef is activated by defining the preprocessor macro RW_STD_TYPEDEFS. Although you are free to use typedefs, we do encourage you to use the actual class names to make your code more maintainable.