Simple container class with templates

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

I've been working on a simple program to output values to the console as a learning project, and I stumbled across an article advising against using 2D containers, suggesting to simulate them instead with a 1D vector/container. I immediately proceeded to try to create a ridiculous class that converted input X and Y values into the correct position in the class's vector member. This class had a lot of redundant code, and eventually I realized that I was losing the value of the simplicity of the container having only one dimension by requiring two dimensions to input into the container. Instead I decided to move that math to other functions and just take a single input into the vector inside the class.

The following code is an attempt at a SimpleContainer class. I realize that I am reinventing the wheel here, but this is just a project to aid the learning process for me. I'm trying to learn C++ best practices, and things like good code layout and readability. I know that this class is missing some important optimization and features, and I think I'm doing unnecessary copying, but it would be very helpful for me to have a breakdown of what I'm doing right and wrong. This is also my first experience with using templates, but thankfully the code compiles, so I think I'm doing it right.

#include     //Needed for std::cout and std::endl
#include       //Needed for std::vector and others

//These values are arbitrary and are only used when computing the
//screen size for things like memory allocation for the Container
#define CONSOLEWIDTH  80;
#define CONSOLEHEIGHT 25;

//The purpose of this class is to have an easy way to input variables and objects into a container,
//sometimes a large number of them at a time, and then retrieve and print them easily as well.
//Templating the class allows the input and printing of ints and chars very easily
//You could input objects, but some of the functions may not work with the code as written
template <class myType>
class SimpleContainer
{
public:
    //I think there are other ways to do the following but I don't know them
    SimpleContainer(int containerSize, myType defaultValue)
    {
        classVector.resize(containerSize);

        for(int i = 0; i < containerSize; i++)
        {
            classVector[i] = defaultValue;
        }
    }

    //Simply looks at the classVector size and returns (used for iterating over it)
    int getSize();

    //The setValue function sets the value at specified container position
    void setValue(int containerPosition, myType inputValue);

    //I feel like I'm missing a reference here but & threw an error
    void inputEntireVector(std::vector inputVector);

    //You have to compute the X and Y positions outside of this function if you want
    //to simulate a 2D matrix
    myType getValue (int containerPosition);

    //Prints the entire contents of the container starting from vector.begin()
    //I think this will only work with ints and chars, and with ints over 9 it will
    //mess up the alignment of the console view
    void printContainer();

private:
    std::vector classVector;
};

template<class myType>
int SimpleContainer::getSize()
{
    return classVector.size();
}

template<class myType>
void SimpleContainer::setValue(int containerPosition, myType inputValue)
{
    classVector.erase(classVector.begin() + containerPosition);

    //vector.insert() takes for its third argument a value for the number of times to
    //insert the input value
    int numInputCopies = 1;
    classVector.insert(classVector.begin() + containerPosition, numInputCopies, inputValue);
}

template<class myType>
void SimpleContainer::inputEntireVector(std::vector inputVector)
{
    classVector.swap(inputVector);
}

template<class myType>
myType SimpleContainer::getValue(int containerPosition)
{
    
                                                

                                                                                                        
                                                    
                                                
                                                


                                                    

                                                        
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