Alex Rivera | Logout

Is the use of std::vector<bool> objects in C++ acceptable, or should I use an alternative?

Asked 2011-07-21T19:59:03.457
33

I'm working with a user-defined quantity of bits (I'm holding a three-dimensional array of bits, so the size increases cubically - assume no less then 512 bits), and need to flip them each individually. Right now, just on a computer, I'm using the bool type, since memory isn't an issue. I do plan to move the code to a microcontroller in the future, and so processing power and memory requirements may be an issue. Right now though, I just want speed.

I then found the std::bitset object from the C++ STL, but I can't define a bitset's size at runtime. I then found that the std::vector<bool> has a special initializer to store them as bits (instead of entire bytes, or 4 bytes) but then found this section in Wikipedia:

The Standard Library defines a specialization of the vector template for bool. The description of this specialization indicates that the implementation should pack the elements so that every bool only uses one bit of memory. This is widely considered a mistake. [...] There is a general consensus among the C++ Standard Committee and the Library Working Group that vector<bool> should be deprecated and subsequently removed from the standard library, while the functionality will be reintroduced under a different name.

Now, you can probably see my want for using a vector<bool> object, but after reading that, I'm considering using something else. The only problem is that I'm not sure what to use. I was curious though why they state that the functionality should be re-introduced (albeit under a different name).

So, my question is, would the use of vector<bool><

Edit
Report

1 Answer

25

There's nothing wrong with vector<bool>, except that it isn't equivalent to a vector<T> were T is the integer type equivalent to bool. This only shows in performance (CPUs only access bytes at a time, where in a vector<bool> every element is stored in one bit) and memory access (a reference to a first element of a vector<bool> is not equivalent to an array like with any other vector<T>.

It is part of the Standard, unfortunately: see section 23.3.7 (C++0x FDIS).

answered 2011-07-21T20:07:02.117

Your Answer