Effective Stl: 50 Specific Ways To Improve Your Use Of The Standard Template Library( Series - Addison-wesley Professional Computing Series )

"This is "Effective C++" volume three - it's really that good."
- Herb Sutter, independent consultant and secretary of the ISO/ANSI C++ standards committee "There are very few books which all C++ programmers "must" have. Add "Effective STL" to that list."
- Thomas Becker, Senior Software Engineer, Zephyr Associates, Inc., and columnist, "C/C++ Users Journal" C++'s Standard Template Library is revolutionary, but learning to use it well has always been a challenge. Until now. In this book, best-selling author Scott Meyers ("Effective C++," and "More Effective C++") reveals the critical rules of thumb employed by the experts - the things they almost always do or almost always avoid doing - to get the most out of the library. Other books describe "what's in" the STL. "Effective STL" shows you "how to use it," Each of the book's 50 guidelines is backed by Meyers' legendary analysis and incisive examples, so you'll learn not only what to do, but also "when" to do it - and "why," Highlights of "Effective STL" include:

• Advice on choosing among standard STL containers (like vector and list), nonstandard STL containers (like hash_set and hash_map), and non-STL containers (like bitset).
• Techniques to maximize the efficiency of the STL and the programs that use it.
• Insights into the behavior of iterators, function objects, and allocators, including things you should "not" do.
• Guidance for the proper use of algorithms and member functions whose names are the same (e.g., find), but whose actions differ in subtle (but important) ways.
• Discussions of potential portability problems, including straightforward ways to avoid them.

Like Meyers' previous books,"Effective STL" is filled with proven wisdom that comes only from experience. Its clear, concise, penetrating style makes it an essential resource for every STL programmer.

The goal of this book is to provide the working C++ programmer with fifty specific ways to improve his or her use of C++'s Standard Template Library. It gives advice on what should be done, and why, and what should not be done, and why not. It focuses on iterators, containers, function objects, and algorithms. It concentrates on using the STL, not extending it.