Question

Consider the following “round trip” iterator, which tries to iterate over all the elements in a collection, eventually iterating over the first element again as its final step:

#include <boost/iterator/iterator_adaptor.hpp>

template<typename IteratorBase>
class roundtrip_iterator 
     : public boost::iterator_adaptor< 
          roundtrip_iterator<IteratorBase>, // the derived class overriding iterator behavior
          IteratorBase,                     // the base class providing default behavior
          boost::use_default,               // iterator value type, will be IteratorBase::value_type
          std::forward_iterator_tag,        // iterator category
          boost::use_default                // iterator reference type
       > 
{
private:
  IteratorBase m_itBegin;
  IteratorBase m_itEnd;
  bool m_complete;

public:
  roundtrip_iterator( IteratorBase itBegin, IteratorBase itEnd ) 
    : iterator_adaptor_(itBegin), m_itBegin(itBegin), m_itEnd(itEnd), m_complete(false)
  {}

  void increment()
  { 
    if( m_complete )
    {
      base_reference() = m_itEnd;
      return;
    }

    ++base_reference();

    if(base_reference() == m_itEnd)
    {
      base_reference() = m_itBegin;
      m_complete = true;
    }
  }
};

I have only implemented increment for now.

As it stands, the iterator seems to work well in standard “for” loops, but I can’t get it to work with STL algorithms. For example:

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
  std::vector<int> v;

  v.push_back(1);
  v.push_back(2);
  v.push_back(3);

  roundtrip_iterator<std::vector<int>::iterator> roundtrip(v.begin(), v.end());

  for( ; roundtrip.base() != v.end(); ++roundtrip)
    std::cout << *roundtrip << std::endl;

  std::cout << std::endl;

  roundtrip_iterator<std::vector<int>::iterator> roundtrip2(v.begin(), v.end());

  std::for_each(
    roundtrip2.base(), v.end(),
    print);

}

Prints:

1
2    
3
1 // First element printed out using standard for loop.

1
2
3 // The for_each algo stops here for some reason.

Does anybody have any ideas as to the difference between the two?

Answer 1

By calling roundtrip2.base(), you’re effectively passing the range [v.begin(), v.end) to std::for_each. You need to be able to construct a one-past-the-end value e such that you can pass [roundtrip2, e) instead.