Question

I am building an app that needs to have support for two dimensional arrays to hold a grid of data. I have a class Map that contains a 2d grid of data. I want to use vectors rather than arrays, and I was wondering what the best practices were for using 2d vectors. Should I have a vector of vectors of MapCells? or should it be a vector of vectors of pointers to MapCells? or references to MapCells?

class Map {
private:
    vector<vector<MapCell>> cells;

public:
    void loadMap() {
        cells.clear();
        for (int i = 0; i < WIDTH; i++) {
            //How should I be allocating these?
            vector<MapCell> row(HEIGHT);
            for (int j = 0; j < HEIGHT; j++) {
                //Should I be dynamically allocating these?
                MapCell cell;
                row.push_back(cell);
            }
            cells.push_back(row);
        }
    }
}

Basically what way of doing this is going to get me in the least amount of trouble (with respect to memory management or anything else)?

Answer 1

When you want a square or 2d grid, do something similar to what the compiler does for multidimensional arrays (real ones, not an array of pointers to arrays) and store a single large array which you index correctly.

Example using the Matrix class below:

struct Map {
private:
  Matrix<MapCell> cells;

public:
  void loadMap() {
    Matrix<MapCell> cells (WIDTH, HEIGHT);

    for (int i = 0; i < WIDTH; i++) {
      for (int j = 0; j < HEIGHT; j++) {
        // modify cells[i][j]
      }
    }

    swap(this->cells, cells);
    // if there's any problem loading, don't modify this->cells
    // Matrix swap guarantees no-throw (because vector swap does)
    // which is a common and important aspect of swaps
  }
};

Variants of matrix classes abound, and there are many ways to tailor for specific use. Here’s an example in less than 100 lines that gets you 80% or more of what you need:

#include <algorithm>
#include <memory>
#include <vector>

template<class T, class A=std::allocator<T> >
struct Matrix {
  typedef T value_type;
  typedef std::vector<value_type, A> Container;

  Matrix() : _b(0) {}
  Matrix(int a, int b, value_type const& initial=value_type())
  : _b(0)
  {
    resize(a, b, initial);
  }
  Matrix(Matrix const& other)
  : _data(other._data), _b(other._b)
  {}

  Matrix& operator=(Matrix copy) {
    swap(*this, copy);
    return *this;
  }

  bool empty() const { return _data.empty(); }
  void clear() { _data.clear(); _b = 0; }

  int dim_a() const { return _b ? _data.size() / _b : 0; }
  int dim_b() const { return _b; }

  value_type* operator[](int a) {
    return &_data[a * _b];
  }
  value_type const* operator[](int a) const {
    return &_data[a * _b];
  }

  void resize(int a, int b, value_type const& initial=value_type()) {
    if (a == 0) {
      b = 0;
    }
    _data.resize(a * b, initial);
    _b = b;
  }

  friend void swap(Matrix& a, Matrix& b) {
    using std::swap;
    swap(a._data, b._data);
    swap(a._b,    b._b);
  }

  template<class Stream>
  friend Stream& operator<<(Stream& s, Matrix const& value) {
    s << "<Matrix at " << &value << " dimensions "
      << value.dim_a() << 'x' << value.dim_b();
    if (!value.empty()) {
      bool first = true;
      typedef typename Container::const_iterator Iter;
      Iter i = value._data.begin(), end = value._data.end();
      while (i != end) {
        s << (first ? " [[" : "], [");
        first = false;
        s << *i;
        ++i;
        for (int b = value._b - 1; b; --b) {
          s << ", " << *i;
          ++i;
        }
      }
      s << "]]";
    }
    s << '>';
    return s;
  }

private:
  Container _data;
  int _b;
};