Question

I have found myself repeatedly writing the following function :

// This function will try to find the 'item' in 'array'.
// If successful, it will return 'true' and set the 'index' appropriately.
// Otherwise it will return false.
bool CanFindItem(data_type item, const data_type* array, int array_size, int& index) const
{
    bool found = false;
    index=0;
    while(!found && i < array_size)
    {
         if (array[index] == item)
              found = true;
         else index++;             
    }

    return found;
}

Usually I write a similar function for each class/struct etc. need it.

My question is, is there a way to have this snippet ready to use without rewriting it ? I am programming in VS 2010.

Answer 1

You can turn it into a template by moving it to the .h file and putting template<typename data_type> at the front of the function.

You could also switch to using standard C++ features such as the std::find algorithm.