Question

I have made a list class as a means of replacing variadic functions in my program used for initializing objects that need to contain a changing list of elements. The list class has a usage syntax that I really like. However I haven’t seen it used before, so I was wondering if I shouldn’t use it just because of that fact? A basic implementation of the list class looks like this…

#include <list>
#include <iostream>
template<typename T>
struct list
{
    std::list<T> items;
    list(const list&ref):items(ref.items){}
    list(){}
    list(T var){items.push_back(var);}
    list& operator,(list add_){
        items.insert(items.end(),add_.items.begin(), add_.items.end());
        return *this;
    }
    list& operator=(list add_){
        items.clear();
        items.insert(items.end(),add_.items.begin(), add_.items.end());
        return *this;
    }
    list& operator+=(list add_){
        items.insert(items.end(),add_.items.begin(), add_.items.end());
        return *this;
    }
};

This allows me to have use this in code like so…

struct music{
//...
};
struct music_playlist{
    list<music> queue;
//...
};
int main (int argc, const char * argv[])
{
    music_playlist playlist;
    music song1;
    music song2;
    music song3;
    music song4;
    playlist.queue = song1,song2; // The queue now contains song1 and song2
    playlist.queue+= song1,song3,song4; //The queue now contains two song1s and song2-4
    playlist.queue = song2; //the queue now only contains song2
    return 0;
}

I really think that the syntax is much nicer than it would of been if I had just exposed a regular stl container, and even nicer (and typesafe) than variadic functions. However, since I have not seen this syntax used, I am curious about whether I should avoid it, because above all the code should be easily understood by other programmers?

EDIT:

In joint with this question, I have posted this question more targeted at solutions to the actual problem.

Answer 1

Why not overload the << operator as QList does? Then use it like:

playlist.queue << song1 << song2; // The queue now contains song1 and song2
playlist.queue << song1 << song3 << song4; //The queue now contains two song1s and song2-4