What is a truly empty std::vector in C++?
- by RyanG
I've got a two vectors in class A that contain other class objects B and C. I know exactly how many elements these vectors are supposed to hold at maximum. In the initializer list of class A's constructor, I initialize these vectors to their max sizes (constants).
If I understand this correctly, I now have a vector of objects of class B that have been initialized using their default constructor. Right? When I wrote this code, I thought this was the only way to deal with things. However, I've since learned about std::vector.reserve() and I'd like to achieve something different.
I'd like to allocate memory for these vectors to grow as large as possible because adding to them is controlled by user-input, so I don't want frequent resizings. However, I iterate through this vector many, many times per second and I only currently work on objects I've flagged as "active". To have to check a boolean member of class B/C on ever iteration is silly. I don't want these objects to even BE there for my iterators to see when I run through this list.
Is reserving the max space ahead of time and using push_back to add a new object to the vector a solution to this?
