Reference semantics

All containers have reference semantics, which means that after assignment both variables refer to the same underlying data.

To make a copy of a container, use the c.dup container primitive.

import std.container, std.range;
Array!int originalArray = make!(Array!int)(1, 2, 3);
Array!int secondArray = originalArray;
assert(equal(originalArray[], secondArray[]));

// changing one instance changes the other one as well!
originalArray[0] = 12;
assert(secondArray[0] == 12);

// secondArray now refers to an independent copy of originalArray
secondArray = originalArray.dup;
secondArray[0] = 1;
// assert that originalArray has not been affected
assert(originalArray[0] == 12);

Attention: If the container is implemented as a class, using an uninitialized instance can cause a null pointer dereference.

import std.container;

RedBlackTree!int rbTree;
rbTree.insert(5); // null pointer dereference

Using an uninitialized struct-based container will work, because the struct intializes itself upon use; however, up to this point the container will not have an identity and assignment does not create two references to the same data.

import std.container;

// create an uninitialized array
Array!int array1;
// array2 does _not_ refer to array1
Array!int array2 = array1;
array2.insertBack(42);
// thus array1 will not be affected
assert(array1.empty);

// after initialization reference semantics work as expected
array1 = array2;
// now affects array2 as well
array1.removeBack();
assert(array2.empty);

It is therefore recommended to always construct containers using std.container.util.make.

This is in fact necessary to put containers into another container. For example, to construct an Array of ten empty Arrays, use the following that calls make ten times.

import std.container, std.range;

auto arrOfArrs = make!Array(generate!(() => make!(Array!int)).take(10));

Submodules:

This module consists of the following submodules:

• The std.container.array module provides an array type with deterministic control of memory, not reliant on the GC unlike built-in arrays.
• The std.container.binaryheap module provides a binary heap implementation that can be applied to any user-provided random-access range.
• The std.container.dlist module provides a doubly-linked list implementation.
• The std.container.rbtree module implements red-black trees.
• The std.container.slist module implements singly-linked lists.
• The std.container.util module contains some generic tools commonly used by container implementations.

The primary range of a container

While some containers offer direct access to their elements e.g. via opIndex, c.front or c.back, access and modification of a container's contents is generally done through its primary range type, which is aliased as C.Range. For example, the primary range type of Array!int is Array!int.Range.

If the documentation of a member function of a container takes a parameter of type Range, then it refers to the primary range type of this container. Oftentimes Take!Range will be used, in which case the range refers to a span of the elements in the container. Arguments to these parameters must be obtained from the same container instance as the one being worked with. It is important to note that many generic range algorithms return the same range type as their input range.

import std.algorithm.comparison : equal;
import std.algorithm.iteration : find;
import std.container;
import std.range : take;

auto array = make!Array(1, 2, 3);

// `find` returns an Array!int.Range advanced to the element "2"
array.linearRemove(array[].find(2));

assert(array[].equal([1]));

array = make!Array(1, 2, 3);

// the range given to `linearRemove` is a Take!(Array!int.Range)
// spanning just the element "2"
array.linearRemove(array[].find(2).take(1));

assert(array[].equal([1, 3]));

When any range can be passed as an argument to a member function, the documention usually refers to the parameter's templated type as Stuff.

import std.algorithm.comparison : equal;
import std.container;
import std.range : iota;

auto array = make!Array(1, 2);

// the range type returned by `iota` is completely unrelated to Array,
// which is fine for Array.insertBack:
array.insertBack(iota(3, 10));

assert(array[].equal([1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]));

Container primitives

Containers do not form a class hierarchy, instead they implement a common set of primitives (see table below). These primitives each guarantee a specific worst case complexity and thus allow generic code to be written independently of the container implementation.

For example the primitives c.remove(r) and c.linearRemove(r) both remove the sequence of elements in range r from the container c. The primitive c.remove(r) guarantees O(n_r log n_c) complexity in the worst case and c.linearRemove(r) relaxes this guarantee to O(n_c).

Since a sequence of elements can be removed from a doubly linked list in constant time, DList provides the primitive c.remove(r) as well as c.linearRemove(r). On the other hand Array only offers c.linearRemove(r).

The following table describes the common set of primitives that containers implement. A container need not implement all primitives, but if a primitive is implemented, it must support the syntax described in the syntax column with the semantics described in the description column, and it must not have a worst-case complexity worse than denoted in big-O notation in the O(·) column. Below, C means a container type, c is a value of container type, n$(SUBSCRIPT x) represents the effective length of value x, which could be a single element (in which case n$(SUBSCRIPT x) is 1), a container, or a range.