The C++ draft says about std::lower_bound:
§ 25.4.3.1 lower_bound [lower.bound]
template<class ForwardIterator, class T>
ForwardIterator lower_bound(ForwardIterator first,
ForwardIterator last,
const T& value);
template<class ForwardIterator, class T, class Compare>
ForwardIterator lower_bound(ForwardIterator first,
ForwardIterator last,
const T& value,
Compare comp);
Requires: The elements e of [first,last) shall be partitioned with respect
to the expression e < value or comp(e, value).
Returns: The furthermost iterator i in the range [first,last] such that for
any iterator j in the range [first,i) the following corresponding
conditions hold: *j < value or comp(*j, value) != false.
Complexity: At most log2(last − first) + O(1) comparisons.
Note that this allows (by implication) one to compare a different (but comparable) type than *ForwardIterator
would return, but there's no complexity limitation on the number of iterator advancements. (For a node based container, this would be O(last − first) iterator advancements.)
§ 23.4.6.1
class set {
...
iterator lower_bound(const key_type& x);
const_iterator lower_bound(const key_type& x) const;
...
}
The standard doesn't detail these functions, but it's implied that these are for O(log2(last − first)) comparisons and advancements, but require the search key to be the same as the contained type.
So my questions are:
(1) Is there a way to get the speed of std::set::lower_bound
and the flexibility of search type of std::lower_bound
?
(2) Why isn't std::lower_bound
required to be specialized for std::set::iterator
?
(3) Are there implementations where std::lower_bound
is specialized for std::set::iterator
, or is there a reason why not?
I was hoping to find something like:
template< class Key, class Comp, class Alloc, class Lookup>
std::set<Key, Compare, Alloc>::const_iterator
lower_bound(
std::set<Key, Comp, Alloc>::const_iterator begin,
std::set<Key, Comp, Alloc>::const_iterator end,
const Lookup& find,
Compare comp);
template< class Key, class Comp, class Alloc, class Lookup>
std::set<Key, Compare, Alloc>::iterator
lower_bound(
std::set<Key, Comp, Alloc>::iterator begin,
std::set<Key, Comp, Alloc>::iterator end,
const Lookup& find,
Compare comp);
or:
template < class Key, class Compare = less<Key>, class Allocator = allocator<Key> >
class set {
...
template<class Lookup>
iterator lower_bound(const Lookup& x);
template<class Lookup>
const_iterator lower_bound(const Lookup& x) const;
...
}
But I doubt it exists. Obviously, all of this can be expanded to other tree-based containers, and other algorithms. I'd code it myself, but it would require me to use implementation specific code. This idea came from this question: Efective search in set with non-key type