Simple dictionary in C++

Question

Moving some code from Python to C++.

BASEPAIRS = { "T": "A", "A": "T", "G": "C", "C": "G" }

Thinking maps might be overkill? What would you use?

Answer 1

A table out of char array:

char map[256] = { 0 };
map['T'] = 'A'; 
map['A'] = 'T';
map['C'] = 'G';
map['G'] = 'C';
/* .... */

Answer 2

While using a std::map is fine or using a 256-sized char table would be fine, you could save yourself an enormous amount of space agony by simply using an enum. If you have C++11 features, you can use enum class for strong-typing:

// First, we define base-pairs. Because regular enums
// Pollute the global namespace, I'm using "enum class". 
enum class BasePair {
    A,
    T,
    C,
    G
};

// Let's cut out the nonsense and make this easy:
// A is 0, T is 1, C is 2, G is 3.
// These are indices into our table
// Now, everything can be so much easier
BasePair Complimentary[4] = {
    T, // Compliment of A
    A, // Compliment of T
    G, // Compliment of C
    C, // Compliment of G
};

Usage becomes simple:

int main (int argc, char* argv[] ) {
    BasePair bp = BasePair::A;
    BasePair complimentbp = Complimentary[(int)bp];
}

If this is too much for you, you can define some helpers to get human-readable ASCII characters and also to get the base pair compliment so you're not doing (int) casts all the time:

BasePair Compliment ( BasePair bp ) {
    return Complimentary[(int)bp]; // Move the pain here
}

// Define a conversion table somewhere in your program
char BasePairToChar[4] = { 'A', 'T', 'C', 'G' };
char ToCharacter ( BasePair bp ) {
    return BasePairToChar[ (int)bp ];
}

It's clean, it's simple, and its efficient.

Now, suddenly, you don't have a 256 byte table. You're also not storing characters (1 byte each), and thus if you're writing this to a file, you can write 2 bits per Base pair instead of 1 byte (8 bits) per base pair. I had to work with Bioinformatics Files that stored data as 1 character each. The benefit is it was human-readable. The con is that what should have been a 250 MB file ended up taking 1 GB of space. Movement and storage and usage was a nightmare. Of coursse, 250 MB is being generous when accounting for even Worm DNA. No human is going to read through 1 GB worth of base pairs anyhow.