In computer science, a container is a class, a data structure,[1][2] or an abstract data type (ADT) whose instances are collections of other objects. In other words; they are used for storing objects in an organized way following specific access rules. The size of the container depends on the number of the objects (elements) it contains.The underlying implementation of various types of containers may vary in space and time complexity allowing for flexibility in choosing the right implementation for a given scenario.
Overview
Containers can be studied under three points of views.
- Access : It means accessing the container elements. In the case of arrays, accessing is done with the array index. For stacks, access of elements is done using LIFO (Last In First Out) [3] (alternative name FILO (First In Last Out) and in queues it is done using FIFO (First In First Out).[3][4]
- Storage : It includes storing of items of containers. Some containers are finite containers and some are infinite containers.
- Traversal : It includes how the item can be traversed.
Container classes are expected to implement methods to do the following:
- create a new empty container (constructor),
- report the number of objects it stores (size),
- delete all the objects in the container (clear),
- insert new objects into the container,
- remove objects from it,
- provide access to the stored objects.
Containers are sometimes implemented in conjunction with iterators.
Types
Containers can be divided into two groups:
- Value based containers
- Reference based containers
Value based containers
Store copies of objects. If we access an object, the object returns a copy of it. If an external object is changed after it has been inserted in the container it will not affect the content of the container.
Reference based containers
Store pointers or references to the object. If we access an object, the object returns a reference to it. If an external object is changed after it has been inserted in the container, it affects the content of the container.
Single or associative
A container may be:
- Single value
- Associative
Single value containers
Each object is stored independently in the container and it is accessed directly or with an iterator.
Associative containers
Associative array, map, or dictionary is a container composed of (key,value) pairs, such that each key appears at most once in the container. The key is used to find the value, the object, if it is stored in the container.
Examples of containers
Containers are divided in the Standard Template Library into associative containers and standard sequence containers. Besides this two types, so-called container adaptors exist. Data structures that implement containers include arrays, lists, maps, queues, sets, stacks, tables, trees, and vectors.
Graphic containers
Widget toolkits use special widgets also called Containers to group the other widgets together (windows, panels, ...). Apart from their graphical properties, they have the same type of behavior as container classes, as they keep a list of their child widgets, and allow to add, remove, or retrieve widgets amongst their children.
Containers in object oriented programming
In object oriented programming, we define a container class as class capable of storing other objects.These classes usually implement some kind of data structure such as map, set, stacks, etc. The size of the collection of objects is adjusted automatically in a container class.
Implementations
See also
References
External links
