uninitialized_fill



Categories: allocators, algorithms	Component type: function

Prototype

template <class ForwardIterator, class T>
void uninitialized_fill(ForwardIterator first, ForwardIterator last, 
                        const T& x);

Description

In C++, the operator new allocates memory for an object and then creates an object at that location by calling a constructor. Occasionally, however, it is useful to separate those two operations. [1] If each iterator in the range [first, last) points to uninitialized memory, then uninitialized_fill creates copies of x in that range. That is, for each iterator i in the range [first, last), uninitialized_fill creates a copy of x in the location pointed to i by calling construct(&*i, x).

Definition

Defined in the standard header memory, and in the nonstandard backward-compatibility header algo.h.

Requirements on types

ForwardIterator is a model of Forward Iterator.
ForwardIterator is mutable.
ForwardIterator's value type has a constructor that takes a single argument of type T.

Preconditions

[first, last) is a valid range.
Each iterator in [first, last) points to a region of uninitialized memory that is large enough to store a value of ForwardIterator's value type.

Complexity

Linear. Exactly last - first constructor calls.

Example

class Int {
public:
  Int(int x) : val(x) {}
  int get() { return val; }
private:
  int val;
};    

int main()
{
  const int N = 137;
  
  Int val(46);
  Int* A = (Int*) malloc(N * sizeof(Int));
  uninitialized_fill(A, A + N, val);
}

Notes

[1] In particular, this sort of low-level memory management is used in the implementation of some container classes.