STL Tutorial and Reference Guide: C++ Programming with the Standard Template Library

by Atul Saini, Gillmer J. Derge, David R. Musser

Book Overview

The second edition is clearer and adds more examples on how to use STL in a practical environment. Moreover, it is more concerned with performance and tools for its measurement. Both changes are very... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0201379236
• ISBN13: 9780201379235
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
• Length: 509 Pages
• Weight: 2.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 7.7" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Tutorial and Reference Worth Having

This volume is a much improved version of the original of the same title. An additional author has come aboard. The major improvements I noticed were in the examples. There are many more examples and many more STL features now have examples showing how you can use them. The tutorial aspect of this book, which comprises the first part of the book, makes a strong case for not re-inventing the wheel, but rather using the containers, iterators and algorithms in the standard library. Practical examples come right from the start. This may take some getting used to by those who have never seen STL used before, however, the excitement is tonic.Also, the approach, of showing STL use before getting into the theories of iterator-based access, has been adopted in several subsequent C++ texts by teachers of C++ and has been found pedagogically sound.Don't overlook the precision and clarity of the (English) language discussion of the STL in the tutorial. It's worth reading every so often as a refresher.And the value of the reference section, which is easy to navigate and has everything in it that most other books dealing with STL don't is great indeed.On the whole, if you work in C++, this is a carefully put-together book that will have lasting value and continual use in your library.

Well-written coverage of most of what you need to know

I'm astonished by the abundance of IMO very ignorant reviews of this book. 4.5 stars might be the ideal rating, but given all the other excessively negative reviews, I opted for 5 rather than 4.This is a lucid, very well-written book, with plenty of sage advice. It introduces the concepts gently, but without excessive redundancy or hand-holding. The examples are well chosen, and illustrate their points (although in some places, there is a bit much duplication for my taste, but that too serves to illustrate the uniformity of STL). This book is clear, to the point, and covers most of the essential subjects amply (it's s bit weak on storage management, but as the authors mention, rarely will you need to write your own allocators). And it includes a minimal - but perfectly functional and adequate - reference section. The presentation is well organized, and procedes at a moderate pace.As one who has written a couple data structure libraries of his own, and who has taken to heart (in spite of C++ being a mess of a language, and templates being fundamentally a kludge) the sophistication of STL, I can safely say it incorporates many ideas that other programmers need to know, and probably do not appreciate fully. This book does a good job explaining some of the deeper motivations behind STL's design. As they say, a true master makes it look simple, and that's what both the authors of STL and this book achieve.It is true that the book is slightly out of date, but not with regard to the fundamentals. All of the key ideas you learn from this book apply to the latest revisions and any programmer worth his weight in, uh, salt can easily figure out the minor differences.I recommend this book to those who like insight, and succinct clarity, and who eschew the typical computer book, full of facts, hype, and verbosity, but little illumination, progressing by baby steps. This is a good solid book that will get you up to speed quickly on all the important ideas in STL, and many of its basic usage idioms.

incorrect reviews

Just a few more points, to refute earlier incorrect reviews:One reviewer said: "For instance, in the detailed presentation of sets and multisets, nowhere is it mentioned what the difference between the two is. You have to go to the "Overview of STL components" to get the information."This is incorrect: the authors cover the difference numerous places (and most people can guess what the difference is). See for example pages 118 and 151 (the latter being the section explaining set, multiset, and map).Another reviewer said: "...it fails to mention several large chunks of STL that you could immediately use, including the functionals and some very useful pieces (strings (with iostreams), bit sets, fstreams, locales, limits, etc)."This also is incorrect and misleading. Most of the items above are not part of STL, but rather the standard C++ library, so of course the authors don't discuss them. Also, presumably by "functionals" the reviewer means function objects, or function adaptors. Both of these are well coevered in the book.Another review stated: "If you look for some concrete examples then this book isn't it."This is hard to accept: almost every page of this book contains carefully chosen example code illustrating the point at hand. Even a little imagination should suffice to adapt it to your particulars.And finally: "While this book might help you use STL containers in straightforward circumstances, it doesn't contain enough theory to give you mastery of the topic."Also hard to accept. This book covers as much theory as there is to present; there aren't any higher level ideas than those presented here. For example, they take great pains to explain why there is a separation of algorithm and data structure, and to illustrate the pivotal role iterators play in organizing the library, to ensure (mostly) that the right algorithms are used with the right containers. If one looks for even deeper meaning, well, most of us don't know any, so feel free to write a book on it when you find it.Seems like people are really biased against this book. Again, it's a really good introduction to the fundamentals. Sorry to see it get trashed.

Still the best guide for the standard C++ library

Since this book was written the Standard Template Library (STL) has become part of the ANSI/ISO standard C++ library. The book is old (for being a bleeding edge technology) and some minor details have changed, but this is still the best guide available. Every serious C++ programmer should have this book within reach when programming.

Excellent overview and introduction

I found this to be a wunnerful book given that I wasn't very experienced using STL when I read it. It provided the necessary hooks for me to make better sense out of the two extremes on the continuum (see two references below). The reference section could be arranged more usefully, but this is a minor carp. I highly recommend this one for folks trying to get their minds around STL. This is an accessible cover-to-cover read. Gotta qualify the numerical rating. I consider this a 10 for the non-expert STL audience trying to understand STL. Probably more of a 6 for experienced users who are more interested in reference manuals. I find that as I get more and more familiar with STL, I look more and more frequently at the two books below. However, these books are now vastly more useful after reading "the STL Tutorial and Reference Guide". "The STL " by Glass and Schuchert. Excellent brief synopsis of the interfaces, not much supporting detail but very handy. I reach for this one first when I want to use something in STL. If I need more details, I look in... "C++ Programmer's guide to the Standard Template Library" by Mark Nelson, very detailed in its treatment of most *all* of the parts of STL. Thick, but something that provides all the details has to be.