Visual C++ 6 Unleashed

By MICKEY WILLIAMS and David Bennett

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • About the Authors
  • About the Contributors
  • Acknowledgments
  • Tell Us What You Think!
  • Introduction
  • How to Use This Book
  • What You Need to Use This Book
  • What's New in Visual C++ 6.0
  • Contacting the Main Author
  • Part I: Introduction
  • Chapter 1. The Visual C++ 6.0 Environment
  • Part II: MFC Programming
  • Chapter 2. MFC Class Library Overview
  • Chapter 3. MFC Message Handling Mechanism
  • Chapter 4. The Document View Architecture
  • Chapter 5. Creating and Using Dialog Boxes
  • Chapter 6. Working with Device Contexts and GDI Objects
  • Chapter 7. Creating and Using Property Sheets
  • Chapter 8. Working with the File System
  • Chapter 9. Using Serialization with File and Archive Objects
  • Part III: Internet Programming with MFC
  • Chapter 10. MFC and the Internet Server API (ISAPI)
  • Chapter 11. The WinInet API
  • Chapter 12. MFC HTML Support
  • Part IV: Advanced Programming Topics
  • Chapter 13. Using the Standard C++ Library
    • Standard C++ Library
    • Standard Template Library (STL)
    • Containers
    • Iterators
    • Algorithms
    • Using STL with MFC and ATL
    • Summary
  • Chapter 14. Error Detection and Exception Handling Techniques
  • Chapter 15. Debugging and Profiling Strategies
  • Chapter 16. Multithreading
  • Chapter 17. Using Scripting and Other Tools to Automate the Visual C++ IDE
  • Part V: Database Programming
  • Chapter 18. Creating Custom AppWizards
  • Chapter 19. Database Overview
  • Chapter 20. ODBC Programming
  • Chapter 21. MFC Database Classes
  • Chapter 22. Using OLE DB
  • Chapter 23. Programming with ADO
  • Part VI: MFC Support for COM and ActiveX
  • Chapter 24. Overview of COM and Active Technologies
  • Chapter 25. Active Documents
  • Chapter 26. Active Containers
  • Chapter 27. Active Servers
  • Chapter 28. ActiveX Controls
  • Part VII: Using the Active Template Library
  • Chapter 29. ATL Architecture
  • Chapter 30. Creating COM Objects Using ATL
  • Chapter 31. Creating ActiveX Controls Using ATL
  • Chapter 32. Using ATL to Create MTS and COM+ Components
  • Part VIII: Finishing Touches
  • Chapter 33. Adding Windows Help
  • Part IX: Appendix

Summary

In this chapter, you took a look at the Standard C++ Library. You examined the two major components of the library: the C++ language itself and the Standard Template Library (STL).

You learned that the STL is a generic container class library. You then examined its main components—containers, iterators, and algorithms. The containers manage the storage and processing of data, and they are implemented by template containers. The iterators are used to traverse the containers, and algorithms create the bond between the containers. The algorithms are standalone functions and are not member-specific.

You learned to think of a container as an object that holds other objects. Containers are implemented by template classes to enable them to hold different kinds of data in an easy manner. The STL contains the most common containers that programmers find useful when handling common programming tasks.

This chapter also showed you how iterators provide methods to traverse the contents of a container and are used to access individual elements in a container. Iterators are similar to pointers and can be incremented to point to the next element; iterators can be dereferenced to obtain the value of the element they point to. Iterators allow algorithms and containers to connect and create the bond that enables them to work together.

Next, you examined how algorithms enable you to perform functions on the containers. They are not container-specific or members of the containers but standalone functions that are general in nature. You saw that you can use the algorithms on containers you create yourself or C++ arrays. Algorithms are represented by template functions. In this chapter, you looked at a well-rounded group of examples using the containers, iterators, and algorithms.

You also were introduced to the Active Template Library (ATL), which you use to create very lightweight COM objects, Automation Server controls, and Active X controls. ATL objects do not require a DLL or static library upon distribution (unlike MFC) and leave a small memory footprint. ATL has no provisions for data structures or algorithms, which makes it an excellent partner with STL.

Finally, you looked at using STL with MFC and ATL. You saw that using MFC with STL is advantageous only if you want to traverse the MFC class libraries using the STL generic method and you want to apply the generic algorithms with MFC. ATL is an excellent partner to STL in that ATL has no provisions for data structures and algorithms, and STL fits that bill nicely.

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