34 lines
2.6 KiB
Markdown
34 lines
2.6 KiB
Markdown
# Boost PolyCollection library
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Branch | Travis | AppVeyor | Regression tests
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---------|--------|----------|-----------------
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develop | [](https://travis-ci.org/boostorg/poly_collection) | [](https://ci.appveyor.com/project/joaquintides/poly-collection) | [](https://www.boost.org/development/tests/develop/developer/poly_collection.html)
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master | [](https://travis-ci.org/boostorg/poly_collection) | [](https://ci.appveyor.com/project/joaquintides/poly-collection) | [](https://www.boost.org/development/tests/master/developer/poly_collection.html)
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**Boost.PolyCollection**: fast containers of polymorphic objects.
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[Online docs](http://boost.org/libs/poly_collection)
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[Seminal article at bannalia.blogspot.com](http://bannalia.blogspot.com/2014/05/fast-polymorphic-collections.html)
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Typically, polymorphic objects cannot be stored *directly* in regular containers
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and need be accessed through an indirection pointer, which introduces performance
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problems related to CPU caching and branch prediction. Boost.PolyCollection
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implements a
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[novel data structure](http://www.boost.org/doc/html/poly_collection/an_efficient_polymorphic_data_st.html)
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that is able to contiguously store polymorphic objects without such indirection,
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thus providing a value-semantics user interface and better performance.
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Three *polymorphic collections* are provided:
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* [`boost::base_collection`](http://www.boost.org/doc/html/poly_collection/tutorial.html#poly_collection.tutorial.basics.boost_base_collection)
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* [`boost::function_collection`](http://www.boost.org/doc/html/poly_collection/tutorial.html#poly_collection.tutorial.basics.boost_function_collection)
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* [`boost::any_collection`](http://www.boost.org/doc/html/poly_collection/tutorial.html#poly_collection.tutorial.basics.boost_any_collection)
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dealing respectively with classic base/derived or OOP polymorphism, function wrapping
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in the spirit of `std::function` and so-called
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[*duck typing*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_typing) as implemented by
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[Boost.TypeErasure](http://www.boost.org/libs/type_erasure).
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## Requirements
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Boost.PolyCollection is a header-only library. C++11 support is required. The library has been verified to work with Visual Studio 2015, GCC 4.8 and Clang 3.3.
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