Advantages of Using Algorithms in C++
Understand how C++ standard library algorithms leverage noexcept move operations and complexity guarantees to optimize performance. Discover why these algorithms maintain efficiency without unnecessary memory allocation and how they compare favorably to C library functions. This lesson helps you grasp the importance of using algorithms to write readable, safe, and fast C++ code.
Algorithms require move operators not to throw
All algorithms use std::swap() and std::move() when moving elements around, but only if the move constructor and move assignment are marked noexcept. Therefore, it is important to have these implemented for heavy objects when using algorithms. If they are not available and exception free, the elements will be copied instead.
Note: If we implement a move constructor and a move assignment operator in our class,
std::swap()will utilize them and, therefore, a specifiedstd::swap()overload is not needed.
Algorithms have complexity guarantees
Each algorithm’s complexity in the standard library is specified using big notation. Algorithms are created with performance in mind. Therefore, they do not allocate memory nor do they have a time complexity higher than ...