DOC HOME SITE MAP MAN PAGES GNU INFO SEARCH PRINT BOOK
 
Getting Started

Choosing a representation for a day's appointments

What kind of representation should we use for Appts? Since even a busy executive probably has fewer than a dozen appointments in a single day, a linear structure would be quite appropriate, so we will use a Block of Appointments:

       #include <Block.h>
       class Appts {
           Block<Appointment> appts;
           int nappts;
       public:
           Appts() : nappts(0) {}
           void add(const Appointment& a) {
               appts.reserve(nappts);
               appts[nappts++] = a;
           }
       };
Notice that we also maintain the number of appointments; this is because Blocks (like arrays) do not keep track of the number of cells occupied by meaningful data.

Keeping the Appointments for a given Date sorted would simplify matters, because that's the way we have been asked to display them. To do this, we can use an algorithm from Array_alg(3C++). The algorithm insert() requires that its element type have a total order relation defined by operator< (its manpage tells us this), so we must add one to Appointment:

       int operator<(const Appointment& a,
         const Appointment& b) {
           return a.time < b.time;
       }
Now we can use insert() to add an Appointment to the Block:
       #include <Array_alg.h>
       class Appts {
       public:
           void add(const Appointment& a) {
               appts.reserve(nappts);
               insert(&a[0], &appts[0], &appts[nappts]);
               ++nappts;
           }
           // ...
       };
Finally, we will also have need of the following functions:
       class Appts {
           int num() const {
               return nappts;
           }
           const Appointment& operator[](int i) const {
               return appts[i];
           }
           // ...
       };
The first returns the number of Appointments in the collection, and the section returns a reference to the i'th one. As with the extra functions in Calendar, these functions were added only when their utility became obvious.
Next topic: Implementing the queries
Previous topic: Choosing a representation for the Calendar

© 2004 The SCO Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
UnixWare 7 Release 7.1.4 - 27 April 2004