C++ strings without <string> and STL

Question

I've not used C++ very much in the past, and have recently been doing a lot of C#, and I'm really struggling to get back into the basics of C++ again. This is particularly tricky as work mandates that none of the most handy C++ constructs can be used, so all strings must be char *'s, and there is no provision for STL lists.

What I'm currently trying to do is to create a list of strings, something which would take me no time at all using STL or in C#. Basically I want to have a function such as:

char **registeredNames = new char*[numberOfNames];

Then,

RegisterName(const * char const name, const int length)
{
    //loop to see if name already registered snipped
    if(notFound)
    {
        registeredNames[lastIndex++] = name;
    }

}

or, if it was C#...

if(!registeredNames.Contains(name))
{
    registeredNames.Add(name);
}

and I realize that it doesn't work. I know the const nature of the passed variables (a const pointer and a const string) makes it rather difficult, but my basic problem is that I've always avoided this situation in the past by using STL lists etc. so I've never had to work around it!

Answer 1

There are legitimate reasons that STL might be avoided. When working in fixed environments where memory or speed is a premium, it's sometimes difficult to tell what is going on under the hood with STL. Yes, you can write your own memory allocators, and yes, speed generally isn't a problem, but there are differences between STL implementations across platforms, and those differences mighe be subtle and potentially buggy. Memory is perhaps my biggest concern when thinking about using it.

Memory is precious, and how we use it needs to be tightly controlled. Unless you've been down this road, this concept might not make sense, but it's true. We do allow for STL usage in tools (outside of game code), but it's prohibited inside of the actual game. One other related problem is code size. I am slightly unsure of how much STL can contribute to executable size, but we've seen marked increases in code size when using STL. Even if your executable is "only" 2M bigger, that's 2M less RAM for something else for your game.

STL is nice for sure. But it can be abused by programmers who don't know what they are doing. It's not intentional, but it can provide nasty surprises when you don't want to see them (again, memory bloat and performance issues)

I'm sure that you are close with your solution.

for ( i = 0; i < lastIndex; i++ ) {
    if ( !strcmp(&registeredNames[i], name ) {
        break;    // name was found
    }
}
if ( i == lastIndex ) {
    // name was not found in the registeredNames list
    registeredNames[lastIndex++] = strdup(name);
}

You might not want to use strdup. That's simply an example of how to to store the name given your example. You might want to make sure that you either don't want to allocate space for the new name yourself, or use some other memory construct that might already be available in your app.

And please, don't write a string class. I have held up string classes as perhaps the worst example of how not to re-engineer a basic C construct in C++. Yes, the string class can hide lots of nifty details from you, but it's memory usage patterns are terrible, and those don't fit well into a console (i.e. ps3 or 360, etc) environment. About 8 years ago we did the same time. 200000+ memory allocations before we hit the main menu. Memory was terribly fragmented and we couldn't get the rest of the game to fit in the fixed environment. We wound up ripping it out.

Class design is great for some things, but this isn't one of them. This is an opinion, but it's based on real world experience.