I making a custom map class (kc::map) that extends std::map, and I want to add at_index(), and I need to return map<K, V>::iterator. But when I return map<K, V>, this error occurs: error: invalid use of incomplete type ‘class kc::map<K, V>’:

namespace kc
{
    template<typename K, typename V> class map : public std::map<K, V>
    {
        public:
            using std::map<K, V>::map;
            map<K, V> get_value()
            {
                return *this;
            }
            map<K, V>::iterator at_index(int index)
            {
                map<K, V> m = get_value();
                for (int i = 0; i < index; i  )
                {
                    m.erase(m.begin());
                }
                return m.begin();
            }
    };
};

CodePudding user response：

You could return a std::map<K,V>::iterator. This would make your code compile, but the iterator would be invalid. get_value returns a copy, m is local to at_index and gets destroyed when the function returns.

Inheriting publicly from standard containers is rarely a good idea. Standard containers are not made to be inherited from (eg they do not have a virtual destructor). You can write at_index as an algorithm:

#include <map>
#include <iostream>

template <typename IT>
IT get_at_index(IT begin,IT end,unsigned index){
    if (std::distance(begin,end) < index) return end;
    return std::next(begin,index);
}


int main() {
    std::map<int,int> m{{1,1},{2,2},{3,3}};
    auto it = get_at_index(m.begin(),m.end(),1);
    if (it != m.end()) std::cout << it->first << " " << it->second << "\n";

    it = get_at_index(m.begin(),m.end(),5);
    if (it == m.end()) std::cout << "index 5 is out of range\n";
} 

However, a std::map isnt meant to be accessed by index. It is rather expensive to advance a maps iterator. If you want a container of key-value pairs that you can access by index, consider to use a std::vector<std::pair<K,V>> instead.

CodePudding user response：

Ignoring the real problems with the code (deriving from standard containers is not recommended and at_index returns a dangling iterator to the local object m) to get the code to compile you have two options.

1. within a class you don't need to prefix members of the class with the class name. As iterator isn't a class member you need to add it first then an unqualified iterator will work:

using iterator = typename std::map<K, V>::iterator;
iterator at_index(int index)

2. You can just use std::map::iterator directly:

typename std::map<K, V>::iterator at_index(int index)

If what you're actually trying to do is get the ith item in a std::map this will work:

#include <map>
#include <stdexcept>
#include <iostream>

namespace kc
{
    template<typename K, typename V> class map
    {
        private:
            std::map<K, V> impl;

        public:
            using iterator = typename std::map<K, V>::iterator;
            using value_type = typename std::map<K, V>::value_type;

            std::pair<iterator, bool> insert( const value_type& value )
            {
                return impl.insert(value);
            }
           
            typename std::map<K, V>::iterator at_index(int index)
            {
                if (index >= impl.size())
                {
                    throw std::invalid_argument("index out of range");
                }
                auto it = impl.begin();
                std::advance(it, index);
                return it;
            }
    };
};

int main()
{
    kc::map<int, int> m;
    m.insert({1, 1});
    m.insert({2, 2});
    m.insert({3, 3});
    std::cout << m.at_index(2)->second;
}