http://www.top-house.dk/~aae0030/cocoastl/

CocoaSTL is a header file with functions and classes to help use STL algorithms with Cocoa and Objective-C++. It contains amongst other:

*iterators to traverse NSArray, NSData, NSDictionary, NSIndexSet, NSSet and NSString, *output iterators for NSArray, NSData, NSIndexSet, NSSet and NSString, *smart pointer to handle retain/release for a wrapped ObjectiveC object, these also implement operator< and friends by sending isEqual: and compare: to the wrapped object, *function adaptor for selectors, *neat foreach macro, *helper functions to create iterators for any sequence in the same way (STL, C string, C array, Foundation class, …).

Some examples:

// sort a primitive array of strings objc_ptr<> strings[] = { @”This”, @”Is”, @”A”, @”Test” }; std::sort(beginof(strings), endof(strings));

// shuffle an array NSMutableArray* a = …; std::random_shuffle(beginof(a), endof(a));

// print all indices in an index-set NSIndexSet* indices = …; foreach(it, beginof(indices), endof(indices)) printf(“\t%d\n”, *it);

// convert an NSSet (with NSNumbers) to an NSIndexSet (of integers!) NSSet* set = …; NSIndexSet* indices = [NSIndexSet indexSet]; std::transform(beginof(set), endof(set), back_inserter(indices), method("intValue"));

// convert an NSIndexSet into an NSArray (of NSNumbers) id make_number (int i) { return [NSNumber numberWithInt:i]; }

NSIndexSet* indices = …; NSMutableArray* array = [NSMutableArray array]; std::transform(beginof(indices), endof(indices), back_inserter(array), make_number);

// instead of make_number, one could create a functor in-place, // but I figured it would scare non-STL fans to see code like this: std::bind1st( unary_method<int, id>(“numberWithInt:”) [NSNumber class] );

// what happens here is that unary_method returns a ‘functor’, // i.e. what looks like a function with the prototype: // id functor (id self, int argument); // and when called, it will do: // return [self numberWithInt:argument]; // the advantage of this transformation is that a) we can now // pass it to all stl algorithms and b) we can use it with functions // like bind1st and bind2nd, which bind one of the arguments. // So if we have: // f = unary_method<int, id>(“numberWithInt:”); // then we can now do: // g = bind1st(f, [NSNumber class]); // g is now a new functor with the prototype: // id functor (int argument); // because the first argument has permanently been bound to // [NSNumber class]. So calling g(32) is now the same as: // return [[NSNumber class] numberWithInt:32];

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The link to the CocoaSTL homepage seems to be dead, unfortunately. Does anyone have a new link for it? – AndrePang. —- me too want cocoaSTL. does any one has it? —- Oh, that’s so disappointing. I read through those examples thinking, yes! And then�no download :(

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Until there’s some official re-release or whatever, there’s also archive.org:

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.top-house.dk/~aae0030/cocoastl/

and more specifically:

http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.top-house.dk/~aae0030/cocoastl/CocoaSTL.h

I can’t find the download page. Does anyone have a new link for it? Please help me.