C++: An STL-like circular buffer (Part 3)

Now it's time flesh out the class, and consider the interface we'd like to give it.

First, STL containers have a number of requirements, laid down in the C++ standard in section 23.1. This includes definitions for these nested type definitions:

• value_type - type of the items help in the container
  
• reference - type of a reference to an item in the container
  
• const_reference - type of a reference to a constant item in the container
  
• iterator - type of container iterator
  
• const_iterator - type of container const interator
  
• difference_type - type expressing the distance between two iterators (or const_iterators)
  
• size_type - type that represents any non-negative value of difference_type

As a first step, we'll add to our class the following typedefs, remembering that T is the template parameter name for the container item type:

  typedef T                 value_type;
  typedef size_t            size_type;
  typedef int               difference_type;
  typedef value_type       &reference;
  typedef const value_type &const_reference;

This is a starting point. We'll define the iterator types later, and some of these definitions can be made a little more elegant, too.

Next time: we'll decide the mechanics of the class and how to manage resources.