2D Vectors

[drewos]

I need to make a 2-dimensional character vector so I can input data from a txt file into it however I cannot seem to find any clear way of doing this online. Also how would you make it to the right size (would you use .resize()). Cheers

[Computergeek01]

Are you sure you want a 2D vector and not a vector of structures\classes that hold two variables?

AFAIK you can't make a 2D vector with the Standard lib. Think about it; it would be a continous block of memory that holds a variable number of elements who are them selves continous blocks of memory that are a variable size. Maybe some extended library has a way to fake this but I don't know of one.

Could you outline your issue in a little more detail?

[drewos]

I have been set to solve a maze which is in a text file which I will put below. So I was wanting to read the txt file using the istream and put the characters which make up the maze in to a 2-dimensional vector. I would use an array however my program should be able to solve any maze in a text file in the same format.
x = wall
p = path
g = goal
Always N x N maze and N is at the top of the text file i.e. 10 in this case


10
xxxxxxxxxx
xpxxpxxpgx
xppppxppxx
xxxppxpppx
xpppxxxxpx
xxxppppppx
xpppxxxxxx
xxxpxxxppx
xxxpppppxx
xxxxxxxxxx

cheers

[moorecm]

How about a vector< string >?

[Computergeek01]

That's really clever moorecm and doing that doesn't have any bounds issues (Honest Question)?

[drewos]

The problem is with that, when it comes to the process of solving the maze, it would make it much harder using a string surely?.........

[Computergeek01]

Nope, a string can be treated as an array of chars with a variable length, this is because a string is an array of chars with a variable length. Each string entry would be a row and each element in the vector would be a new line. At this point it seems like a pretty good solution.