cvec

A no bullshit type-safe vector library for C that supports operator [] for indexing.

Example

#include "cvec.h"

int *x = NULL; /* initialize to NULL, replace *int* with any type you want */

vector_push(x, 100);
vector_push(x, 200);
vector_push(x, 300);

/* standard [] lookup of values */
printf("%d, %d, %d", x[0], x[1], x[2]);

/* free memory */
vector_free(x);

How it works

Metadata of a vector is stored as a header behind the pointer exactly sizeof(vector_t) behind. This is how operator [] can still be used for indexing. Type safety is provided by having the pointer encode the type via the language itself. No strange void* tricks. Though the generic resize functions sort of cast to void* but that is standard practice in C.

API

Note that VECTOR is any pointer type and that the API is mostly implemented using macros. The macros all take VECTOR argument, size and indexing arguments are expected to be size_t. The macros which push back a value expect the pointer's base type.

vector_try_grow(VECTOR, MORE)

Attempts to grow VECTOR by MORE

vector_meta(VECTOR)

Get the metadata block for VECTOR

vector_free(VECTOR)

Deletes VECTOR and sets it to NULL

vector_push(VECTOR, VALUE)

Pushes back VALUE into VECTOR

vector_size(VECTOR)

Get the size of VECTOR

vector_capacity(VECTOR)

Get the capacity of VECTOR

vector_resize(VECTOR, SIZE)

Resize VECTOR to accomodate SIZE more elements

vector_last(VECTOR)

Get the last element in VECTOR

vector_pop(VECTOR)

Pop an element off the back of VECTOR

vector_shrinkto(VECTOR, SIZE)

Shrink the size of VECTOR down to SIZE

vector_shrinkby(VECTOR, AMOUNT)

Shrink VECTOR down by AMOUNT

vector_append(VECTOR, COUNT, POINTER)

Append to VECTOR, COUNT elements from POINTER

vector_remove(VECTOR, INDEX, COUNT)

Remove from VECTOR, COUNT elements starting from INDEX