STL Ropes in C++

Ropes are scalable string implementation. They are designed for efficient operation that involves the string as a whole. Operations such as assignment, concatenation, and sub-string take time that is nearly independent of the length of the string.

A rope is a binary tree where each leaf (end node) holds a string and a length (also known as a “weight”), and each node further up the tree holds the sum of the lengths of all the leaves in its left subtree. A node with two children thus divides the whole string into two parts: the left sub-tree stores the first part of the string, the right subtree stores the second part of the string, and a node’s weight is the length of the first part.

For rope operations, the strings stored in nodes are assumed to be constant immutable objects in the typical non-destructive case, allowing for some copy-on-write behavior. Leaf nodes are usually implemented as basic fixed-length strings with a reference count attached for deallocation when no longer needed, although other garbage collection methods can be used as well.

Note: The rope class and rope header are SGI extensions; they are not part of the C++ standard library.

Declaration:
Ropes are defined in the same way as vectors as “vector<int>”. But for character ropes, we can use crope as “rope<char>”.

Below is the program for the same:

Program 1:

C++

// C++ program to illustrate the use
// of ropes using Rope header file
#include <ext/rope>
#include <iostream>

// SGI extension
using namespace __gnu_cxx;

using namespace std;

// Driver Code
int main()
{
    // rope<char> r = "abcdef"
    crope r = "abcdef";

    cout << r << "\n";

    return 0;
}

Output:

abcdef

Operations allowed on Rope:

• push_back(): This function is used to input a character at the end of the rope. Time Complexity: O(log N).
• pop_back(): Introduced from C++11(for strings), this function is used to delete the last character from the rope. Time Complexity: O(log N).
• insert(int x, crope r1): Inserts the contents of r1 before the x^th element. Time Complexity: For Best Case: O(log N) and For Worst Case: O(N).
• erase(int x, int l): Erases l elements, starting with the x^th element. Time Complexity: O(log N).
• substr(int x, int l): Returns a new rope whose elements are the l characters starting at the position x. Time Complexity: O(log N).
• replace(int x, int l, crope r1): Replaces the l elements beginning with the x^th element with the elements in r1. Time Complexity: O(log N).
• concatenate(+): concatenate two ropes using the ‘+’ symbol. Time Complexity: O(1).

Below is the program for the same:

Program 2:

C++

// C++ program to illustrate the use
// of ropes using Rope header file
#include <ext/rope>
#include <iostream>

// SGI extension
using namespace __gnu_cxx;
using namespace std;

// Driver Code
int main()
{
    // rope<char> r = "abcdef"
    crope r = "geeksforgeeks";

    cout << "Initial rope: "
         << r << endl;

    // 'g' is added at the
    // end of the rope
    r.push_back('g');
    r.push_back('f');
    r.push_back('g');

    cout << "Rope after pushing f: "
         << r << endl;

    int pos = 2;

    // gfg will be inserted
    // before position 2
    r.insert(pos - 1, "gfg");

    cout << "Rope after inserting "
         << "gfg at position 2: " << r
         << endl;

    // gfg will be deleted
    r.erase(pos - 1, 3);

    cout << "Rope after removing gfg"
         << " inserted just before: "
         << r << endl;

    // Replace "ee" with "00"
    r.replace(pos - 1, 2, "00");

    cout << "Rope after replacing "
         << "characters: " << r
         << endl;

    // Slice the rope
    crope r1 = r.substr(pos - 1, 2);

    cout << "Subrope at position 2: "
         << r << endl;

    // Removes the last element
    r.pop_back();
    r.pop_back();
    r.pop_back();

    cout << "Final rope after popping"
         << " out 3 elements: " << r;

    return 0;
}

Output

Initial rope: geeksforgeeks
Rope after pushing f: geeksforgeeksgfg
Rope after inserting gfg at position 2: ggfgeeksforgeeksgfg
Rope after removing gfg inserted just before: geeksforgeeksgfg
Rope after replacing characters: g00ksforgeeksgfg
Subrope at position 2: g00ksforgeeksgfg
Final rope after popping out 3 elements: g00ksforgeeks

Capacity Functions:

• size(): Returns the length of the rope.
• max_size(): Size of longest rope guaranteed to be representable.

Below is the program for the same:

Program 3:

C++

// C++ program to illustrate the use
// of ropes using Rope header file
#include <ext/rope>
#include <iostream>

// SGI extension
using namespace __gnu_cxx;
using namespace std;

// Driver Code
int main()
{
    // rope<char> r = "abcdef"
    crope r = "abcdef";

    cout << r.size() << endl;
    cout << r.max_size() << endl;
    return 0;
}

Output:

6
1836311902

Iterators:

• mutable_begin(): Returns an iterator pointing to the beginning of the rope.
• mutable_end(): Returns an iterator pointing to the end of the rope.

Below is the program for the same:

Program 4:

C++

// C++ program to illustrate the use
// of ropes using Rope header file
#include <ext/rope>
#include <iostream>

// SGI extension
using namespace __gnu_cxx;
using namespace std;

// Driver Code
int main()
{
    // rope<char> r = "abcdef"
    crope r = "abcdef";

    rope<char>::iterator it;
    for (it = r.mutable_begin();
         it != r.mutable_end(); it++) {

        // Print the value
        cout << char((*it) + 2)
             << "";
    }

    return 0;
}

Output:

cdefgh