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Boost.Bimap is intuitive because it is based on the standard template
library. New concepts are however presented to extend the standard maps
to bidirectional maps. The first step is to gain a firm grasp of the
bimap framework. The first section (Discovering
the bimap framework) aims to explain this.
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Boost.Bimap offers much more than just a one-to-one ordered unique bidirectional
map. It is possible to control the collection type of each side of the
relationship that the bimap represents, giving one-to-many containers,
hashed bidirectional containers and others that may be more suitable
to the the task at hand. The second section (Controlling
collection types) explains how to instantiate a bimap with different
collection constraints.
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The section (The
"collection of relations" type) explains how to create
new types of bidirectional maps using custom collection types.
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In the section Differences
with standard maps we will learn about the subtle differences
between a bimap map view and a standard map.
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The section Useful
functions provides information about functions of a bimap that
are not found in the STL.
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The types of a bimap can be tagged so that each side is accessible by
something closer to the problem than left and right. This leads to more
readable, self-documenting code. The fourth section (Bimaps
with user defined names) shows how to use this feature.
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The bimap mapping framework allows to disable a view of a bimap, including
the standard mapping containers as a particular case. The section Unconstrained Sets
explains how they work.
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The section Additional
information explains how to attach information to each relation
of a bimap.
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The final section (Complete
Instantiation Scheme) summarizes bimap instantiation and explains
how change the allocator type to be used.
