Description

The purpose of this challenge is to use class templates.

Requirements

1. Write a class template called Collection.

   template <class T>
   class Collection
   {
     private:
       T * data;
       int max;
     public:
       Collection(int size, T initial_value)
       {
         max = size;
         // initialize data as an array of size max
         // fill the array with initial_value 
       }
   };
   

2. Create a destructor to dispose of the data array.
3. Create a public function, int count(T value). This function returns the number of occurrences of value in the data array.
4. Create a public function, bool contains (T value). This function returns true or false if value is found in the data array.
5. Create an overloaded operator for the subscript operator, [].

     T& operator[](int index)
     {
       // return the value in data at the index subscript location
     }
   

6. Create the prototype of a public member function, T at(int index); Similar to step 5, this function simply returns the value in data at index. Write this function so that it will also throw an out_of_range(“Index exceeds collection size”) exception. Write the definition of this function outside the class definition body, rather than inline.

     // when defining outside of class body, you need to add
     // template specification and class resolution
     T& at(int index)
     {
       if (some condition)
         throw out_of_range("Index exceeds collection size");
   
       // return the value in data at the index subscript location
     }
   

7. In main, write driver code to exercise each of the various public functions in the Collection class. Make sure to access the object’s data elements using the subscript operator — this exercises the overloaded [] operator.

Sample main()

int main()
{
  Collection <int> info(10, 0);
  
  // write driver code here

  // this tests subscript operator
  info[0] = 100;
  // also try creating objects of different types as well
  Collection <string> text(5, "N/A");
  return 0;
}